The Stasi, by the Numbers
See how deep East Germany's secret police reached: pick any group size and watch the informer and Stasi-file ratios appear.
A free visualizer that makes the scale of East Germany's surveillance state visible in an ordinary room.
Set a dinner table, classroom or apartment block and see how many people the Stasi's 1989 ratios would represent. Then compare the room to the national totals and the files still held in Berlin.
What this tool does
Start with the people in your own room. The tool turns the 1989 estimate of about one unofficial informer per 90 people into a visual grid, then lets you switch to the much larger share of people who had a Stasi file.
Read the scale
Try a dinner table, a classroom or an apartment block. The point is not to turn surveillance into a neat exact count; it is to make a national system legible at the size of a group you can picture.
Local guide note
The Stasi Museum is in the former headquarters at Ruschestraße 103, a short walk from Magdalenenstraße. Give yourself time for the offices and the files story, not only the famous conference room.
Related Walk of Berlin guides
Pair this with my Stasi Museum guide and the East or West Berlin in 1989 tool for the wider city context.