Stasi Museum

Very interesting museum. It felt strange to walk the same halls as former Stasi officers but also was very immersive, and neat how well preserved everything was- down to the chairs and paintings on the walls. I came with my university class and we had such a great tour from our tour guide. I forget his name but I am sure they are all as great as him.

Fascinating museum about the Ministry of State Security, which spied on people in East Germany during the Cold War. This was their main office building, and several rooms are still furnished as they were in the 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. Fascinating accounts of how the government spied on civilians and even broke into their homes without leaving traces. It is 1 euro extra to buy a “photography” option.

An amazing museum. 100% reccomend the €2 audio guide as there is a lot of info. They have left so many rooms untouched from the Stasi era and it is amazing to see. So factual and interesting, also quite interactive. One of my favourite exhibitions in Berlin.

While this is not one of the most beautiful sites to see in Berlin, it is an interesting place that is housed within the walls of history itself. These were the original headquarters of the Stasi itself and the museum offers a good insight into the operations and activities of an omni present state oversight department. A high light of a trip for any historian.

Great museum, if you are interested in this kind of topic. I could join a group with a guide and it was even better, spend 2 hours in the guided walk, but you could spend much more time there.

I really enjoyed walking through here. if you pay 1 euro extra you can make photographs, you get a nice button which was cool! It's very interesting and theres a lot of artifacts from back then, which is nice. I would've liked a bit more visual stimulation, I would not go here if I could not read English or German well!!!

I have been to those museum or place a few times over the years. It is nice to see how it has grown. It had been a German only language venue. With very little signage. But it has more languages now to include English. They have booklets they hand out now for tourists, the museum or area covers from when the NKVD set it up as a prison in 1945 for political opponents. Then through East German Secret Police and Stasi. There are underground areas that are musky. Prison cell blocks, interrogation rooms, separate cell areas where female prisoners were kept. Office spaces and a small museum area, there is an auditorium where if you look around a little, you will see pictures of Putin. Interesting and unique experience for people who like Cold War history, military history or local history. The building isn’t really impressive archaeologically. Some windows do have a good view of the river. It is all hidden away in a residential area.

Well preserved portion of the building allowing for a walk through of the former executive offices with displays explaining the tactics and methods used by the former East Germany secret police. We reserved and paid weeks in advance through the museum website for an English speaking guided tour. Christine was terrific and had some family experiences from growing up in East Germany.

What an amazing tour. I took both the German and then the English with Katrine. Both were one hour tours and well worth it. The German tour was not as crowded and a lot more was covered. There were 12 of us in total. Everyone was respectful and had a understanding of what communist dictatorships and regimes were. There were two differences in the English tour. Size wise we were about 23 people and the people did not have this basic understanding of the history. First we had a young American kid/funny guy/class clown sort of question who she set straight and he actually asked a couple of respectful questions after. The other questions were more simple in nature but a nativity around what life was like in East Germany pre-reunification and that slowed up the tour. Personally, do some research before you go. I stayed in East Berlin multiple times and I kid you not, it scared the shit out of me going through the border because my parents were scared. I had a cousin who was arrested when he went to visit a friend in the late 60's who had saved letters they were sending each other. The police arrested him for Political Subversion and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. The West German government paid a ransom and he was released after 5. Bad eyes from solitary and a bad back. It was nasty stuff. I also read that with all the informants, 1 of 6 people provided info to the government. Think about that the next time you are at a party. Anyway, do the tour. It's worth it.

It was like being inside a time capsule. This is the same building where the Secret police worked. It was an odd museum. But I'm glad we went on our trip to Berlin.

A bit off the typical tourist track, the Stasi Museum was worth the trip but also could be skipped if making priority calls. I'll admit it was not quite what I expected as it was a lot more reading of exhibits and viewing of items than anything interactive. Not really knowing much about the history and area, I can say I learned quite a bit during my roughly hour long visit.

Welcome to the State Security, STASI for short! STASI, the KGB's little brother, sniffed at his people. Glamorous foreign intelligence was rather the smaller part of what you have to show. So, if you expect a museum that has even a hint of James Bond - sorry, this is not offered here. You will rather experience how the headquarters of the Ministry of State Security (MfS), the Hauptverwaltung Aufklarung (HVA), worked. Somehow one becomes increasingly aware that at the time, severely paranoid desk criminals had lost touch with their own people and permanently regarded their longings as a danger. But it also becomes apparent how the countless unofficial employees, called IM, were forced to work voluntarily. It is almost fascinating how a mixture of Facebook and Google was created using paper and filing cabinets. However, one must also ask oneself whether it is really justified to condemn this data collection frenzy in retrospect, now that we are voluntarily handing over all the data and the potential damage is by no means less. In any case, in the end, one has to say that wandering through the old-fashioned looking office rooms, the many showpieces are especially effective when using the audio guide. Because the real information is on the audio track. Whereby we would be at one of the tasks that STASI mastered like no other. Wiretap!

Another great museum in Berlin that holds a bright light upon a particularly unsavory part of history. Very easy to access from the Magdalenenstraße U-Bahn station, if you're coming from Alexanderplatz, exit at the back of the train and when you come out of the exit, go to the right and look immediately to your right and you'll see an orange sign and a walkway between two buildings and that will take you right to the museum in just a couple of minutes. Housed in a former Stasi office building where many items have remained untouched for nearly 30 years, visiting here is like stepping back in time. Entry is reasonable at €6 and I coughed up the €2 for the English audio guide and it was well worth it. I found that most of the displays also had plenty of English translations so reading past reviews they must have changed that because for me it was very English friendly. Finding out about how the Stasi got its start and learning about the people who built it into such a huge operation with tentacles in so many aspects of daily life was fascinating but also disturbing. The technology they used, the way the groomed unofficial collaborators or "IMs" as they were called was very engrossing. I made it through most of the main building in about 90 minutes but did have some "ear fatigue" from listening to the audio tour on the little machine. But even in that amount of time, I felt I got my money's worth. I remember seeing the movie "The Lives of Others" several years ago and I thought it was amazing and after visiting here, I want to rewatch not that I have more context.

Over the summer I stopped by in the middle of the week and was unfortunately there at the same time as a school group. I guess no matter what country you're in, school groups are always rowdy. The location is a little off the beaten path but a short 10 min walk from the closest U stop. The museum is relatively small but very dense. There is no audio guide but everything is printed in English as well as German. The information is very well organized and explains the climate of the Stasi regime at that time. If you have time in Berlin and the museum was of interest to you, check out the Stasi Prison as well.

A very extensive museum. I was barely able to tour the first building in 2 hours. It featured everything from the history of the Stasi, to repression mechanisms, to Erich Mielke's office, to the Stasi's "innovative" technological surveillance methods. It was very, very informative. A must see for any Berlin visitor.

The Stasi museum is situated in the previous headquarters of Stasi - you walk around in the authentic offices of its long-time boss Erich Mielke. It's a surreal experience, but as a previous reviewer points out, there are no texts in English. A guided tour is therefore a must for non-German speaking visitors to put the scarily sleek interior in perspective. This museum deserves to reach out to more people! Entrance is cheap, about 2 or 3 euro.

My dad and I enjoyed our Saturday afternoon at the Stasi Museum. We came specifically on a Saturday afternoon because the museum has weekly English tours on Saturday afternoons at 3 PM. Don't expect a flashy ultramodern museum experience - it is still recognizably an ex-Communist government building, with some of the original detail from when it was Stasi HQ. I think it's great that they maintained that ambience. Not all the staff are fluent in English but they are cheerful and do their best to be helpful. Great English speaking guide (J. Simoncelli - sorry I didn't get your first name, you're awesome) who was the perfect combination of being extremely informative, passionate about the topic, and sarcastically hilarious all at the same time. She did a fantastic job putting everything into historical context, walking through the exhibits, and sharing true-to-life anecdotes. The permanent exhibition is well laid out over 3 floors and had a temporary exhibition on the GDR and the Olympics (awesome timing). I'd recommend coming exactly at 2:45 PM on Saturday, going on the English tour, and then browsing the exhibits in more detail at your leisure. What I'd do differently: not take a taxi - the driver had no idea how to get here from the Mitte central neighborhood and dropped us off 1 km away. It wasn't a bad walk. Not the museum's fault though. The best way to get there is via the subway, which is only a few minutes walk away. Everything about this visit was great.

Went for the Long Night of museums, the open air exhibit was very well done, although the interactive pieces were only in German. However, the rest was translated and could be easily navigated by an English speaker. The Stasi museum is worth your time if you like that sort of thing, I sure do. The only problem for us was getting there -- it's more removed from the city center, but the Long Night did a nice job of providing bus service to and from all their museums for the whole night. Helpful and knowledgeable guides also enhance the experience. Check online for times of public tours in English on Saturdays!

If you're intrigued about the SED and its MfS then this is definitely the place to come. Fans of The Lives of Others will be happy to pay the 5 Euro entrance fee simply to be on a film location (I was!), and those who want to learn a bit more about the Stasi, its history and ultimate demise will find it fascinating to go through the rooms and seeing the different exhibits in situ. I don't understand the negative comment below about it being 'inaccessible'!

I have to agree sadly with other reviewers that the museum is a bit of a let down. Very few descriptions are in English and no one spoke English. I went on a Tuesday morning and only the guy giving out the entrance tickets spoke a small fraction of English. I don't fault them for it but it made it difficult to go through the museum and understand what I was looking at. Most of the exhibits were in German as well. I would have gladly paid for an English brochure or something that helped. A fascinating, eerie place, but vacant and seemingly left to decay. The complex that housed other arms of the MfS and Stasi are abandoned and falling in. One thing to note perhaps is that the area around the museum still looks and feels like the Soviet Union.. Later the people at my hotel told me Germans prefer to bury their history and forget it, and this is why we don't see more in the museum. May also explain why it's very hard to find the Berlin wall still standing anywhere OR in a museum...

For a non-German speaking visitor to the Stasi museum it is a disappointing experience. With the exception of a couple of small texts which provide a short explanation of what is some of the rooms. Some of the rooms contain items such as the surveillance equipment used by the Stasi which speaks for itself; however the majority of the rooms contain extensive text in German. So unless you have a good grasp of German I'd recommend trying to visit it as part of a guided tour or with someone who is happy to do some serious translation work for you.

Fascinating with tons of info presented in interesting ways. The setting itself really brings it all to life. Not totally easy to find but worth the effort,

Not the most impressive museum you will ever find, but I think it is a testament to what it was. If you want a good look at what the Stasi was and also what life was like during their rule, this is a good museum to check out.

Loved this museum. Do not miss it. A very worrying but informative overview of the East German secret police, the Stasi. Content rich with lots of authentic props, it's not to be missed, especially as it's in the old headquarters with much original furniture, furnishings and other things intact. Chilling.

I think the Stasi museum is working on making itself more accessible to non-German speakers. They have moved temporarily to House 22 opposite while renovation work on the archive building is done (will take 18 months). When I asked, they gave me a short guide in English, and there are some DVD's with English commentary now. The museum's director says they will improve the amount of English in the near future. Entrance fee is modest. http://www.stasimuseum.de/en/enindex.htm . I do speak a bit of German and found the guides to be knowledgeable and willing to explain. Amazing that over 90,000 people worked for the GDR secret service.

Not the most impressive museum you will ever find, but I think it is a testament to what it was. If you want a good look at what the Stasi was and also what life was like during their era, this is a good museum to check out.