1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
UkraineLebanonGerman economy
Politics

Secret Files: How shredded Stasi files are reconstructed

Fabian ChristJanuary 6, 2012

Twenty years ago, the citizens of communist East Germany were for the first time able to view the files kept on them by the Stasi, the dictatorship's secret police. Today these files fill 100 kilometers of shelves. And there are also around 16,000 sacks of documents that Stasi agents shredded by hand. Scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin are now constructing a super-computer that can put the fragments back together. The "snippet machine" is attracting interest from all over the world.

https://p.dw.com/p/S5D2
Twenty years ago, the citizens of communist East Germany were for the first time able to view the files kept on them by the Stasi, the dictatorship's secret police. Today these files fill 100 kilometers of shelves. And there are also around 16,000 sacks of documents that Stasi agents shredded by hand. Scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin are now constructing a super-computer that can put the fragments back together. The "snippet machine" is attracting interest from all over the world.