When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi, frantically tore up millions of files gathered during decades of spying on its own citizens.
More than two decades later, the vast array of secret papers collected by the Stasi is still in huge demand. So far this year, 70,000 people have applied for access to the Stasi archives.
Many are young Germans — some searching for information about relatives, others just eager to know more about their country’s past.
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