Summary A large number of German citizens have demanded to see the secret police files of East Germany.
BERLIN - More than 88,000 Germans applied last year to see the files kept on them by the hated and feared Stasi secret police of the former East Germany, the archives office said Friday, some 23 years after the Berlin Wall fell.
A total of 88,231 applications were made last year, up around 10 percent on 2011, the archive office said, showing interest remains strong.
Since 1992, when the archives were opened and got more than half a million requests, the office has received nearly three million applications from people wanting to see what the Stasi had on them.
The East Berlin-based Ministry of State Security, known as the Stasi, was one of the world s most effective instruments for state repression during its nearly 40 years of existence.
It employed more than 270,000 people during the Cold War, making the East German population the most intensely monitored in the Eastern bloc.
