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You're confusing WWII germany and post WWII germany. Stasi was the ministry for homeland security of East-Germany in the post-WWII era untill the fall of the wall (1950- 1989). It has nothing to do with the Nazis (1930ish to 1945) The Stasi was a way to take hold of the country and get it stable again after the nazi regime fell. Though they did that by turning _EAST_ (not west) germany into a police state.

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If anyone's interested in learning a bit more about the Stasi, The Lives of Others is a great film about a man who works for the Stasi, tasked with spying on some influential people.

It's a great film, but I've read that it's not an accurate portrayal of the Stasi.

Procedures differed somewhat and a Stasi officer wouldn't have had the operational freedom depicted in the movie (that is, his colleagues very likely would have caught him).

The story is one of those unrealistic "protagonist acts against all odds and succeeds" that make up a good movie, but the backdrop (Stasi's - sometimes not very - subtle omnipresence and the fear this evokes in society) is painfully realistic.

Ah yeah, it's definitely not a documentary, sorry I was unclear. Pgeorgi has it right - I meant that it was interesting more from the standpoint of what having something like the Stasi around does to people.

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