Stasi Records Agency

The Stasi Records Agency was the organisation that administered the archives of Ministry of State Security of the former German Democratic Republic. It was a government agency of the Federal Republic of Germany. It was established when the Stasi Records Act came into force on 29 December 1991. Formally it was called the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic; the official German abbreviation was BStU. On June 17, 2021, the BStU was absorbed into the German Federal Archives.

The Stasi was established on 8 February 1950. It functioned as the GDR's secret police, intelligence agency and crime investigation service. It grew to have around 270,000 people working for it, including about 180,000 informers, or "unofficial collaborators".