stasiland: stories from behind the berlin wall. anna funder - Softcover

"Here, at the Normannenstrasse headquarters, there was panic. Stasi officers were instructed to destroy files, starting withthe most incriminating--those naming westerners who spied for them, and those that concerned deaths. They shredded the files until the shredders collapsed. Among other shortages in the east, there was a shredder shortage, so they had to send agents out under cover to West Berlin to buy more. In Building 8 alone, members of the citizens' movement found over one hundred burnt-out shredders. When the Stasi couldn't get any more machines, they started destroying the files by hand, ripping up documents and putting them into sacks. But this was done in such an orderly fashion--whole drawers of documents put into the same bag--that now, in Nuremberg, it is possible for the puzzle women to piece them back together."