In total, the Stasi employed 274,000 people. Of these, 170,000 had the task of collecting data. In other words: almost 3% of all workers in East Germany were also secret agents, spies or informants.
Estimates suggest that up to 40% of the files disappeared in the black smoke of 1989. However, the occupation of the buildings saved millions of documents. In total, the employees left behind 114 kilometers of files, which are now properly classified and have guaranteed access.
It was only in 2018, for example, that a Stasi ID card belonging to a certain Vladimir Putin, a KGB secret agent, was discovered among the thousands of pages in the archive. There are suspicions that the document allowed the Russian to break into the headquarters of the German armed forces to recruit agents and hold meetings there.
In total, it is estimated that the repressive machinery created files on more than 6 million people. And all without computers, drones, cell phones or online data collection.
So imagine what an illegal spying system outside democratic controls, using extremely powerful applications, would have done to a group willing to manipulate elections, lie, and override the rule of law?
Maybe that's all we've saved ourselves from.