Albion, im a curator historian here at the International Spy museum in washington d. C. We have the largest collection of espionage and intelligence related artifacts in the world. Today, we are going to be looking at cold war berlin. After world war ii ended, germany was divided between the victors. That is the united states, france, the United Kingdom and this soviet union. The soviet union occupied the east and the other three countries occupied the west. That included the capital city of berlin which was also divided into four sectors. One for each of the victors. The soviets occupied the eastern zone of berlin and the three western powers occupying the western zone of berlin. This was the start of the division of germany and the division of berlin after the war. That division became concrete with the erection of the berlin wall in 1961. The wall was put up by the east germans ostensibly to keep people out. In the years after world war ii and with the occupation of east germany and east berlin by the soviets, hundreds of thousands of people in the east had been fleeing to the west. These numbers be came larger and larger. It was a terrible drain of intelligence and have skills in the east. These numbers were reaching very large numbers in the months leading up to august 1961. The east germans called what we call the berlin wall the antifascist. It was ostensibly as i said to keep out fascists, to keep out the west, but of course it did keep millions of east germans in as well. What is important to realize is that the city of berlin was completely isolated with an east germany. We had west berlin, which after the war, was set up with a political and Economic System that was democratic and capitalist. They were completely surrounded by communist east germany. So berlin became a symbol of the division between east and west and between the communist and democratic systems in the cold war. It was a hot spot for many years during the cold war, of that tension between east and west. The berlin wall itself was about 96 miles long. Completely separating west berlin from east berlin, but also, completely surrounding west berlin and again cutting it off from the rest of east germany. We have a couple of pieces of the actual berlin wall over here that i would like to show you. We have two authentic pieces of the berlin wall here. They were donated to the museum by a county which is right outside of east berlin. We shipped them over to washington d. C. From germany and put them up here. Most people, when they think of the berlin wall they think of all the graffiti and designs that were on the wall. You can see these are completely plain. That is because they were on the east side where people were not allowed to graffiti on the wall. In fact, that would have incurred some pretty severe penalties. One reason why they did not want people drawing on the wall was because having the wall be completely plain actually made it easier for pete for the guards who regarding the border to see people. It made the more visible against plain light gray or white backgrounds. So seeing them without graffiti actually should remind us of the reason why the wall was put up and to keep people in. Now, before the berlin wall was built, several million up to 3 Million People actually crossed the border from east to west. After the berlin wall was put up, people did not stop trying to get out of east germany. About 100,000 people tried to get out and about half that number were successful. We have some Great Stories about people who were successful in getting across the wall. To attempt to cross the berlin wall took a lot of bravery of course, but also a lot of creativity and imagination because, in, truth the berlin wall was not just one wall. It was actually two walls with a strip in the middle that was known as the death strip which could be guarded by guard odds, there were watchtowers and so on. We actually had one wall, a death strip, and another wall. So getting across that was an extremely difficult feet. Now people be came up with some amazingly creative ways to get across that will. We have a few examples here. We have two families who actually built a hot air balloon and were able to float across into west germany. They made the balloon parts out of sheets and other pieces of just to get material with the stitched together. Two families were actually able to make that trip. We have another extraordinary story another here about extraordinary story here three brothers who each managed to cross the border each managed in different ways. One brother floated across the river on an air mattress. Another brother was able to zip line across the border. He took some 100 another fishing line, connected it to a steel cable and shut it across the border using a bow and arrow and then texas used that as is applying to sip across to freedom. The Third Brother was actually activities to shine able to fly across the border with a very small light airplane. Using these his other brothers met him on the other side and the three brothers reunited. These stories are stories of success, people who managed to make it across to freedom. But of course, there were many stories that ended in tragedy. Lets go look at some of those now. At least 140 people were killed trying to cross the berlin wall. Some of those people were killed by Border Guards as they tried to climb the wall, as they tried to cross the river, as they just approached the wall, they were set stories of people who were shot there and died at the wall. Some of the most tragic stories, i think, we are about people who tried to cross the wall and whose deaths were actually covered up. You see, trying to escape from east germany was a crime. It was seen as a terrible reflection on the state, on the communism in general and so, even the fact that people wanted to try to escape with something that the state needed to cover up. The cops were called in whenever there was a difficult at the wall. We have three stories here of people who died of the wall and their stories were than covered up. One really tragic story, i think, is about gerald. He was a worker in west berlin and one night, it appears he may have had too much to drink and he stumbles into the area near the wall. He stumbled close to the wall and the guards there warned him to go away. He was scared off by that and started running. He was then shot 177 times and he died at the wall. The police came in, took his body and covered up his death. His wife and berlin knew nothing except that he did not come home that night. She did not find out until the records were opened in the 1990s about what had actually happened to her husband. The stories even more extraordinary because after he was killed at the wall, the stasi actually made up an entire cover story for his wife as to why he had never returned. They went so far as to show her a file where they head into staged photographs of her husbands car which they said had been broken into violently. This was entirely made up. His wife thought was it was suspicious but she was not able to find out the truth until decades later. Lets go look at another method by which people tried to escape from east berlin over here. One method for trying to escape from east to west berlin going across through checkpoints, was actually to hide within cars. Here we have a cutaway of a very popular car in east germany at the time. You can see some of the hiding spaces which people would try to fit themselves into in order to try to evade Border Guards. Can you imagine fitting yourself into the wheel well of a car . Sometimes for hours on and without having to give it away. Of course not everyone succeeded in this. Border grants became very aware that people were trying to hide inside cars and would search them methodically, sometimes taking them apart completely. But when they did catch people, we know that sometimes the stasi would make these people show where they head hidden and take photos showing them exactly where it was. These could be models for other cars. We have some of these photos and you can see women, children, adults of all kind and the amazing places they would try to hide. The minister for state security better known as the stasi was ubiquitous in east germany. Anyone who came into the country would have to be aware that they would be spied upon. Lets look at some of the ways that happened. Here we are in a hotel room in east berlin. It is supposed to be the bus palasthotel. Its a hotel that was specifically built for foreign gift guests and head rooms in the hotel that were completely under surveillance by the stasi. The nickname for the hotel was the stasi next. Here we have some wonderful art effects we can show you the lengths that the stasi went to spy upon visitors at a hotel like this. This looks like an ordinary clock but of course it is not. It has been modified. If you take a very close look you might be able to see that behind the window where the cuckoo would come out is a tiny pinhole. Behind that pinhole would be this camera. It is a very rare piece and a wonderful piece. It is a through the wall camera. And someone who would be located on the other side of this wall looking through these eye pieces here. This long section here would be going through the wall and the lens at the end would be right behind the pinhole in the cuckoo clock camera right here. While you are sitting in your hotel, you were being spied upon all the time by someone behind the wall. There arent lots of artifacts in this room and every single one of them was some kind of device for concealment or surveillance. Now what is the best thing to use as a concealment . Something that you would never think would conceal anything suspicious. We have a few of these pieces here. One of them is a walnut shell. A bull of walnut shells on the table in your apartment, who would think anything suspicious about that . One of these will not shells here actually contains a onetime pad. It is a piece of paper with it codes on it they could be used for communicating in code. One time pads were important waste of communicating secretly because they were completely unbreakable. Only someone who had exactly the same path on the other side would be able to break the code and read the secret message. This bowl of walnuts was actually in the apartment of a person in west germany who was a stasi spy. In fact, the west German Security who were looking at the apartment and investigating it had an idea that this bowl of walnuts might not be what it looked like. They took a uv light and shined it over every single walnut and for one of them, there was a glow. That is because the glue that was used to stick the wanted together quote under a uv light and they were able to find the onetime pad. Here is another object which you might not sips suspect as anything other than an ordinary iron. But of course, it was as concealment a vice. A stasi agent living in west germany had this iron in her apartment. The bottom of the iron came out, and again, she could keep in their some papers. What is clever about this is if someone did come into the apartment and was looking around, she was able to incinerate the evidence of her espionage very easily by simply plugging in the iron. We have a number of pieces of clothing here which are, again, concealment for cameras or other things. One of my favorites is the pair of gloves here that conceals an adapted camera. A mini camera like this where it was usually used with two hands. You needed to use a second hand to wind the film on but the stasi were actually able to adapt the camera to be used by one hand. What is important about that is that it means it can be concealed and things like gloves so that it can be activated with just one hand and therefore it would not look suspicious if you have a camera in your glove. You can take secret photos and do surveillance. Of course even when you are visiting the International Spy museum, you are under surveillance when you are in east berlin. That surveillance can be seen and our stasi office down here. Here we are in our stasi office where a person could actually watch surveillance feed taking place in a hotel room. We have a lot of different artifacts in here, all of which reflect the stasi incredible expertise in doing surveillance. One of my favorite artifacts here is our bra camera. It was actually the invention of four stasi female officers. We have the file that shows actually how this was invented and they made a proposal to the stasi because they said, especially during the summer months, there really wasnt any clothing that helped women conceal surveillance cameras on their body. That would be unobtrusive. They devised this camera, and you could see the lens is right in the middle, there is a wire that comes out from behind, and the cable could be activated with this plunger here that would be in the pocket. We have some surveillance photos that was taken by this camera, but we can see in the back and the four women, were given an award for creating this, and it had a code name. We have a number of other artifacts here but some of our really exceptional artifacts are on the other side. The chief of the studies, Foreign Intelligence Branch was marcus wulf. He was a master of doing so. One of his techniques that he developed was developing people he called spies. They targeted secretaries of nato and then maybe some not so young but women who are in their thirties for example and they were able to seduce them and the Foreign Intelligence Service under marcus wulf had some high success. And even up to the top of the chancellor ship in germany. And marcus wulf had a reputation in the west for being elusive. His nickname was man without a face. Because people did not know what marcus will look like it was not until the end of the cold war that they were able to identify him. We have some artifacts from him, heres his full dress uniform here. We also have these elk horns. What are they doing here, why . He had a summer house marcus wulf outside of berlin that he liked to use as a place to bring people, so they would feel comfortable and he could debrief them, and find all sorts of information from him. So while they were having drinks outside on the terrorist they were being watched at all times. The elk horns had a bug right in the back. Also marcus wulf also had his bunker, which they could turn to in case of attack. And he had these beer coasters especially made, and had these cartoonish figures on here, which was marcus wulf his nickname which was a links. Marcus wulf had to undergo training, and we have lovely artifacts here which all stasi officers would have needed. So how do you catch criminals with a criminal list kit. So anyone who is training to be a spy catcher in berlin wouldve taken a course in east berlin and the end of the course they wouldnt receive this complete kit. Which has everything you need to catch a spy. You can see in it a lot of pretty mundane articles, a hammer screwdriver pair of pliers close to avoid fingerprints now leaving in leaving fingerprints. You had some pouches, to be able to put any kind of documents in, and basically it is an entire kit for a spy catcher. Now if you were caught as a spy, there were serious consequences in east berlin lets look at our Interrogation Room and see what might happen to you. This is the actual door from one of the prison cells. This person this prison, house political prisoners. That maybe someone who had tried to escape from east berlin, to someone who had been reported on, you know from neighbors or coworkers, or for having some ideas or thoughts that might not have been compatible with the communist system and, someone who might be suspected of having some links with the west, or anything of that nature. People would be brought into the prisons and subject to interrogation. They may stay there for days, or possibly years. And the stasi did not believe in physical torture, they created their own type of interrogation methods, which were more on the psychological realm. In the prison, somebody might be subjected to, very cold temperatures. Or perhaps they would not be allowed to sleep for very long. And they would be asked to lie on, a very hard bed. In a particular position with their hands by their side. If they tried to roll over or move, they would be yelled at by the guards, and they would have to maintain that position. It was the whole strategy for breaking something down psychologically. So that they could get information, which is what the stasi wanted. Or confessed to crimes that they did or did not commit. Even after somebody was released from the prison, they might still remain a suspect, and the stasi had a unique way, of keeping tabs on them. Well take a look at that story next. Now if the stasi brought someone in for questioning, one other piece of information they might be collecting, is a person sent. They might have this person sit on a chair, or with a piece of material, or sometimes there was a yellow piece of material on the chair, when they finish talking to them they would click that piece of material, and they would store it in a jar. On a shelf. With their name on it. Just in case, perhaps in the future they needed to track this person. Dogs, were specially trained to track the smells, and i have some of these sent jars here. You can see the yellow material inside them. And the stasi had hundreds of these four different people, and they store them in their headquarters. They have another artifact here, of a similar nature. It is called a dog hormone kit. Again if the stasi wanted to track somebody around the city, and they would spray female dog hormones, on their impart on their apartment, or under their door, and as the person walked on their carpet they would get this snow as they were leaving get this on their shoes, and these dogs with track these hormones through the city, even sometimes for days. In 1989, the berlin wall fell. Eastern germany does not exist today, and i remember very well when the berlin wall fell. But i know that increasingly, visitors to the museum do not remember the berlin wall, or east for limb, or the cold war. And so here, at the museum we have this exhibit of cold war berlin, which too many of our visitors will be learning about something that they really dont know anything about and i think its important for us to remember that period of history. To remember a time when physical barrier divided people from the same country into two different societies and remember the differences between the societies. East germany is an example of a surveillance state we often talk about that balance between security and freedom. And east germany is an example, of where the emphasis was certainly on security over freedom. And we think its important for people to remember what a state like that was like what it might have felt like. And the artifacts in here are giving people a taste of what it might have been like to live in a surveillance state, like easter money. We have hundreds of artifacts in this museum today, we are just giving you a taste of what is in in of the cold war berlin exhibit, but we hope you come to washington d. C. , and visit the museum, and look at some other aspects of international espionage. Richard schroeder is a former c. I. A. Officer and author of the foundation of the cia, harry truman, the missouri gang, and the origins of the cold war. He talks about the history of u. S. Intelligence gatherings through world war ii and details how and why president truman established the cia in 1947. He tells the story of a missouri gang who were instrumental in the creation of the cia