Peek Into This East German Museum, and It Peeks Back
The sensitive surveillance equipment hidden in the room picked up a comment about a box of condoms on display, and another about a red telephone. “I had one just like that,” a man could be heard saying, in German. Then came another voice speaking English with a British accent. “There must be a microphone around here someplace,” it said.
Indeed there was, and the fact that the British visitor to Berlin’s new DDR Museum — D.D.R. being the German initials for the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany — could not find it was a nice touch of verisimilitude. East Germany’s State Security Service was, after all, listening all the time, and most of the people listened to did not know it.
The microphone is someplace in a mock-up of a typical East German apartment, picking up people’s conversations when they are “at home.” It broadcasts to a corner of the museum where visitors, under a watchful photograph of the former East German leader Erich Honecker, listen on headphones. Then the same visitors can go to the mock apartment where it is likely that they will be listened to as well. All part of the East German experience.
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Indeed there was, and the fact that the British visitor to Berlin’s new DDR Museum — D.D.R. being the German initials for the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany — could not find it was a nice touch of verisimilitude. East Germany’s State Security Service was, after all, listening all the time, and most of the people listened to did not know it.
The microphone is someplace in a mock-up of a typical East German apartment, picking up people’s conversations when they are “at home.” It broadcasts to a corner of the museum where visitors, under a watchful photograph of the former East German leader Erich Honecker, listen on headphones. Then the same visitors can go to the mock apartment where it is likely that they will be listened to as well. All part of the East German experience.