See also: Informal collaborator Between and , the Stasi employed a total of , people in an effort to root out the class enemy.
The candidates would then have to be recommended by their military unit political officers and Stasi agents, the local chiefs of the District Bezirk Stasi and Volkspolizei office, of the district in which they were permanently resident, and the District Secretary of the SED. These candidates were then made to sit through several tests and exams, which identified their intellectual capacity to be an officer, and their political reliability. University graduates who had completed their military service did not need to take these tests and exams.
They then attended a two-year officer training programme at the Stasi college Hochschule in Potsdam. Less mentally and academically endowed candidates were made ordinary technicians and attended a one-year technology-intensive course for non-commissioned officers.
By , some , inoffizielle Mitarbeiter IMs Stasi informants had been identified, almost 2. Infiltration Full-time officers were posted to all major industrial plants the extensiveness of any surveillance largely depended on how valuable a product was to the economy [19] and one tenant in every apartment building was designated as a watchdog reporting to an area representative of the Volkspolizei Vopo.
Spies reported every relative or friend who stayed the night at another's apartment. Tiny holes were drilled in apartment and hotel room walls through which Stasi agents filmed citizens with special video cameras.
