It was apparently quite common for the two secret services to issue IDs to each other’s operatives.
I would imagine it makes it a lot easier for access (no need to check which bits of the agency this guy’s allowed to enter on this weird foreign ID card, he’s got one of ours), plus, despite the external image, the Soviet Union did play lip service to the idea of the various constituent countries having their own rules and institutions (all of course consistent with true Soviet communism) so you might want to be able to have the KGB guy along on something but not have to admit he’s KGB.
So much easier if you and your Stasi colleagues have one more Stasi colleague with you.
I think you fundamentally misunderstand what most secret police/secret service operatives do all day.
That’s what happens when your meticulously kept archives fall into the hands of people who were never supposed to get access and who spend the next 30 years patiently sifting through every document.
Nach der Erstürmung der Bezirksverwaltung der Stasi in Dresden im Dezember 1989 hatten die MfS-Leute noch Zeit, in ihren Büros „aufzuräumen“. So wanderten die Ausweise in kleine Säckchen. Anfang 1990 kam das endgültige Aus für den DDR-Geheimdienst. Akten und Ausweise lagerten zunächst bis 1993 noch in den Zellen der Untersuchungshaftanstalt in der ehemaligen Bezirksverwaltung.
Beim Umzug des Aktenarchivs auf die Riesaer Straße in Dresden sichteten die Behördenmitarbeiter die kleineren Säcke kurz. Da es sich bei dem Material der Abteilung „Kader und Schulung“, der bürokratischen Mitarbeiterverwaltung des MfS, aber weder um Opfer- noch um Täterakten handelte, hatte das Material bei der Erschließung durch die Archiv-Experten zunächst keine Priorität. Bei 8,5 Kilometer Aktenmaterial und 1100 großen Säcken mit zerrissenem Aktenmaterial mussten Schwerpunkte gesetzt werden.
Heute sind 95 Prozent des Aktenbestandes erschlossen und die Archivare können sich auch dem zunächst zurückgestellten Material widmen. Dabei kamen die Ausweise zum Vorschein.
from:
TL-DR and for those who don’t read German:
The IDs were ‘tidied’ into little sacks by the Stasi when the wall came down. The archivists who came to look through the staggeringly ginormous trove of Stasi documents gave the collection of IDs a brief once over in 1993, decided that since the IDs were from the training section of the Stasi they wouldn’t provide much, if any, evidence of what the Stasi was up to/help to clear up alleged crimes, etc. and as there was a lot of other material (8.5km of files and 1100 large sacks full of shredded documents) to go through, the bags of IDs could go on the back burner.
They’ve now worked their way through most of the other materials and have now been able to turn to these bags of IDs which have been patiently sitting in storage since 1990.
