SIRA (database)

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SIRA ( System for Information Research of HV A ) was a database system of the Enlightenment Headquarters of the former Ministry of State Security (MfS), consisting of several part databases . It contained information about espionage in the GDR from 1969 onwards. Despite several attempts at extermination in connection with the dissolution of the MfS, significant parts of the database have been preserved to this day.

Content of the databases

The data records of the input information contain details of the source providing information (code name / registration number), the responsible structural unit within the MfS, at the time the information was obtained, and the type, scope and assessment of the information. Furthermore, a title, a short description, subject, country and object key words, distribution lists and personal references were saved.

Evidence of summarized information that was transmitted by the MfS to the state and party leadership (initial information), orders for industrial and industrial espionage (assignment information), as well as information on employees of Western secret services (personal information) was also stored.

At the time the HVA was closed, the SIRA database system had around 650,000 data records. At the end of 1998 the Gauck authorities succeeded in deciphering large parts of this database. With the help of the rosewood files , the processes stored in the SIRA database can be specifically assigned to unofficial employees .

Technical implementation

After several years of preparation, SIRA was put into operation in 1974 on Siemens System 4004 large-scale computer systems owned by MfS . These were initially in Berlin- Wuhlheide , from 1984 in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen . As software first Siemens-own GOLEM system came ( " G roßspeicher o rien oriented, l istenorganisierte E ingabe m ethod") are used. From 1985 the Siemens hardware and software was replaced and the system gradually converted to the uniform system of electronic computing technology (ESER) developed in the Eastern Bloc . Most of these were replicas of IBM large computer systems. The "System for Mass Data" (SFM) developed by Robotron and modified by the MfS was used as the database software. From 1986 the previous sub-projects became sub-databases of a new overall EDP system at HV A. The complex conversions required by the conversion continued until 1989.

literature

  • Heinz Busch: NATO in the view of the evaluation of the HV A . In: Georg Herbstritt , Helmut Müller-Enbergs (Hrsg.): The face of the West to… GDR espionage against the Federal Republic of Germany . Bremen 2003, pp. 239–249.
  • Stephan Konopatzky: SIRA (system of information research of HV A). In: Roger Engelmann, Bernd Florath , Walter Süß et al. (Eds.): The MfS Lexicon - terms, persons and structures of the state security of the GDR. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2011, pp. 272f.
  • Stephan Konopatzky: Possibilities and limits of the SIRA databases . In: Georg Herbstritt, Helmut Müller-Enbergs (Hrsg.): The face of the West to… GDR espionage against the Federal Republic of Germany . Bremen 2003, pp. 112-132.
  • Stephan Konopatzky: The possibilities and limits of the use of SIRA databases using the example of Stiller and Guillaume , Horch and Guck 39/2002, pp. 46–55.
  • Stephan Konopatzky: Documentation: SIRA - System of information research of the main administration A , BStU (ed.), 2019.
  • Roger Engelmann , Bernd, Florath, Helge Heidemeyer, Daniela Münkel , Arno Polzin, Walter Süß , Das MfS-Lexikon . 3rd updated edition, Berlin 2016. Ch. Links Verlag, ISBN 978-3-86153-900-1 , p. 305, online version .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The resolution of the abbreviation SIRA in the Stasi documents is not always uniform. Sometimes the spelling “System of information research of the HV A” was also used.
  2. ↑ Cf. SIRA - System of information research by HV A on the BStU website
  3. ↑ See Stephan Konopatzky: Possibilities and Limits of the SIRA Databases , p. 113f.