Berlin: Stasi-Themed Bar Opens

East Germany's dreaded Stasi secret police have been "satirized" at a new bar called Zur Firma, ("the Company", a slang reference to the Stasi) in Berlin's eastern Lichtenberg neighborhood, not so far from the former headquarters of the Ministry for State Security.

Of course, controversy abounds. Those whose lives were turned upside down by the Stasi feel the bar is in bad taste. On the other hand, recent studies have uncovered an appalling lack of knowledge about DDR history among students:

...the owners made a calculated choice in stirring up debate. "Obviously we provoke people," said Gau. "But we don't want to vilify nor glorify anyone." Twenty years after the collapse of the DDR should one just hide the "Stasi cudgel" and turn the past over to historians? Says Gau: "In Germany we are slowly returning to a monitored state, and if things continue this way we will soon have a Stasi situation again." ~ Welcome to Berlin's New Stasi-Themed Bar

History's lessons should always be there for us, the traveler with conscience. But is satire played by silent memorabilia in a bar a reasonable way to convey the misery the unfettered state imposes on "its" people as it collects "necessary" information to keep the state secure?