Piecing Together the Dark Legacy of East Germany’s Secret Police

The Stasi were East German secret police from before the fall of the
Berlin wall; They had some records of some pretty bad things the
government at that time was involved in, so during the fall of the
Berlin Wall they attempted to destroy this information. They failed to
completely destroy it, leaving it shredded, so what is left is being
reconstructed.

http://www.wired.com/print/politics/security/magazine/16-02/ff_stasi