East Germany's espionage operations targeting the West led to a 7.4% increase in the country's economic output, with manufacturing witnessing a 22.3% rise, translating to 20.2 billion East German marks or approximately 4.1 billion euros in 2020 prices. These findings come from recent research by the ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin) based on data from 1988, just a year prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Read More
Albrecht Glitz, project manager at RFBerlin and professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, pointed out that for companies obtaining an additional percentage point of information through espionage, there was an almost equivalent increase in value added and labor productivity per year. He noted that while the Stasi’s espionage bolstered East Germany's position within the socialist bloc, it did not notably enhance its performance in Western markets. However, firms with access to valuable intelligence were better positioned to navigate the transition to a market economy following reunification.
Firms that benefited from espionage displayed faster productivity growth, invested more in capital stock, utilized more intermediate inputs, and specialized in core products. The positive impacts of these advantages extended throughout supplier and customer networks, resulting in broader economic gains.
The research estimates that each additional piece of beneficial information yielded an annual economic return of approximately 330,000 euros at 2020 prices, equivalent to 1.64 million East German marks. Despite this, the Stasi also provided some information that had little practical value.
Adrian Lerche, a co-author from the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg, remarked that while the study focuses on Cold War events, the issues discussed are highly relevant today, particularly concerning export controls, industrial policy, intellectual property protection, and technological competition.
Glitz highlighted that many governments are currently tightening export controls and scrutinizing foreign investments, underscoring the importance of access to advanced knowledge in global economic policy. In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for instance, Western nations have increased export controls on items that could have military applications. Additionally, concerns have risen over China's attempts to acquire technology necessary for the production of advanced semiconductors, which is exclusively manufactured by the Dutch company ASML.
Throughout the Cold War, East Germany operated one of the largest economic espionage programs in the world, procuring scientific and technical information from Western companies and research institutions. The research utilized previously inaccessible intelligence archives and newly digitized corporate documents to trace the flow of espionage information from Western sources to its eventual integration into the East German economy.