Joachim Gauck

When East German citizens occupied Stasi offices in 1989 and 1990 to stop files being shredded, the question became who should see them. Gauck, a Rostock pastor and civil rights activist, became the first federal commissioner for the Stasi records in 1990, and under the 1991 Stasi Records Act his agency let ordinary people read the files kept on them, learn which friends or relatives had informed, and have their names cleared. Millions of requests followed. Few other post-communist countries opened their secret police files so fully or so early. Gauck later served as Germany's president; the files now sit in the Federal Archives.