The pictures show how agents dressed in an effort to remain inconspicuous as they attempted to invade the privacy of suspected dissenters and gather evidence, before ruthlessly interrogating them - often for days on end.
The banality of evil: Two of the outfits agents of the Stasi would have employed as they went about their repressive work. Ironically, the outfit on the right makes the agent look like a stereotypical movie spy
They were also a photographic record of how their agents would have dressed when undertaking Cold War missions to the hated West.
Some of the disguises seem laughable to us now. One of the images, featured on Foreign Policy, shows a stereotypical tourist disguise laden with cameras, shades, a hat and garish red trousers. Another shows what could be a student, complete with cut-off jean shorts and a backpack.
The Stasi fashion collection was extensive. The agency sent thousands of spies into West Germany and had access to vast amounts of cash to buy western goods to equip agents with.
Blending in? The extraordinary images form part of the Stasi secret police course on the `art of disguising`
While the pictures are amusing, the sinister purpose of the disguises should be considered
The extent of Stasi snooping is seen in other photos in the book. They include snapshots agents took of houses before they were to be searched for contraband or material `harmful to the state.`
The Stasi always took photos of rooms they ransacked so they could put everything back in its place and the victims would not know they had been to visit them.
The photos were found in the miles and miles of paperwork found in Stasi offices across East Germany that the agency`s shredders and furnaces did not have time to destroy in the hours and days following the collapse of the regime in 1990.
German artist Simon Menner spent two years poring over materials from the archive of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives of the German Democratic Republic for his forthcoming book Top Secret: Images from the Stasi Archives.
This range of casual decor was likely employed on a mission to the democratic, capitalist West
The photos were found in the miles and miles of paperwork found in Stasi offices across East Germany
The artist amassed the images over a period of two years. He pored over materials from the archive of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives of the German Democratic Republic
He says he aims to show `the act of surveillance from the perspective of the surveillant`.
`Many of the images reproduced here might appear absurd or even funny to us,` he said.
`But it is important not to lose sight of the original intentions behind these pictures. They concern photographic records of the repression exerted by the state to subdue it own citizens.
`For me, the banality of some of these pictures makes them even more repulsive.`
