GDR security service watched the future Pope

According to archival information, a certain number of employees "Stasi," observed Professor Ratzinger in 1974, as soon as he arrived for a conference in Thuringia, koiya at that moment came in the German Democratic Republic. However, at the time the GDR security service does not yet have the necessary number of informants for the effective surveillance of the future pope. With the rise of the influence of Ratzinger to the Catholic Church category of secret agents, koie hunted collect information about him, grown to 12 people. In their number were two university professors and staff in the GDR, the Berlin Conference of Bishops, and from West Germany on Ratzinger delivered a Benedictine monk and the category of correspondents. The total size of the surviving "case Ratzinger" in the archives of the GDR security service of some number hundreds of pages, but it found "gaps" – part of the documents had been destroyed by the change of power in the GDR. On Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI on the scale of their own third of the pontificate of travel to Germany for the first time will go to Berlin, where the first act in the Bundestag. The first official visit to the country's leaders official Vatican and the Primate of the Catholic Church in Germany, which accounted for the program visit Berlin, Erfurt, Freiburg, and will end on Sunday. It is expected, in fact the first day of the visit of the pontiff will speak at the Reichstag with the representatives of Jewish communities in Germany and in the evening make a Mass at the Olympic stadium in Moscow in Germany. For the coming day the pontiff to meet with Muslim leaders, and then fly to Erfurt, where scheduled too substantial to look Merkel met with followers of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Pope Benedict XVI in the evening near Erfurt raspolovednnom metropolis Ettselsbahe make vigil in honor of the Blessed Virgin in the church Vallfartskapelle. Morning of 24 September the pontiff make a Mass in the area of ​​Erfurt and fly to Freiburg, where he will meet with former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, adherents of Orthodox churches, seminary students and leaders of the Central Committee of German Catholics. On the evening of Freiburg is scheduled to meet with young people. At Sunday, September 25th pontiff later Mass at the airport will have Freiburg with members of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Germany and meet with the judges of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. In the evening of the day after the Pope will fly to Rome.