reenactment mfs ' - the ministry for state security better known as the stasi ' during the 40 year existence of the east german state - is a new book containing these photos of desperation which the socialist rulers used as evidence in the show trials against those they caught that they were also thought to have been used for training purposes for border guards and trainee agents intended to inculcate in them awareness of the lengths people would go to in order to try to escape the workers ' paradise that was the german democratic republic .