Stasi tried to recruit Angela Merkel

London, May 20 (ANI): German Chancellor Angela Merkel has revealed that communist East Germany's Stasi secret police had tried to hire her as a scientific assistant, but she quickly turned down the offer.

Stasi was the official secret police of East Germany, regarded as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies in the world. Merkel, who became the first chancellor from the East in 2005, recalled how the Stasi approached her when she applied for a job at the Technical University in Ilmenau.After an interview, she was shown to a room where she was expecting to claim her travel expenses but a Stasi officer was waiting for her."I said very quickly that it was not something for me," The Telegraph quoted her, as saying at a chat show.A number of East German politicians had to face embarrassment after Stasi files identified them as former informants.Physicist Merkel said she was well prepared with an answer, as she knew that the Stasi might approach her.

Her plan was to say that she could not keep her mouth shut and would tell all her friends about her new job."That was it then because silence was a basic condition," she said, adding she never got offered the university job.Merkel also described how she and her friends always lived with the Stasi. She said she often tapped on lamps in pubs and said: "If there is a microphone there - switch on now!""The thing was not to let them drive you crazy," she said.

Germany will be observing 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this year. (ANI)