The book by the former minister-counselor of the USSR Embassy in Berlin, Doctor of Political Sciences, chief researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences I.F. Maksimycheva talks about the last two years of the existence of the GDR. The author traces in detail, step by step, the process of collapse of one of the most prosperous states of the socialist bloc, which had, perhaps, the most powerful state security service - the Stasi. The author sums up the disappointing results of the unification of the two German states.