By “civil committees” the more or less spontaneously formed groups of individuals who illegally occupied offices of the State Security Service are meant. Thanks to their efforts, beginning in December 1989, the removal and subsequent destruction of Stasi documentation was prevented. Such committees formed across the country. The civil committees played a major role in the collapse of the Ministry of State Security, were outspoken in the debate concerning the further utilization of its documents, and influential in the creation of a Special Commissioner for the Evaluation of Stasi Documentation following German unification and the passing of the Law on Stasi Documentation by the German Parliament on the 14 November 1991. Many of their members later assisted in describing the structure, methods and crimes of the secret police in the GDR.