Secret police attempted to drive its people insane
The Stasi was the most effective and repressive secret police agency ever to have existed.
For four decades from its founding on February 8, 1950, it spied on the East German population through a vast system of citizens turned informants who spied on each other.
It’s now estimated the Stasi had one policeman for every 166 East Germans, and an agent or informer for every six.
In comparison, the Gestapo had one officer for every 2,000.
In fact, so effective was the Stasi that it was asked to help set up secret police forces in countries across the world.
By the 1970s, the Stasi had come to the conclusion that overt methods of persecution, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious and decided psychological harassment was less likely to be recognised and thus provoke victims and supporters into active resistance. Known as Zersetzung – a term borrowed from chemistry literally meaning “decomposition” – the new tactic was designed to sidetrack and “switch off” enemies so that they lost the will to perpetrate any “inappropriate” activities. The Stasi would deliberately disrupt the victim’s private and family life by psychological means, often breaking into their homes and manipulating their contents.
They’d move furniture, alter the time of an alarm clock and replace one type of tea with another, leading the person to question their own memory and, eventually, their sanity.
Cars and property would be vandalised, medical treatment altered, and even falsified, compromising photos and documents sent to the victim’s family.
Zersetzung could be plausibly denied by the state and with victims having no idea that the Stasi was responsible, mental breakdowns and suicides were common.
The Stasi’s attention to detail was ferocious. Among its departments was the Division For Garbage Analysis, which was responsible for analysing household rubbish for any prohibited Western foods and materials.
During interrogations, seats would be covered in cotton cloths to collect perspiration which were then placed in glass jars, so trained dogs could track victims down – underwear was stolen for the same use.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Stasi attempted to destroy its files but even though a billion sheets of paper were shredded or burnt, that was still only 5% of the total.
It was decided people should be allowed to read their own files, and millions have done just that.
Today, the Stasi HQ in what was East Berlin is a museum that demonstrates how they controlled the population.