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East German Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung (2021)
A look at the experiences of activists in East Germany (GDR) dealing with Stasi informants and infiltration before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The invasive spying and disorientation tactics used by the East German secret police ( Stasi) meant there were significantly fewer possibilities for civil disobedience and direct action than political grassroots activists have today in places such as Western Europe and North America. The final stages entailed psychological and physical harassment: moving things around at home ( one morning the alarm clock goes off at 5am instead of 7am, and the socks are in the wrong drawer, there’s no coffee left …); damage to bikes and vehicles (eg slashing tyres); the spreading of rumours as mentioned above; ordering goods and making appointments in target’s name etc. They often mistook informal hierarchies (caused for example by differences in empowerment levels or dominant behaviour patterns) for organisational structure – they would target those who talked the most, or took on the most tasks, and didn’t realise that even if these individuals were ‘switched off’, the rest of the group could continue to function and wouldn’t necessarily fall apart.
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