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In 1945 WWII ended leaving Germany in shambles. Germany is split between East and West Germany. The Soviet Union controlled the East part of Germany, and United States, Britain, and France controlled the West. This led to the the East being under Communist control and the West under Capitalist control.

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In February, 1950 , the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security) was established or otherwise known as the Stasi Secret Police. It had a similar structure to the Russian NKVD which was operating at the time. Its purpose was for political surveillance and foreign espionage, and was controlled by the Soviet Union.

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In the beginning, they were responsible for suppressing and spying on former Nazis. They also were gathering intelligence on western agents, as well as, locating former East German officials and escapes that fled West Germany and forcibly brought them back.

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He was appointed as the head of the Stasi in 1957. He started to make the the Stasi a very effective secret police organization. Under his rule the Stasi became one of the biggest secret polices in the world. It went from just 14,000 employees when he started to almost 100,000 by 1989.

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Before the Berlin Wall was built - The Stasi mostly focused on rooting out any class enemies, surveillance, and intelligence gathering.

After the Berlin Wall was built - Their main focus was making the wall impenetrable. There was only a couple entrances which were manned by Stasi police members at all times. Anyone leaving or coming in was under surveillance and were watched heavily. They constructed tunnels of their own below the wall to insure there was total control over East Berlin. The wall was their control over their citizens of East Berlin, cutting off mostly all access from West Berlin.

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In 1961, a concrete barrier was built to separate the East and West. It was built to prevent the people from escaping the East to the West

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They had many Surveillance techniques used such as bugging, steam opening letters, tapping phones, odor trapping, and the many informers.

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In this pre-digital era the Stasi managed to have cutting edge technology. They used methods of wiretapping, microphones, and secret cameras to monitor the citizens.

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During this time one of the main techniques of surveillance was steam opening letters. They had a whole wearhouse that dealt with steam opening and reading letters and then closing them back up.

They used a cold steam known as "Cellophan 83" since hot steam could damage things like photos. It used a special film that stretched over a tray oif distilled water, then they will place up to as many as 25 letters on the tray so that when the water was heated to 50 degrees Celsius the cold steam diffused the film and dissolved the glue on the envelopes.

After opening letters, the workers would copy each letter or photo, put them back in the envelope, seal it back up, and send it to the person.

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Since the Stasi had full control they were able to tap into any phone infrastructure, they would connect listening devices to targeted lines at switching stations. They also relied on informants at the telephone company to identify potential targets and give access to their lines. They used there custom made wire tapping devices, which sometimes would mimic a busy signal while it recorded the conversation.

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The Stasi used the method of odor trapping. With this they would steal clothing or rub articles against an object the target touched and sealed them in air tight jars. They would then when needed use sniffer dogs to track down scents of the target.

"Scent chair" In interrogation they had a yellow clothed chair that the target would sit in during interrogation. With interrogation the target would begin sweating to which the cloth would collect. At the end when the target is gone, they collected parts of the cloth and put them in a sealed jar.

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The Stasi relied heavily on informants. By the time of the collapse they had about 91,000 employees and about 174,000 informants. This equaled out to be one out of every 63 East Germans were informants, or about 2.5% of the working population.

Of the Informants 10,000 of them were under the age of 18, mostly spying on parents.

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1. Das Mikrofon-Microphone

2. Der Duft-Scent

3. Der Spion-Spy

4. Die Wand-Wall

5. Der Fotoapparat-camera

6. Der Stuhl-Chair

7. Der Brief-Letter

8. Das Bild-Photo

9. Das Geheimnis-Secrets

10. Der Krug -Jar

11. Der Ordner-File

12. Der Geheimdienst- intelligence

13. Unterdrücken-Suppress

14. Der Dampf-Steam

15. Die Überwachung-Surveillance

16. Das Tuch-cloth

17. Das Gerät- device

18. Der Briefumschlag- Envelope

19. Überwachen- to monitor

20. Ministerium Fur Staatssicherheit- The Ministry for State Security

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The main aim of the Stasi was total control over East Germanys citizens. With that major psychological techniques went into play. In the end the distrust of others and even your closest family and friends led to a fear stricken country.

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The term Zersetzung does not have a translation in English but would closely mean decomposition or disintegration. It is a methodical form of psychological warfare that was used by the Stasi during the Cold War period.

During the 1970s they became concerned with maintaining a positive image internationally. This meant they needed to repress the activism. This is when they adopted the Zersetzung which goal was to severely limit the ability of individuals and groups to carry out their activities hoping to make them stop entirely.

Since the Stasi had so much information on everyone they were able to use it to their advantage in causing friction between members to render the group ineffective, they also sabotaged groups with using infiltrators who will agree to accomplish tasks but never do to slow down production, another way was to just separate the organizations by spreading rumors about them.

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Money

Threats of prosecution or offers of immunity

Presenting it as a thrilling adventure

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Like they had done with the organizations they used this for individuals as well. The goal was to get rid of the persons effectiveness which was achieved by diminishing their self-assurance and their faith in their tasks. They did not care if the person shut down due to disappointment, fear, burn out, or even mental illness as long as they got the results they wanted it was acceptable. This was often performed gradually, and would diminish the targets quality of life slowly.

They had three stages in this:

Stage one: was to do thorough examinations of public data and info collected from searches done of the home. With this they looked for any social, emotional, or physical flaw that could be used to add pressure to the target. They wanted to socially isolate them.

Stage two: In this stage they will make contact with the target to let the target know they were interested in them. They would do repeated stop and searches and questioning to instill a sense of fear and anxiety.

Stage three: The final stage was about physical and verbal abuse. They would do things to purposely make the target loose there mind further such as moving furniture, changing times on the alarm clock, damaging cars or bikes, spreading rumors, etc.

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Bekes, Mario. “‘Zersetzung’ Strategies and Utilisation of Psychological Warfare on Individuals and Groups Part One.” Insight Intelligence Group, 31 Oct. 2023, insightintelligence.com.au/zersetzung-strategies-and-utilisation-of-psychological-warfare-on-individuals-and-groups-part-one/.

“Erich Mielke – Master of Fear.” Walled In Berlin, 27 Nov. 2021, walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/erich-mielke-master-of-fear/.

“The Last Day of the Stasi – DW – 01/15/2005.” Dw.Com, Deutsche Welle, 15 Jan. 2005, www.dw.com/en/the-last-day-of-the-stasi/a-1459519.

Manufacuting, Sparrows. “The Stasi Secret Police and Secret Tools: A Chapter in Cold War Intrigue and Lock Picking.” SPARROWS Lock Picks, SPARROWS Lock Picks, 15 Nov. 2023, www.sparrowslockpicks.com/blogs/news/the-stasi-secret-police-and-secret-tools-a-chapter-in-cold-war-intrigue-and-lock-picking?srsltid=AfmBOor09dY6sTlJ0rwdEsr9NHkM4rtjRtRagoaz6Xrsrj6CPu6iA25T.

Max Hertzberg. “Stasi Tactics – Zersetzung.” Max Hertzberg, 9 June 2022, www.maxhertzberg.co.uk/background/politics/stasi-tactics/.

ow3n. “Stasi / Facebook / Big Data DAAD Day 24 – Automation in Stasi Postal Surveillance: Opening Letters with Sensitive Materials Using Cold Steam.” Owen Mundy, 14 June 2017, owenmundy.com/blog/2017/06/stasi-facebook-big-data-daad-day-24-automation-in-stasi-postal-surveillance-opening-letters-with-sensitive-materials-using-cold-steam/.

Spyscape. “How the Stasi Hunted Dissenters by ‘Scent Profiling.’” SPYSCAPE, spyscape.com/article/the-nose-knows-how-the-stasi-hunted-dissenters-by-tracking-their-scent. Accessed 25 Nov. 2024.

“Stasi East German Ministry of State Security.” Stasi East German Ministry of State Security – Subterranea Britannica, www.subbrit.org.uk/features/stasi-east-german-ministry-of-state-security/. Accessed 25 Nov. 2024.

“Stasi.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 3 Nov. 2024, www.britannica.com/topic/Stasi.

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When the Berlin Wall fell, the Stasi realized it would no longer able to operate. They begin to destroy all their work, using shredding machines until they broke down. This led to the storming of the headquarters by individuals. In the end they say the millions and millions of files that were in a storage room filed away. Many people came to see their file, as the state made the files public so many could see what the Stasi had on them. They are now stored in federal archives.