Abstract

Political persecution and oppression of dissidents was manifold in the former GDR. From the 1960s onwards, the East German Ministry for State Security, short Stasi, as the SED dictatorship’s main instrument for combating dissenters, dissidents and members of the opposition, was the only secret police force in the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc that systematically integrated psychology into operational work. Until 1989, more than 13,000 Stasi officers had received academic training at the secret Stasi’s Academy of Law in Potsdam for the purpose of practical application of the notions of so-called operative psychology. The consequences for the victims were and still are significant.