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Practical application
The MfS used decomposition primarily as a psychological instrument of oppression and persecution. [15] It used the findings of "operative psychology" gained at the State Security Law School (JHS) in a targeted manner, [16] in order to undermine the self-confidence and self-esteem of the victims. These should be confused or frightened, exposed to permanent disappointments and socially uprooted through disruption of relationships with other people. In this way, life crises were to be provoked that were intended to unsettle political opponents and put a psychological strain on them, so that the victim was deprived of the time and energy for anti-state activities. [17]The MfS as mastermind behind the measures should not be recognizable here. [4] [18] The self-affected writer Jürgen Fuchs therefore also spoke of "psychosocial crimes" and an "attack on the human soul" . [17]

Although methods of decomposition can be proven as early as the late 1950s, decomposition as a method was not scientifically defined until the mid-1970s and was primarily used systematically in the 1970s and 1980s. [19] The number of people affected can only be determined with difficulty, since the source situation is often incomplete due to deliberate concealment, but the methods used were diverse and the departments involved were numerous. Altogether, a four to five-digit number of people in groups and a three-digit number of individuals are likely to have been subjected to decomposition measures. [1] Other sources assume that about 5,000 people were affected by the decomposition and were "permanently damaged". [2]A double-digit number of dissertations on the subject of decomposition were submitted at the law school. [20] There is also around 50 pages of teaching material on decomposition with numerous practical examples. [21]

Implementing Institutions
The measures were applied by almost all departments of the MfS, but above all by the main department XX of the MfS in Berlin and the departments XX of the district administrations and district offices of the MfS. With the surveillance of religious communities , cultural and media companies, block parties and social organizations , the education and health system as well as sports , Linie XX covered practically the entire public life in the GDR. [22] The MfS used the opportunities that arose from the closed form of society in the GDR. Through political-operative cooperationthe MfS had extensive opportunities to intervene, such as occupational or school penalties, exclusion from mass organizations and sports clubs, temporary arrests by the People's Police [4] and the refusal to grant travel permits to socialist countries or rejections at the visa-free border crossings to Czechoslovakia and the People's Republic of Poland . The "partners of operational cooperation" also included the councils of the districts , university and company management, housing administration, savings bank branches or, under certain circumstances, treating doctors. [23]Line VIII (observation) and departments 26 (telephone and room surveillance) and M (postal control) of the MfS provided important foundations for the development of decomposition measures, department 32 procured the necessary technology. [24 ]

The MfS also implemented dismantling measures in cooperation with brother secret services from other Eastern Bloc countries. From the early 1960s, for example, the Polish secret service, together with the MfS, initiated targeted measures against Jehovah's Witnesses , which were described as "internal decomposition" [25] . [26]

Decomposition of Individuals
The MfS applied the decomposition before, during, after or instead of imprisoning the "target person". As a rule, the operational procedures did not pursue the goal of providing evidence of a criminal offense by the victim in order to open an investigation. Rather, the MfS viewed decomposition measures as an independent instrument, which was used when criminal measures were not desired for political or "political-operative" reasons (for example, not to endanger the international reputation of the GDR). [27] [28] In some cases, however, the MfS deliberately tried to criminalize individuals, for example by killing Wolf Biermannbrought in minors with the aim of being able to prosecute him later. [29] Non-political offenses such as drug possession, customs and currency offences, theft, tax evasion or rape were targeted as offenses for such criminalization. [30]

Guideline 1/76 names the following as proven forms of decomposition:

"systematic discrediting of public reputation, reputation and prestige on the basis of combined true, verifiable and discrediting, as well as untrue, credible, irrefutable and thus also discrediting information; systematically organizing professional and social failures to undermine individuals' self-confidence; […] Generation of doubts about personal perspective; Generation of distrust and mutual suspicion within groups [...]; local and temporal prevention or restriction of the mutual relationships of the members of a group […] for example through […] allocation of remote jobs”

– Guideline No. 1/76 for the development and processing of operational processes from January 1976 [31]
With the knowledge gained through spying, the MfS created socio- and psychograms and used them for personality-oriented forms of decomposition. Personal characteristics and tendencies (such as homosexuality ) as well as assumed “characteristic weaknesses” of the “enemy being processed” were specifically addressed – for example professional failure, neglect of parental duties, pornographic interests, adultery , alcoholism , dependency on medicines , tendency to criminal acts, collectors - and gambling passions as well as contacts to right-wing extremistsCircles – or spread as a rumor around the victim to expose the victim. [32] [33] From the point of view of the MfS, the measures were all the more successful the more personal they were applied; any "schematism" had to be avoided. [32]

Furthermore, the methods of decomposition included overt, covert or fake spying , checking letters and telephones , damaging private property and tampering with vehicles, up to poisoning of food and improper medical treatment. [34] Individual MfS employees accepted the suicide of decomposition victims with approval. [35]

In some cases, such as against the pastor and later Minister for Disarmament and Defense of the last GDR government , Rainer Eppelmann [36] and his friend Ralf Hirsch , [37] there are even concrete intentions to murder (death by freezing, poisoning, causing a car accident). documented by the documents of the MfS.

It could not be conclusively clarified whether the Stasi used X-rays to cause long-term damage to the health of political opponents. [38] With Rudolf Bahro , Gerulf Pannach and Jürgen Fuchs, three prominent GDR dissidents who had been imprisoned at the same time died of cancer two years apart . [39] A study by the BStUHowever, on the basis of the available files, ruled out such an intentional use of X-rays and instead only documented individual cases of negligent use of radioactive radiation sources that were hazardous to health, for example to mark documents. [40]

On behalf of the victims, the MfS placed contact or classified ads, ordered goods or made emergency calls to terrorize them. [41] [42] The criminal apartment burglaries carried out by the Stasi were particularly perfidious in order to invade the privacy of GDR citizens, with the aim of intimidating the residents and creating psychological stress by leaving obvious traces of their presence by leaving foreign objects or removal or modification of existing ones have been made.