I just went to the Stasi Museum in Berlin last year. Holy fuck that was frightening.
In general, the Stasi were fucked up, but their ability to lie/brainwash/indoctrinate and make citizens believe that they had an actual duty to report their neighbors was hella insidious.
On top of everyone just being afraid that the Stasi was spying on them so they just said whatever they could about Joe and Tanya down the street to get out from under the Stasi eye.
My…how quickly we forget as a society. The Stasi were actually around in my lifetime, and I’m only mid-30s.