Date of Award
Fall 12-2017
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Program
History
Department
History
Major Professor
Dr. Gunter Bischof
Second Advisor
Dr. Robert Dupont
Third Advisor
Dr. Marc Landry
Abstract
This thesis examines the methods used by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), more commonly known as the Stasi, or East German secret police, for extraction of information from citizens of the German Democratic Republic for the purpose of espionage and covert operations inside East Germany, as it pertains to the deliberate brainwashing of East German citizens. As one of the most efficient intelligence agencies to ever exist, the Stasi’s main purpose was to monitor the population, gather intelligence, and collect or turn informants. They used brainwashing techniques to control the people of the GDR, keeping the populace paralyzed with fear and paranoia. By surrounding themselves with a network of informants they prevented actions against the dictatorial communist regime. Using the video testimonies of former prisoners, and former confidential informants who worked closely with and collaborated with Stasi agents, in combination with periodicals and previous historical studies, this work argues that the East German Police State’s brainwashing techniques had long and lasting consequences both for German citizens, and for the psychiatric health of former GDR citizens. The scope and breadth of the techniques and data compiled for use by the Stasi were exhaustive, and the repercussions of their use are still being felt and discovered twenty five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This study aims to show the lasting effects brainwashing had on former informants and the Stasi’s victims.
Recommended Citation
Solbrig, Jacob H. and Solbrig, Jacob Hagen, "Stasi Brainwashing in the GDR 1957 - 1990" (2017). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 2431.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2431
Included in
Applied Ethics Commons, Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms Commons, Bioethics and Medical Ethics Commons, Continental Philosophy Commons, Cultural History Commons, Eastern European Studies Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, European History Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Intellectual History Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Multicultural Psychology Commons, Oral History Commons, Other German Language and Literature Commons, Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons, Other Political Science Commons, Philosophy of Mind Commons, Political History Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Psychiatry Commons, Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy Commons, Psychological Phenomena and Processes Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Social History Commons, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Commons, Theory and Criticism Commons, Theory and Philosophy Commons
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.