A man who was a target of the Stasi describes the infamous agency
In this 15-minute TED speech given in Berlin in June 2014, Hubertus Knabe, a German historian who was a victim of the Stasi (he was under surveillance for smuggling banned books), describes the infamous secret police agency, and its system of Zersetzung.
Here is the description which accompanies the video:
Tour the deep dark world of the East German state security agency known as Stasi. Uniquely powerful at spying on its citizens, until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the Stasi masterminded a system of surveillance and psychological pressure that kept the country under control for decades. Hubertus Knabe studies the Stasi — and was spied on by them. He shares stunning details from the fall of a surveillance state, and shows how easy it was for neighbor to turn on neighbor.
“Hubertus Knabe: The dark secrets of a surveillance state”