Editing Secret police (section)

==== Germany ====
In [[Nazi Germany]] from 1933 to 1945, the ''Geheime Staatspolizei'' (Secret State Police, [[Gestapo]]) and ''[[Geheime Feldpolizei]]'' (Secret Field Police, GFP) were a secret police organization used to identify and eliminate opposition, including suspected organized resistance. Its claimed main duty, according to a 1936 law, was "to investigate and suppress all anti-State tendencies".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gellately|first=Robert|date=1988|title=The Gestapo and German Society: Political Denunciation in the Gestapo Case Files|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1881013|journal=The Journal of Modern History|volume=60|issue=4|pages=654–694|doi=10.1086/600440|jstor=1881013|s2cid=154408648|issn=0022-2801}}</ref> One method used to spy on citizens was to intercept letters or telephone calls. They encouraged ordinary Germans to inform on each other.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Introduction - Control and opposition in Nazi Germany - CCEA - GCSE History Revision - CCEA|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z2p3k2p/revision/1|access-date=2021-02-09|website=BBC Bitesize|language=en-GB}}</ref> As part of the [[Reich Security Main Office]], it was also a key organizer of [[the Holocaust]]. Although the Gestapo had a relatively small number of personnel (32,000 in 1944), "it maximized these small resources through informants and a large number of denunciations from the local population".<ref>[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/gestapo Gestapo] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220130185223/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/gestapo |date=2022-01-30 }}, ''Holocaust Encyclopedia'', [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]].</ref>

After the defeat of the Nazis in [[World War II]], Germany was split into West and [[East Germany]]. East Germany became a [[socialist]] state and ruled by the [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany]]. It was closely aligned with [[communist]] Russia and the [[Soviet Union]]. It had secret police, commonly referred to as the [[Stasi]], which made use of an extensive network of civilian informers.<ref>Gary Bruce, ''The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi'' (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 81-83.</ref> From the 1970's, the main form of political, cultural and religious repression practiced by the Stasi, was a form of 'silent repression'<ref name="Dennis">{{cite book |last1=Mike Dennis |first1=Norman LaPorte |title=State and Minorities in Communist East Germany |date=2011 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-0-857-45-195-8 |page=8 |chapter=The Stasi and Operational Subversion}}</ref> called [[Zersetzung]] ("Decomposition"). This involved the sustained use of covert psychological harassment methods against people, which were designed to cause mental and emotional health problems, and thereby debilitate them and cause them to become socially isolated.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dennis |first1=Mike |title=The Stasi: Myth and Reality |date=2003 |publisher=Pearson Education Limited |isbn=0582414229 |page=112 |chapter=Tackling the enemy: quiet repression and preventive decomposition}}</ref> [[Directed-energy weapons]] are considered by some survivors and analysts to have also been used as a constituent part of Zersetzung methods, although this is not definitely proven.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Krishnan |first1=Armin |title=Military Neuroscience and the Coming Age of Neurowarfare |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-1-315-59542-9 |page=205}}</ref>