Post #1770945

https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/217/articles/96JMHGellatelyGestapoStasi.pdf (PDF, sorry) At the same time as they assisted the functioning of the police, denuncia- tions also played a key role in eliminating the social enclaves that would have allowed people to gather, discuss, and organize resistance. Without denuncia- tions in Nazi Germany, for example, there is no telling how many people might have helped Jews or members of other stigmatized groups or expressed solidar- ity with them. Insofar as denunciations and institutionalized informing made the Gestapo and Stasi myths come alive, they had a devastating effect on all forms of disobedience, much less resistance. Evidence of the extent and conse- quences of citizen informing in the German dictatorships remains a source of unease even now.