of zeppelin was Sonderlage L, a camp established at Blaumau in
Lower Austria, where willing Russian engineers, scientists, and
technicians helped provide important information regarding Soviet
agricultural and industrial production along with dissident activities
in the country. Because the main complex of training facilities had
been evacuated to the region of Marienbad (now Marianske Lazne,
Czech Republic) beginning in late 1944, it was American and British
officials, not the Red Army, who interrogated the surviving zeppelin
personnel the following year. See also WANNSEE INSTITUT.ZERSETZUNGSMASSNAHMEN. During the era of détente the
primary means of combating dissent in the German Democratic
Republic (GDR) by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS),
Zersetzungsmassnahmen (decomposition measures) reflected a
stronger emphasis on psychological rather than physical repres-
sion, along with the possibility of ideological rehabilitation. As set
forth in the 1976 operational guidelines, Zersetzungsmassnahmen
included isolation and disorientation of a target by rumor and de-
ception. The MfS might spread false allegations, for example, of
a person’s excessive drinking, immoral sexual acts, spying for the
West, or professional deficiencies. Harassment could take the form
of frequent late-night phone calls, the repeated delivery of unor-
dered items, and fictitious notices placed in newspapers. Repeated
failures on the job could produce in the target a severe loss of
self-confidence and hence less inclination to engage in subversive
activities. Conversely, rewarding the person with trips to the West
or professional advancement could lead to a compromising situa-
tion and charges of corruption.
While many detailed examples were included in the MfS’s edu-
cational materials, officers were implored to respond “creatively”
to individual cases and not rely on clichéd formulas (the number of
possibilities, it was noted, had “no limit”). Leading religious and
literary figures in the GDR counted among the most frequent targets
of these techniques. Described by the dissident writer Jürgen Fuchs
as “a quiet form of terror,” the Zersetzungsmassnahmen proved ex-
ceedingly difficult to detect and expose as human rights violations
according to the Helsinki Accords of 1976.
ZERSETZUNGSMASSNAHMEN • 519