East Germans had a name for their version of ‘woke’ culture’; it was Zersetzung, or ‘decomposition’ in English. It was a form of psychological warfare deployed against citizens suspected of ‘subversive incitement’. There were several techniques to Zersetzung but probably the most effective was what the Stasi described as the ‘systematic discrediting of public reputation’ by eroding the ‘self-confidence and self-esteem of a person [to] create fear, panic, confusion’.