The Nazi system of party and state was certainly repressive and highly invasive, but it was almost immediately "normalized" by many people as they began to accept it as part of the structure of everyday life. It is easy enough for us to overlook the many ways in which the population began to count on and even solicit the intervention of the system in their daily lives and to calculate how, by offering information or appealing to certain official values, the "authorities" could be enticed or manipulated "from below" into acting on their behalf . . .

There developed in both German dictatorships [Hitler's and East Germany] a kind of denunciatory atmosphere in which people not only did not shy away from informing but also often used the system to pursue personal goals of their own. But quite apart from the subjective intentions of the men and women who offered information to the secret police, denunciations had multifarious effects. They assisted the police in enforcing both the letter and spirit of the laws, as well as contributing greatly to other official goals, such as control of the population and suppressing opposition (broadly defined). The Gestapo, and later also the Stasi, took very seriously its preventative mission of hindering resistance, and indeed all "political criminality," before it occurred. At the same time as they assisted the functioning of the police, denunciations also played a key role in eliminating the social enclaves that would have allowed people to gather, discuss, and organize resistance. Without denunciations in Nazi Germany, for example, there is no telling how many people might have helped Jews or members of other stigmatized groups or expressed solidarity 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 consequences of citizen informing in the German dictatorships remains a source of unease even now.