I suspect this is why there's endless stories, in pretty much every country, of dissidents handing over information to 'enemy states' who are in fact just domestic law enforcement. These people glow to everybody, and no foreign power's going to touch them.
Germany is now finding out the answer to that question, and I expect it's mere foreshadowing for much of the rest of Europe. The exact same happened with the Soviet Union. Gorbachev grew up during the Stalin years, alongside all of the joys that entails. He smiled and nodded all the way until he was at the top in power, at which point he almost immediately set about undermining the systems that had been in place.
That is still bizarre to me, how it was the media mainstream.