Departing from juridical and criminological discourses of the East German communist dictatorship, the article analyses the category "asoziale Lebensweise" (asocial way of life) and its function for state socialist authority. In continuity with both racist and stalinist conceptions of the social alien, "asocial" served as a stigma to inform legal and welfare procedures of social exclusion and inclusion within GDR society. Aimed at those unwilling or unable to make their living through "regular" gainful employment, dealing with "asocials" implied the permanent involvement of "normal" GDR citizens into the re-education of their deviant co-citizens.