Erich Mielke
Erich Mielke | |
---|---|
Minister for State Security | |
In office 11 December 1957 – 7 November 1989 | |
Chairman of the Council of Ministers | See list
|
Deputy | See list
|
Preceded by | Ernst Wollweber |
Succeeded by | Position abolished Wolfgang Schwanitz (as Head of the Office for National Security) |
State Secretary in the Ministry for State Security | |
In office 8 February 1950 – 11 December 1957 Serving with Joseph Gutsche, Ernst Wollweber | |
Minister |
|
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
Member of the Volkskammer for Hohenmölsen, Naumburg, Weißenfels, Zeitz[1] | |
In office 14 June 1981 – 16 November 1989 | |
Preceded by | multi-member district |
Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | Erich Fritz Emil Mielke 28 December 1907 Armeegeneral |
Battles/wars | Spanish Civil War World War II |
Criminal status | Served prison sentence 7 December 1989 – 9 March 1990; 26 July 1990[a] – 1 August 1995, released on parole in 1995 due to poor health |
Conviction(s) | Murder (2 counts), Attempted murder |
Criminal penalty | 6 years imprisonment |
Central institution membership
Other offices held
| |
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (German: [ˈeːʁɪç ˈmiːlkə]; 28 December 1907 – 21 May 2000) was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatsicherheit – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 until shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
A native of
Following the end of
Simon Wiesenthal also called East Germany the most
Throughout the
In addition to his role as head of the Stasi, Mielke was also an
After
Early life
Erich Mielke was born in a
Despite his family's poverty, Mielke was sufficiently academically gifted to be awarded a free
Under the
Until the end of the Republic, the KPD viewed the
Soon after joining the Party, Mielke joined the KPD's paramilitary wing, or Parteiselbstschutz ("Party Self Defense Unit"). At the time, the Parteiselbstschutz in Berlin was commanded by KPD Reichstag Representatives Hans Kippenberger and Heinz Neumann.
According to John Koehler, "Mielke was a special protege of Kippenberger's having taken to his
According to John Koehler, members of the Parteiselbstschutz "served as
According to Koehler, the KPD's Selbstschutz men "always carried a Stahlrute, two steel springs that telescoped into a tube seventeen centimeters long, which when extended became a deadly, 35-centimeter weapon. Not to be outdone by the Nazis, these street-fighters were often armed with pistols as well."[19]
In a 1931 biography written for the Cadre Division of the
Bülowplatz murders
Planning
During the last days of the Weimar Republic, the KPD had a policy of assassinating two Berlin police officers in retaliation for every KPD member killed by the police.[22]
On 2 August 1931, KPD Members of the
Enraged by Ulbricht's words, Kippenberger and Neumann decided to assassinate
According to historian John Koehler, "Of all the policemen in strife-torn Berlin, the reds hated Anlauf the most. His precinct included the area around KPD headquarters, which made it the most dangerous in the city. The captain almost always led the riot squads that broke up illegal rallies of the Communist Party."[24]
On the morning of Sunday 9 August 1931, Kippenberger and Neumann gave a last briefing to the hit-team in a room at the Lassant beer hall. Mielke and Erich Ziemer were selected as the shooters. During the meeting, Max Matern gave a Luger pistol to fellow lookout Max Thunert and said, "Now we're getting serious. We're going to give Schweinebacke something to remember us by."[25]
Kippenberger then asked Mielke and Ziemer, "Are you sure that you are ready to shoot Schweinebacke?"
Kippenberger concluded, "When you spot Schweinebacke and Hussar, you take care of them."[27] Mielke and Ziemer were informed that, after the assassinations were completed, a diversion would assist in their escape. They were then to return to their homes and await further instructions.
That evening, Anlauf was lured to
According to Koehler, "As was often the case when it came to battling the dominant SPD, the KPD and the Nazis had combined forces during the pre-plebiscite campaign. At one point in this particular campaign, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels even shared a speaker's platform with KPD agitator Walter Ulbricht. Both parties wanted the parliament dissolved because they were hoping that new elections would oust the SPD, the sworn enemy of all radicals. That fact explained why the atmosphere was particularly volatile this Sunday."[28]
Murder at the Babylon Cinema
At eight o'clock that evening, Mielke and Ziemer waited in a doorway as Anlauf, Willig, and Captain
As Anlauf turned toward the sound, Mielke and Ziemer opened fire at point blank range. Willig was wounded in the left arm and the stomach. However, he managed to draw his Luger pistol and fired a full magazine at the assailants. Lenck was shot in the chest and fell dead in front of the entrance. Willig crawled over and cradled the head of Anlauf, who was bleeding to death from two bullet wounds in his neck. Before Paul Anlauf died, Sergeant Willig heard the Captain gasp, (German: "Wiedersehen... Gruss...") ("So Long... Goodbye...").[29]
Meanwhile, Mielke and Ziemer made their escape by running into the theater and out an emergency exit. They tossed their pistols over a fence, where they were later found by Homicide Detectives from the elite Mordkommission. Mielke and Ziemer then returned to their homes.[30]
According to Koehler, "Back at Bülowplatz, the killings had triggered a major police action. At least a thousand officers poured into the square, and a bloody street battle ensued. Rocks and bricks were hurled from the rooftops. Communist gunmen fired indiscriminately from the roofs of surrounding apartment houses. As darkness fell, police searchlights illuminated the buildings. Using megaphones, officers shouted, "Clear the streets! Move away from the windows! We are returning fire!" By now the rabble had fled the square, but shooting continued as riot squads combed the tenements, brutally beating and arresting hundreds of residents suspected of having fired weapons. The battle lasted until one o'clock the next morning. In addition to the two police officers, the casualties included one Communist who died of a gunshot wound and seventeen others who were seriously wounded."[31]
Anlauf's wife had died three weeks earlier of kidney failure.[32] The murder of Anlauf thus left their three daughters as orphans. Their oldest daughter was forced to rush her planned wedding in order to keep her sisters from being put in an orphanage.[33] Lenck was survived by his wife.[32] Willig was hospitalized for 14 weeks, but made a full recovery and returned to active duty. In recognition for Willig's courage, the Berlin Police promoted him to Lieutenant.[34]
After the murders, the act was celebrated at the Lichtenberger Hof, a favorite
Fugitive
According to Koehler, "Kippenberger was alarmed when word reached him that Sergeant Willig had survived the shooting. Not knowing whether the sergeant could talk and identify the attackers, Kippenberger was taking no chances. He directed a runner to summon Mielke and Ziemer to his apartment at 74 Bellermannstrasse, only a few minutes walk from where the two lived. When the assassins arrived, Kippenberger told them the news and ordered them to leave Berlin at once. The parliamentarian's wife Thea, an unemployed schoolteacher and as staunch a Communist Party member as her husband, shepherded the young murderers to the
Beginning in 1932, Mielke attended the Comintern's Military Political school under the alias Paul Bach. He later graduated from the
Trial
According to Koehler, "In mid-March 1933, while attending the Lenin School, Mielke received word from his OGPU sponsors that
On 19 June 1934, the 15 conspirators were convicted of
Matern was subsequently glorified as a martyr by KPD and East German propaganda. Ziemer was officially killed in action while fighting on the Republican-side during the Spanish Civil War. Mielke, however, would not face trial for the murders until 1993.
Career in Soviet intelligence
The Great Terror
Although Moscow's German Communist community was decimated during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge,[38] Mielke survived and was promoted.
In a handwritten autobiography prepared after
Among the German communists executed as a result of these "discussions" were Mielke's former mentors Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger.
Mielke further recalled, "I was a guest on the honor
During his time in the USSR, Mielke also developed a lifelong reverence for
In a citation written decades later, Mielke described his philosophy of life, "The Chekist is the political combatant. He is the loyal son of... the workers' class. He stands at the head of the battle to strengthen the power of our workers' and peasants' state."[41]
Spanish Civil War
From 1936 to 1939, Mielke served in Spain as an operative of the
At the time, the S.I.M. was heavily staffed by agents of the Soviet NKVD, whose Spanish
In a 1991 interview,
Upon the defeat of the Spanish Republic, Mielke fled across the Pyrenees Mountains to the
Both the
Mielke's belief in Stalin's official explanation for the defeat, that anti-Stalinists had stabbed the Spanish Republic in the back, continued to shape his attitudes for the rest of his life. In a 1982 speech before a group of senior Stasi officers, Mielke said, "We are not immune from villains among us. If I knew of any already, they wouldn't live past tomorrow. Short shrift. It's because I'm a Humanist, that I'm of this view."[47]
In the same speech, Mielke also said, "All this blithering over to execute or not to execute, for the
World War II
During
Occupied Germany
Komissariat-5
On 25 April 1945, Mielke returned to the
That same month, Mielke's future handler,
On 10 July 1945, Marshal
In an autobiography written for the KPD, Mielke disclosed—truthfully—his involvement in the 1931 murders of
According to Koehler, "As might be expected, Mielke's account of his past was approved by the Soviets. Had Serov not been part of the conspiracy, Mielke would have been instantly arrested or at least subjected to an intense internal investigation because of his membership in the Nazi Organisation Todt, which used thousands of slave laborers. But he was cleared in record time and by the end of June the Soviets had installed him as a station commander of the newly formed Volkspolizei (Vopo), the People's Police."[39]
On 16 August 1947, Serov ordered the creation of Kommissariat 5, the first German
According to Anne Applebaum, however, not everyone approved of the plan. In Moscow, Soviet Interior Minister Viktor Abakumov argued that a new secret police force would be demonized by Western governments and the media, which would paint the K-5 as a "new Gestapo." Furthermore, Abakumov, like Stalin, intensely distrusted German Communists and alleged that there "were not enough German cadres who have been thoroughly checked." Notwithstanding Abakumov's objections, however, recruitment into the K-5 began almost immediately. It is possible, as Norman Naimark suspects, that the NKGB had realized that their officers' lack of fluency in the German language was engendering massive popular resentment.[53]
Wilhelm Zaisser, who had been Mielke's commanding officer in Republican Spain, was appointed the K-5's head. Mielke was installed as his deputy.
According to John Koehler, "The K-5 was essentially an arm of the Soviet secret police. Its agents were carefully selected veteran German communists who had survived the Nazi-era in Soviet exile or in concentration camps and prisons. Their task was to track down Nazis and anti-communists, including hundreds of members of the Social Democratic Party. Mielke and his fellow bloodhounds performed this task with ruthless precision. The number of arrests became so great that the regular prisons could not hold them. Thus, Serov ordered the establishment or re-opening of eleven
According to Anne Applebaum, "One of the few documents from that era to survive (most were removed by the KGB or perhaps destroyed, in 1989 or before) mentions a departmental training meeting and included a list of attendees. Topping the list is a group of Soviet advisers. In this sense, K-5 did resemble the political police in the rest of Eastern Europe: as in Hungary, Poland, and the USSR itself, this new political police force was initially extra-governmental, operating outside the ordinary rule of law."[55]
According to Edward N. Peterson, "Not surprisingly, K-5 acquired a reputation as bad as that of Stalin's secret police and worse than that of the Gestapo. At least with the Nazis, albeit fanatically
The Amalgamation
Despite the K-5's mass arrests of members of the
On 22 April 1946, the remaining leaders of the SPD in the Soviet Zone announced that
John Koehler has written that, prior to the spring of 1946, many Germans in the Soviet Zone, "merely shrugged at the wave of arrests, believing that the victims were former Nazi officials and war criminals." But then came the mass arrests of Social Democrats who opposed the merger, who, "were joined by people who had been denounced for making
Investigation
In January 1947, two retired
According to John Koehler, "At that time, the city administration, including the police, was under the control of the
The Soviet representatives falsely claimed that Kühnast, a jurist with an impeccable
Meanwhile, the Soviet authorities confiscated all documents relating to the murders of Captains Anlauf and Lenck. According to Koehler, "The Soviets handed the court records to Mielke. Instead of destroying the incriminating papers, he locked them in his private safe, where they were found when his home was searched in 1990. They were used against him in his trial for murder."[62]
Deutsche Wirtschaftskommission
In 1948, Mielke was appointed as security chief of the German Economic Commission (German: Deutsche Wirtschaftskommission), the precursor to the future East German government.
Mielke's task was to investigate the theft and sale of state property on the
Those his security forces caught while attempting to defect were used as slave labor in the uranium mines that were providing raw material for the Soviet atomic bomb project.[63]
German Democratic Republic
Independence
In 1949, the Soviet Military Administration ceded its legal functions to the newly created
On 14 January 1950, Marshal
According to John Koehler, "In the five years since the end of World War II, the Soviets and their vassals had arrested between 170,000 and 180,000 Germans. Some 160,000 had passed through the concentration camps, and of these about 65,000 had died, 36,000 had been shipped to the Soviet Gulag, and another 46,000 had been freed."[42]
In 1949, as a response to the remilitarization of East Germany and the Soviet blockade of
According to Koehler, however, "As the Cold War intensified, living conditions in Soviet-occupied East Germany showed little improvement beyond the postwar level of bare subsistence. The new government of the DDR – a mere puppet of the Kremlin – relied more and more on the Stasi to quell discontent among factory workers and farmers. Ulbricht, claiming that the social unrest was fomented by capitalist agents, once ordered Mielke to personally visit one large plant and 'arrest four or five such agents' as an example to the others. The Stasi deputy 'discovered' the agents in record time."[65]
Field show trials
Also in 1949,
At the Rajk show trial, the prosecutor declared, "Noel Field, one of the leaders of American espionage, specialized in recruiting spies from among left-wing elements."[68]
In August 1950, six senior SED members, including Willi Kreikemeyer, the director of Deutsche Reichsbahn and head of Berliner Rundfunk, were accused of "special connections with Noel Field, the American spy." All were either imprisoned or shot.[68]
John Koehler writes, "Similar purges were conducted in
In June 1950, Erica Wallach, Noel Field's adopted daughter, decided to search for him. From
Death of Stalin
After Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin died inside his Kuntsevo Dacha on 5 March 1953, the Central Committee of the East German Socialist Unity Party met in a special session and eulogized the dictator as the "great friend of Germany who was always an advisor of and help to our people."[65]
Two months later, on 5 May 1953, the SED's General Secretary,
Two weeks later, Mielke accused "a group of Party officials" of "plotting against the leadership", which "resulted in more expulsions from the Politburo and the Central Committee."[73]
East German uprising of 1953
Discontent among factory workers about a 10% increase of work quotas without a corresponding wage hike boiled over. On 16 June 1953, nearly one hundred construction workers gathered before work for a protest meeting at
Following West Germany's Federal Minister for All-German Questions Jakob Kaiser's admonition in a late night broadcast to East Germans to shy away from provocations, RIAS, starting with its 11 pm news broadcast, and from then on in hourly intermissions, repeated the workers' demand to continue the strike the next day, calling specifically for all East Berliners to participate in a demo at 7am on the 17th at Strausberger Platz.[75]
Outside of Berlin, the main centres of the protests included the industrial region around Halle, Merseburg, and Bitterfeld, as well as middle-size towns like Jena, Görlitz, and Brandenburg. No more than 25,000 people participated in strikes and demonstrations in Leipzig, but there were 32,000 in Magdeburg, 43,000 in Dresden, 53,000 in Potsdam – and in Halle, a figure close to 100,000.
In
In response to orders, the Soviet Occupation Forces, the Stasi and the Kasernierte Volkspolizei went on the attack. Bloody street battles ensued and hundreds of policemen defected to the side of the protesters. Both police and Stasi stations were overrun and some government offices were sacked. The Party leadership retreated into a fortified compound in the Pankow district of East Berlin.[74]
At noon, the Soviet authorities terminated all tram and metro traffic into the Eastern sector and all but closed the sector borders to West Berlin to prevent more demonstrators from reaching the city centre. An hour later, they declared martial law in East Berlin.[76]
The repression took place outside East Berlin police HQ – where Soviet tanks opened fire on "the insurgents".
According to John Koehler, "... by late afternoon, Soviet tanks accompanied by infantry and
Fighting between the Red Army (and later GDR police) and the demonstrators persisted into the afternoon and night. In some cases, the tanks and the soldiers fired directly into the crowds.
Overnight, the Soviets (and the Stasi) started to arrest hundreds of people. Ultimately, up to 10,000 people were detained and at least 20, probably as many as 40, people were executed, including Red Army soldiers who refused to obey orders. With the SED leadership effectively paralysed at the Soviet headquarters in Karlshorst, control of the city passed to the Soviets.[78]
In honor of the uprising,
According to John Koehler, "Provisional prison camps were set up to hold the thousands of Stasi victims. Nearly 1,500 persons were sentenced in secret trials to long prison terms. On 24 June, Mielke issued a terse announcement that one Stasi officer, nineteen demonstrators, and two bystanders had been killed during the uprising. He did not say how many were victims of official lynching. The numbers of the wounded were given as 191 policemen, 126 demonstrators, and 61 bystanders."[79]
Also according to Koehler, "Calm returned to the streets of the Soviet Zone, yet escapes to the West continued at a high rate. Of the 331,390 who fled in 1953, 8,000 were members of the Kasernierte Volkspolizei, the barracked people's police units, which were actually the secret cadre of the future East German Army. Also among the escapees were 2,718 members and candidates of the SED, the ruling Party."[79]
The Khrushchev thaw
Purges
Alarmed by the uprising,
In response to the uprising, Beria decided to replace several hundred MVD officers, including
Following Beria's return to Moscow, however, he was arrested on 26 June 1953, in a
In an interview to Neues Deutschland, the official party newspaper of East Germany, on 30 June 1953, the Party's Minister of Justice, Max Fechner, declared that, "illegal arrests," had been made and that being a member of a strike committee or suspicion of being a ringleader was not in itself grounds for arrest and conviction.[79]
Meanwhile, when the East German Politburo met on 8 July, it seemed that Ulbricht would be deposed as Party General Secretary. Zaisser conceded that the whole Politburo was responsible for the "accelerated construction of socialism" and of the subsequent fallout. But he also added that to leave Ulbricht as Premier, "would be opposed catastrophic for the New Course".[81]
By the end of the meeting, only two Politburo members still supported Ulbricht's leadership: Free German Youth League chief Erich Honecker and Party Control Commission Chairman Hermann Matern. Ulbricht only managed to forestall a decision then and there with a promise to make a statement at the forthcoming 15th SED CC Plenum, scheduled for later that month.[81]
Meanwhile, Mielke informed a Party commission looking for scapegoats that his boss, Stasi Minister Wilhelm Zaisser, was calling for secret negotiations with West Germany and that, "he believed the Soviet Union would abandon the DDR."[82]
By late July, Ulbricht was completely certain that he had the support of the new Soviet First Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev. Therefore, he expelled his main opponents, Zaisser, Hernstadt and Ackermann, from the Politburo, and thus strengthened his position further.[83]
SED Minister of Justice Max Fechner was personally arrested by Mielke and replaced by Hilde Benjamin, who was known to East German citizens as "Red Hilde", "The Red Freisler," and as, "The Red Guillotine," for her role as a judge in the SED's show trials.[79]
Fechner was convicted of being, "an enemy of the Party and the State," and served three years in Bautzen Prison.[82]
Wilhelm Zaisser was replaced as head of the Stasi by Ernst Wollweber and Mielke remained on staff as his deputy.[82]
Tenure as Stasi head
Mielke headed the
Internal discipline
During his tenure, Mielke enforced "political and personal discipline reminiscent of the early French Foreign Legion". New recruits were required to take a solemn oath pledging "to fight alongside the state security organs of all socialist countries against all enemies of socialism" on pain of "the severest punishment under the Republic's laws and the contempt of the workers."[86] Recruits were also required to sign a security pledge vowing never to make unauthorized visits to any "capitalist countries" and to report on any members of their families who did so.[87]
Violations of the oath resulted in expulsion from the Stasi and
Domestic activities
Under Erich Mielke's leadership, the Stasi employed 85,000 full-time domestic spies and 170,000 civilian informants (German: inoffizielle Mitarbeiter) (IMs). East Germans coined a term to describe the Stasi's pervasive surveillance of the population: "blanket coverage" (German: flächendeckend).[86] For this reason, Anna Funder has referred to East Germany as, "the most perfected surveillance state of all time."[47]
According to John Koehler, "...the Stasi's tentacles probed every aspect of life. Full-time officers were posted to all major industrial plants. Without exception, one
In an interview with journalist Anna Funder, an ex-Stasi officer recalled, "Most often, people we approached would inform for us. It was very rare that they would not. And even if they didn’t, we’d beat them so hard with sticks that they would think twice before not informing. However, sometimes we felt that we might need to know where their weak points were, just in case. For example, if we wanted a pastor, we'd find out if he'd had an affair, or had a drinking problem—things that we could use as leverage. Mostly though, people said yes."[90]
On Mielke's orders, and with his full knowledge, Stasi officers also engaged in arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, brutal harassment of political dissidents, torture, and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of citizens.
In a 1991 interview,
Activities abroad
During Mielke's tenure, the Stasi's operations beyond East Germany were overseen by
Mielke and Wolf provided money, training, and surveillance equipment to help build pro-Soviet
After the opening of Stasi archives, it was further revealed that West Germany was riddled with MfS-HVA moles. In what John Koehler has dubbed, "The Invisible Invasion", some West German citizens collaborated out of Marxist beliefs, but others were recruited through blackmail, bribery, career frustrations, or sexual favors provided by Stasi operatives.[102]
Another tactic was for Stasi
Senior politicians from the
The 1974 arrest and exposure of Günter Guillaume, a highly placed Stasi mole inside the Social Democratic Party, resulted in the resignation of West Germany Chancellor Willy Brandt and the discrediting of the latter's policy of Ostpolitik.
Mielke and Wolf also seriously compromised West Germany's police departments,
The Stasi also compromised the
who volunteered his services to Soviet and East German intelligence in November 1981.Sergeant Hall sold the Stasi 13,088 pages of classified documents,
In 1988, Sergeant Hall was tricked into confessing his espionage career to an
Collusion with Nazism
Beginning in 1960, Erich Mielke and Markus Wolf, who was ironically of
According to
In a 1991 interview with John Koehler,
Support for paramilitary and terrorist groups
During a 1979 visit to the GDR by senior
With this in mind, Mielke ordered the Stasi to finance, arm, and train, "urban guerrillas," from numerous countries. According to former Stasi Colonel
Other Stasi agents worked as
Colonel Wiegand revealed that Mielke and Wolf provided bodyguards from the Stasi's counter-terrorism division for
During the 1980s, Wiegand secretly blackmailed a
According to John Koehler, "Murder,
The Peaceful Revolution
According to John Koehler, "Increasingly concerned over the growing popular opposition, Stasi Minister Mielke early in 1989 ordered the creation of a special elite unit for crushing disturbances. Its personnel were carefully selected members of the counterespionage and counterterrorism directorate. They were equipped with special batons similar to electric
On 9 September 1989, Mielke visited the match between
40th anniversary of the GDR
As the fortieth anniversary of the GDR approached, Mielke ordered, "We must stop the internal enemy. At the least hint of a disturbance of the celebration, isolate and arrest them."[137]
One former Stasi Major recalled, "We mixed inconspicuously with the demonstrators, accompanied by our IMs. Hundreds of us stood at the sides of the street in order to stop any activity before it got started. We barely got any sleep toward the end. Never did I sense that the people were afraid of the MfS. The Stasi was more afraid of the people than the people were of them."[138]
According to Koehler, "Despite the unrest, the regime celebrated its fortieth with a huge, pompous ceremony in Berlin on 7 October, while tens of thousands of outside the ornate building of the State Council. The People's Police cordons were utterly ineffectual. As Stasi Minister Erich Mielke drove up and was greeted by General Günter Kratsch, the counterintelligence chief, Mielke screamed at police: "Club those pigs into submission!"[139] (German: "Hau sie doch zusammen, die Schweine!")[140] The police ignored Mielke's ranting.[141]
As more and more East Germans were arrested for protesting the 40th anniversary celebrations, many of them sang The Internationale in Vopo and Stasi custody to imply that they, rather than their captors, were the real working class and the real revolutionaries.
According to Anna Funder, "There was a sea of red flags, a torchlight procession, and tanks. The old men on the podium wore light-grey suits studded with medals. Mikhail Gorbachev stood next to Honecker, but he looked uncomfortable among the much older Germans. He had come to tell them that it was over, to convince the leadership to adopt his reformist policies. He had spoken openly about the danger of not 'responding to reality.' He pointedly told the Politburo that, 'life punishes those who come too late.' Honecker and Mielke ignored him, just as they ignored the crowds when they chanted, "Gorby, help us! Gorby, help us!"[142]
Plan X
On 8 October 1989, Mielke and Honecker ordered the Stasi to implement "Plan X"—the SED's plan to arrest and indefinitely detain 85,939 East Germans during a
By 1984, 23 sites had been selected for "isolation and internment camps." Those who were to be imprisoned in them ran into six categories, including anyone who had ever been under surveillance for anti-state activities, including all members of peace movements which were not under Stasi control.[145]
According to Anna Funder, "The plans contained exact provisions for the use of all available prisons and camps, and when those were full for the conversion of other buildings: Nazi detention centers, schools, hospitals, and factory holiday hostels. Every detail was foreseen, from where the doorbell was located on the house of each person to be arrested to the adequate supply of barbed wire and the rules of dress and etiquette in the camps ..."[146]
However, when Mielke sent the orders, codenamed "Shield" (
Toppling Honecker
Even as orders were going out to implement Plan X, Mielke had already thrown his support behind a faction in the SED's Politburo that sought to oust Honecker. Although Mielke was of the same generation as Honecker and had matured in an environment where following orders was the rule, he was sober enough and politically savvy enough to realize this approach no longer worked.[148] During a session on 10 October 1989, Mielke delivered a report attacking Honecker's desire to violently suppress the demonstrations rather than implement Glasnost and Perestroika in the GDR.
In what Edward N. Peterson has called "a remarkable disclaimer of responsibility for the violence," Mielke declared that Honecker's orders to the Stasi "were built on false situation judgments." He added that Honecker's commands on 7 and 8 October "were false and undifferentiated condemnations of those who think differently. Despite this evaluation, there was never any instructions to use violence against persons. There is nothing in our basic principles to consider a demonstration as part of a possible
Mielke also claimed that "the Party judged the situation falsely. We tried to tell them the true situation, but enough was not done." Mielke argued in favor of solving the demonstrations politically and giving "every DDR citizen the right to travel."[150]
On 17 October 1989, Mielke and the rest of the GDR's Politburo met to follow Gorbachev's demand, voiced in August, to remove Honecker as General Secretary of the SED and State Council chairman.[151] Suspecting that Honecker's personal bodyguards might try to arrest the members of the Central Committee when they met to vote Honecker out in favour of Egon Krenz, Mielke saw to it that Stasi agents who were loyal to him were stationed near the meeting room.[152] While deliberations were underway, Mielke told Honecker that "we simply cannot start shooting with tanks," and tried to impress upon Honecker that it was "the end".[153]
After the vote to oust Honecker passed, Mielke "got nasty," and accused Honecker of corruption. Honecker responded that Mielke should not open his mouth so much.[154] Mielke responded by putting the last nail into Honecker's coffin. He announced that the Stasi had a file on the now-ousted Premier. It contained proof of Honecker's corrupt business practices, allegedly deviant sexual activities, and how, as a member of the underground Communist Party of Germany during the Nazi years, he had been arrested by the Gestapo and had named names.[154]
To the shock of both the Politburo and the Stasi, Krenz's first televised addresses failed to win popular support. Despite his assurances that the SED was at last ready to embrace Gorbachev's reformist policies, Krenz's approval ratings remained extremely low.[155]
Former Politburo member Günter Schabowski later recalled, "We made a palace revolution without offering a real alternative... We had not quickly and thoroughly enough whittled away from Stalin's methods."[154]
Defeat
On 7 November 1989, Mielke resigned, along with eleven out of eighteen members of the SED's
Two days later, Schabowski announced on television that the east–west border was open without restriction.[156]
According to Anna Funder, there was panic at Stasi Headquarters in
According to
Televised humiliation
On 13 November 1989, Mielke was summoned to deliver a briefing about the protests to the GDR parliament, or Volkskammer. Formerly a "rubber stamp parliament," the disintegration of the SED's power had allowed the Volkskammer to begin exercising real authority over the GDR. Therefore, Mielke, as the head of the Stasi (known as the "shield and sword of the [SED] party"), was summoned before the newly empowered parliament to justify his position in government.
As his speech was broadcast live, Mielke began by using overly bombastic, flag-waving language, saying "We have, comrades, dear assembly members, an extraordinarily high amount of contact with all working people." (German: "Wir haben, Genossen, liebe Abgeordnete, einen außerordentlich hohen Kontakt zu allen werktätigen Menschen.")[159] To his shock, the Volkskammer responded with boos, whistles, catcalls and chants of “Go to prison, murderer!” (German: "Geh ins Gefängnis, Mörder!").
His face grief-stricken and pale, Mielke then tried to defuse the situation, "Yes, we have such contact, let me tell you— let me tell you why. I am not afraid to stand here and to give you an unbiased answer." (German: "Ja, wir haben den Kontakt, ihr werdet gleich hören— ihr werdet gleich hören, warum. Ich fürchte mich nicht, ohne Rededisposition hier Antwort zu stehen.") Mielke continued, speaking of the "triumph" of the socialist economy, continuing all the while to address the members of the Volkskammer as "Comrades" (German: "Genossen"). In response, Volkskammer member Dietmar Czok of the Christian Democratic Union, rose from his seat and raised his hand. The Volkskammer's president, Günther Maleuda, interrupted and shouted at Mielke telling him to “Shut your mouth!” (German: ”Den Mund halten!”). Maleuda then allowed Czok to speak.
With his voice dripping with contempt, Czok told Mielke, "As a point of order, I will not tell you this again. There are more people sitting in this Chamber than just your Comrades!"[159] (German: "Zur Geschäftsordnung: Ich bitte doch endlich dafür zu sorgen. In dieser Kammer sitzen nicht nur Genossen!"). In response, many in the Volkskammer burst into applause, cheers, and shouts of "We are not your Comrades!" (German: "Wir sind nicht deine Genossen!") and "Go to prison, murderer!" (German: "Geh ins Gefängnis, Mörder!").
Trying to appear magnanimous, Mielke responded, "This is a natural, humanistic question! This is just a question of formality." (German: Das ist doch nur 'ne natürliche, menschliche Frage! Das ist doch nur eine formale Frage!"), leading to further shouts of displeasure from the members of the Volkskammer. In a last ditch effort, Mielke "raised his arms like an evangelist,"[160] and cried, "I love all— all humanity! I really do! I'm committed to it!" (German: "Ich liebe— Ich liebe doch alle— alle Menschen! Na liebe doch! Ich setze mich doch dafür ein!")[161]
Everyone in the room, including staunch SED members such as Egon Krenz and Günter Schabowski, burst out laughing, with some also pointing at him or making obscene gestures. Mielke then stormed off the podium, angrily throwing his speech to the floor and stomping on the papers while swearing at everyone in German. John Koehler later wrote, "Mielke was finished."[160] Mielke shortly thereafter hyperventilated and was rushed to Charity Hospital located next to the Berlin Wall. He was later transferred to the Soviet military hospital at Wunsdorf, where he was sedated and treated under guard.[162]
Mielke's address to the Volkskammer remains the most famous broadcast in the history of German television. Anna Funder has written, "When they think of Mielke, East Germans like to think of this."[163]
The Fall
On 17 November 1989, the Volkskammer renamed the MfS the Amt für Nationale Sicherheit (AfNS – Office for National Security). The following day, Mielke's tenure in office ended when the Volkskammer appointed Generalleutnant Wolfgang Schwanitz as the new director of the AfNS.
On 1 December 1989 the Volkskammer revoked the clause of the GDR constitution that declared the GDR to be a socialist state under the leadership of the SED, formally ending Communist rule in East Germany.[155] Two days later, the SED announced that Mielke's party membership had been permanently revoked. Years later, he lamented, "Millions have died for nothing. Everything we fought for – it has all amounted to nothing."[164] He also said, "If the party had given me the task, then there would perhaps still be a GDR today. On that you can rely."[165]
Prosecution
Indictments
On 7 December 1989, Erich Mielke was arrested and taken into
Mielke was released on 9 March 1990 for being unfit for imprisonment. However, he would be imprisoned again three months later.[168][173] In May 1990, the East German Attorney general took over the investigation. On 26 July 1990, Mielke was arrested again.[170] Mielke was now indicted for ordering the shootings of defectors at the Berlin Wall. He would also be charged with misuse of office, breach of trust, and incitement to pervert the course of justice. Mielke spent time at the Rummelsburg prison and then at the Plötzensee Prison, before he was sent to the Moabit Prison, where he would remain for a longer time.[174]
In the meanwhile, the
Bülowplatz trial
In February 1992, Mielke was put on trial for the 1931
During his trial, Mielke appeared increasingly senile, admitting his identity but otherwise remaining silent, taking naps, and showing little interest in the proceedings. In a widely publicized incident, Mielke appeared to mistake the presiding judge for a prison barber.
After twenty months of one-and-a-half-hour daily sessions, Erich Mielke was convicted on two counts of murder and one of attempted murder. On 26 October 1993, a panel of three judges and two jurors sentenced him to six years' imprisonment. At his sentencing, Mielke started to cry. In pronouncing sentence, Judge Theodor Seidel, told Mielke that he "will go down in history as one of the most fearsome dictators and police ministers of the 20th century."[181]
Imprisonment
In one of the highly anticipated of the Mauerschützenprozesse , Mielke was then put on trial for ordering the shootings of East Germans who were trying to defect to the West. In November 1994, the presiding judge adjourned the proceedings, ruling that Mielke was not mentally competent to stand trial.[179]
During his incarceration, at JVA Moabit corrections officers supplied Mielke with a red telephone like the one in his office at Stasi Headquarters. Although it was not connected to the outside world, Mielke enjoyed having imaginary conversations with non-existent Stasi agents. His other favorite pastime was watching game shows on television.[181]
In 1995, parole officers and Mielke's attorneys argued that he was "totally confused" and obtained his release. At 87 years of age, Erich Mielke was Germany's oldest prison inmate[179][182] and had been incarcerated for 1,904 days.[183] Days before his release, the Public Prosecutor of Berlin announced that he was "not interested in chasing an 87-year-old man anymore" and that all further prosecution of Mielke had been indefinitely suspended. In an interview with John O. Koehler, former Stasi political prisoner Werner Juretzko commented resignedly about the leniency the post-1989 German legal system has shown to East German officials who were guilty of crimes against humanity, "I guess the Germans have lost their balls."[184]
According to Koehler, "[Mielke's] bank account, which held more than 300,000
Koehler continued, "After he was released from prison Mielke was obliged to move into a two-room, 55-square-meter flat. Like all Stasi
Death
Erich Mielke died on 21 May 2000, aged 92, in a Berlin nursing home in Neu-Hohenschönhausen.[189] After being cremated at the crematorium in Meissen,[190] an urn containing Mielke's ashes was buried in an unmarked grave at the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde in Berlin. An estimated 100 people reportedly attended the funeral. Erich Mielke's grave is outside the memorial section established at the entrance in 1951 by East German leaders for communist heroes.[191] Within hours of his funeral, the flowers and wreaths left at Mielke's grave were ripped to shreds by persons unknown.[192]
Legacy
Writing in 2003,
In 2012, the museum at the former Stasi headquarters opened Mielke's office as a permanent exhibit. Soon after, The Guardian correspondent Tam Eastley visited the exhibit and numerous sites in Berlin connected to Mielke's life, times, and legacy. When she visited Mielke's grave, Eastley found that it had become a shrine for adherents of Ostalgie.[194]
Sports
East Germany had the world's smallest ice hockey league for a long time.[201] The sport was demoted in 1970 following the 1969 Competitive Sports Resolution (German: Leistungssportbeschluss).[202][203] Ice hockey was considered too expensive in relation to the expected medal yield.[201][203][202] Funding for ice hockey was halted and the DDR-Oberliga risked being shut down. However, ice hockey enthusiast Mielke intervened against this development to ensure that the sport could continue.[204][203][197][205][206] As a result, a compromise was reached and the DDR-Oberliga was allowed to continue operate with two teams affiliated to SV Dynamo: SC Dynamo Berlin and SG Dynamo Weißwasser.[202][197][206]
Mielke worked to preserve ice hockey in East Germany and defended the sport on several occasions against the President of the German Gymnastics and Sports Federation (DTSB) Manfred Ewald. Mielke is said to have said the following to Ewald in 1986: "I know, comrade Ewald, that you are against ice hockey, but I am for it. It's a beautiful sport that inspires the masses and the players too, and that's why they should play".[207] The DDR-Oberliga continued to operate as a championship between SC Dynamo Berlin and SG Dynamo Weißwasser until 1990.[204][201] Both teams survived the end of East Germany and were eventually admitted into the 1990–91 Bundesliga.[200]
Personal life
Erich Mielke was a fitness enthusiast, a non-smoker, and drank very little. He was a keen hunter and owned a large area of ground where he would hunt animals with other East German and visiting Soviet officials.
During the late 1940s, when Mielke was working as security chief of the DWK, he began a relationship with Gertrud Mueller, a seamstress. On 18 December 1948, shortly after the birth of their son Frank Mielke, Erich and Gertrud married in a civil ceremony in the
According to the newspaper Bild, the Mielkes adopted an orphaned girl named Ingrid, who was born in 1950. Like the Mielkes' son Frank, Ingrid Mielke attended the Wilhelm Pieck School. She ultimately became a captain in the Stasi and married a Stasi Lieutenant named Norbert Knappe. As of 1999, the Knappes had both refused to grant an interview to Bild reporters.[62]
In popular culture
Erich Mielke has appeared as a character in both films and novels set in the GDR.
- State of Israel, which he compares with his own activities against the Weimar Republic and the Nazis. The RAF members are then brought to a training camp, where Stasi agents instruct them in the use of grenade launchers and other kinds of military hardware. Mielke's name is never disclosed and Agent Hull addresses him only as, "Comrade General." (German: "Genosse General.")
- firing squadif he fails to identify and arrest the article's author.
- In CIA plot to abduct Mielke from East Berlin.[209]
- Jens Becker and Maarten van der Duin's docudrama Erich Mielke - Master Of Fear (2015) focuses on Mielke's personality, his role in the creation of the Stasi and his work as a minister. The film depicts Mielke at the height of his power in 1989, as well as his imprisonment in 1991. In the film, Mielke is portrayed by German actor Kaspar Eichel.
- Mielke is portrayed by Gunnar Helm in the German TV Series Kleo (2022), where he is shown to have been killed in 1990 by the protagonist, a former Stasi agent who blames him for being framed up and imprisoned.
Honours and awards
Mielke received a large number of awards and commemorative medals from organisations within the German Democratic Republic and from allied states. A more complete list is available (in German) at Liste der Orden und Ehrenzeichen des Erich Mielke.
- Awards of the German Democratic Republic
- Patriotic Order of Merit in gold (7 October 1954)
- Six Orders of Karl Marx (28 December 1957, 20 November 1973, 1 December 1975, 28 December 1977, 28 June 1982, 28 December 1982)
- Twice Hero of Labour of the GDR (5 October 1964, 24 February 1968)
- Twice Hero of the GDR (1 December 1975, 28 December 1982)
- Banner of Labour (8 May 1960)
- Medal for Exemplary Border Service (26 April 1956)
- Medal for Faithful Service in the National People's Army;
- Bronze (7 October 1957)
- Silver (8 February 1959)
- Gold (1 July 1960)
- Gold for 20 years service (8 February 1965)
- Medal for Fighters Against Fascism (6 September 1958)
- Gold Medal of Merit of the National People's Army(1 March 1957)
- Scharnhorst Order, twice (25 September 1979, 7 October 1984)
- Awards of the Soviet Union
- Hero of the Soviet Union (25 December 1987)
- Four Orders of Lenin(12 June 1973, 28 December 1982, 1 April 1985, 28 December 1987)
- Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (6 May 1970)
- Four Orders of the Red Banner (23 October 1958, 5 February 1968, 28 December 1977, February 1980)
- Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Soviet Militia" (20 December 1967)
- Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary since the Birth of Vladimir Il'ich Lenin"(1970)
- Medal "For Distinction in Guarding the State Border of the USSR" (6 January 1970)
- Order of the October Revolution (February 1975)
- Other states
- Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria, 28 December 1982)
- Order of Friendship (Czechoslovakia) (28 December 1982)
- Order of the Red Star (Czechoslovakia) (16 November 1970)
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H. hat neben Manfred Ewald u. Erich Mielke die Sportpolitik der DDR maßgebl. geprägt
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- ^ Dobbert, Steffen (2 September 2009). "Schicksale des DDR-Fußballs". Die Zeit (in German). Hamburg: Zeit Online GmbH. Retrieved 10 March 2022.
- ^ "Jubiläum: BFC Dynamo wird 50 Jahre alt". B.Z. (in German). Berlin: B.Z. Ullstein GmbH. 15 January 2016. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
- ^ a b Schulz, Jürgen (13 August 1990). "Mit heißen Tränen aufs eiskalte Parkett". Die Tageszeitung (in German). Berlin: taz Verlags u. Vertriebs GmbH. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
- ^ a b c Kresge, Naomi (24 December 2007). "Berlin's Polar bears migrate westwards". Reuters. Toronto: Thomson Reuters Corporation. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
- ^ a b c Feldvoß, René (20 September 2017). "Dynamo gegen den Rest der Republik: Das DDR-Eishockey im Wiedervereinigungsprozess". bpb.de (in German). Bonn: Federal Agency for Civic Education. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
- ^ a b c Bollwahn, Barbara (1 September 2003). ""Die wollen nur spielen"". Die Tageszeitung (in German). Berlin: taz Verlags u. Vertriebs GmbH. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
- ^ a b Völker, Markus (14 October 2002). "Warum es die Eisbären Berlin ohne die Stasi gar nicht geben würde". Die Tageszeitung (in German). Berlin: taz Verlags u. Vertriebs GmbH. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
- ^ Kleiner, John Paul (9 April 2014). "Hockey Night in Hohenschönhausen: Dieter Frenzel and East German Ice Hockey". The GDR Objectified (gdrobjectified.wordpress.com). Toronto: John Paul Kleiner. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
- ^ a b Farkas, Christoph (29 December 2015). "Die kleinste Liga der Welt". Die Zeit (in German). Hamburg: Zeit Online GmbH. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
- ^ Völker, Markus (14 October 2002). "Warum es die Eisbären Berlin ohne die Stasi gar nicht geben würde". Die Tageszeitung (in German). Berlin: taz Verlags u. Vertriebs GmbH. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
Es gibt grotesk anmutende Protokolle der Gespräche zwischen Mielke und seinem Schergen Ewald. 'Ich weiß, Genosse Ewald', belehrte Mielke sein Gegenüber im März 1986, 'dass du gegen Eishockey bist, aber ich bin dafür. Es ist ein schöner Sport, der die Massen begeistert und auch die Spieler, und deshalb sollen sie spielen', sagte er mit der gleichen Einfalt, die in seinem berühmten, vor der Volkskammer gefallenen Satz 'Ich liebe euch doch alle'lag.
- ^ Koehler (1999), pages 54–55.
- ^ Book Review: Philip Kerr's 'Field Gray', The Washington Post, 24 April 2011.
- ^ Mielke was sentenced on 26 October 1993, but had been imprisoned in pre-trial detention from 7 December 1989 to 9 March 1990, when he was briefly released due to poor health, and from 26 July 1990 onward. In Germany, pre-trial detention counts towards the eventual time served.
Further reading
- Buckley, Jr., William F. (2004), The Fall of the Berlin Wall, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- Funder, Anna (2003), Granta Books, London.
- Koehler, John O. (1999). Stasi: The Inside Story of the East German Secret Police. West View Press. ISBN 0-8133-3409-8.
- Kerr, Philip (2011). Field Grey. Quercus. ISBN 978-1-84916-414-6.
- Kießling, Wolfgang (1998). Leistner ist Mielke. Schatten einer gefälschten Biographie (in German). Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag. ISBN 3-7466-8036-0.
- Kuchel, Dany (2011) "Le Glaive et le Bouclier", une histoire de la Stasi en France.
- Otto, Wilfriede, Erich Mielke, Biographie: Aufstieg und Fall eines Tschekisten. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-320-01976-1.
- Peterson, Edward N. (2002). The Secret Police and the Revolution: The Fall of the German Democratic Republic, ISBN 0-275-97328-X
- Pickard, Ralph (2007). ISBN 978-0-9797199-0-5
- Pickard, Ralph (2012). STASI Decorations and Memorabilia Volume II. Frontline Historical Publication. ISBN 978-0-9797199-2-9