Erich Mielke
Encyclopedia
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (December 28, 1907 – May 21, 2000) was a German
communist politician and Minister of State Security—and as such head of the Stasi
(secret police
)—of the German Democratic Republic between 1957 and 1989. Mielke spent more than a decade as an operative of the NKVD
during the rule of Joseph Stalin
. He was one of the perpetrators of the Great Purge
as well as the Stalinist decimation of the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War
.
Following the 1945 Battle of Berlin
, Mielke returned to Germany
and had a major role in organizing the Soviet Zone into a dictatorship
under the Socialist Unity Party
. For nearly fifty years, he held the military rank of Armeegeneral
. After German reunification
, he was tried and convicted of murdering police officers Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck in 1931.
Mielke became a member of the Communist Party of Germany
in 1925 and worked as a reporter for the communist newspaper Rote Fahne from 1928 to 1931. He then joined the Parteiselbstschutz ("Party Self Defense Unit").
According to John Koehler,
Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger received a dressing down from Walter Ulbricht
, the Party's leader in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Enraged by police interference, Ulbricht snarled, "At home in Saxony
we would have done something about the police a long time ago. Here in Berlin we will not fool around much longer. Soon we will hit the police in the head."
Enraged by Ulbricht's words, Kippenberger and Neumann decided to target Captain Paul Anlauf, the forty-two year old commander of the Seventh Precinct. Captain Anlauf, a widower with three daughters, had been nicknamed Schweinebacke, or "Pig Face" by the KPD. According to John Koehler,
On the morning of Sunday August 9, 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 a fellow lookout and said, "Now we're getting serious... We're going to give Schweinebacke something to remember us by."
Kippenberger then asked Mielke and Ziemer, "Are you sure that you are ready to shoot Schweinebacke?" Mielke responded that he had seen Captain Anlauf many times during police searches of Party Headquarters. Kippenberger then instructed them to wait at a nearby beer hall which would permit them to overlook the entire Bülow-Platz. He further reminded them that Captain Anlauf was accompanied everywhere by Senior Sergeant Max Willig, who the KPD had nicknamed, "Hussar
."
Kippenberger concluded, "When you spot Schweinebacke and Hussar, you take care of them." After the assassinations were completed, Mielke and Ziemer were informed that a diversion would assist in their escape. They were then to return to their homes and await further instructions.
That evening, Captain Anlauf was lured to Bülow-Platz by a violent rally demanding the dissolution of the Prussian Parliament. According to John Koehler,
At eight o'clock that evening, Mielke and Ziemer, spotted Captain Anlauf, Sergeant Willig, and Captain Franz Lenck walking in front of the Babylon Cinema, which was located at the corner of Bülowplatz and Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße. As they reached the door of the movie house, the policemen heard someone scream, "Schweinebacke!"
As Captain Anlauf turned towards the sound, Mielke and Ziemer opened fire at point blank range. Sergeant Willig was wounded in the left arm and the stomach. However, he managed to draw his Luger and fired a full clip at the assailants. Captain Franz Lenck was shot in the chest and fell dead in front of the entrance. Willig crawled over to Captain Anlauf, who had taken two bullets in the neck. As his life drained away, the Captain gasped, "Wiedersehen... Gruss..." ("So Long... Goodbye...") Meanwhile, Mielke and Ziemer made their escape.
After the murders, the act was celebrated at the Lichtenberger Hof, a favorite with the Rotfrontkämpferbund
, where Mielke boasted: "Today we're here to celebrate a trick I pulled." .
According to John Koehler,
Mielke would later claim falsely that he had been convicted of the murders in absentia
in a German court. Three other German communists were arrested for these murders, convicted, and received the death penalty, among them Max Matern
.
In the aftermath, Captain Anlauf's oldest daughter was forced to drastically rush her planned wedding in order to keep her sisters out of an orphanage
. Max Matern was subsequently glorified as a martyr
by KPD and East German propaganda
. Ziemer was officially killed in action while fighting for the Second Spanish Republic
. Mielke, however, would not face trial for the murders until 1993.
's Military Political school and later the Lenin School and was subsequently recruited into the NKVD
. Although Moscow's German Communist community was decimated during Joseph Stalin
's Great Purge
, Mielke survived and was promoted. In a handwritten biography prepared after World War II
, Mielke recalled,
Among the German communists executed during the Great Purge were Mielke's former mentors Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger.
. While attached to the staff of future Stasi minister Wilhelm Zaisser
, Mielke used the alias Fritz Leissner.
At the time, the S.I.M. was heavily staffed by agents of the Soviet NKVD, whose Spanish rezident was General Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov. According to author Donald Rayfield
,
Walter Janka, a German communist and company commander in the International Brigade, was repeatedly interrogated by Mielke, who falsely accused him of spying for the Falangists. In an interview years later, Janka recalled:
After the defeat of the Spanish Republic, Mielke fled to France and was interned with thousands of his comrades. However, he soon escaped and returned to the Soviet Union.
During World War II
, Mielke's movements remain mysterious. In a biography written after the war, he claimed to have infiltrated Organisation Todt
under the alias Richard Hebel. Historian John O. Koehler considers this unlikely, however.
Koehler admits, however,
In 1945 Mielke was returned to Germany by the Soviet authorities as a police inspector, with a mandate to build up a security force which would ensure the dominance of the Communist Party in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. Mielke was a protege of NKGB General Ivan Serov
, who was headquartered at the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst
. On August 16, 1947, Serov ordered the creation of Kommissariat 5, the first German political police since the defeat of Nazi Germany
. Wilhelm Zaisser
was appointed the organization's head and Mielke as installed as his deputy.
According to John Koehler,
, the policemen demanded that Mielke be arrested and prosecuted for the murders of Captains Anlauf and Lenck. Prosecutor Wilhelm Kühnast of the Kammergericht
was immediately informed and ordered a search of the archives. To his astonishment, the files of the 1931 murders had survived the wartime bombing of Germany. Finding ample evidence of Mielke's involvement, Kühnast ordered the arrest of the communist policeman.
According to John Koehler,
The Soviet representatives falsely claimed that Kühnast, a longtime anti-Nazi, had been an official of Roland Freisler
's People's Court. As a result, the Western Allies agreed to remove Kühnast from his position and placed him under house arrest
. During the Berlin airlift, Kühnast escaped from his home in the Soviet Zone and was granted political asylum in the west.
Meanwhile, the Soviet authorities confiscated all documents relating to the murders of Captains Anlauf and Lenck. These were handed over to Mielke, who subsequently kept them in his personal safe.
of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
(SED) from 1950 until his forced retirement in November 1989. From July 1946 to October 1949 he served as vice-president of the Administration of the Interior. From October 1949 to February 1950, Mielke served as head of the Main Administration for the Protection of the People's Economy, the forerunner of the Ministry of State Security (MfS or Stasi
). From 1950–1953 he was state secretary in the MfS, later serving as full State Secretary from 1953–1955. From 1955–1957 he was deputy minister of state security.
Erich Mielke was also 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 top East German and Soviet officials.
helping his favourite side by manipulating the outcome of the team's games through various means to ensure its dominance of the first division DDR-Oberliga
. The team won ten consecutive titles from 1979 to 1988 assisted by crooked referees, unfair player transfers from other teams and assorted other unsportmanlike practices. Dynamo was reviled by many of the citizens of Berlin and the cheating was so blatant that it incurred the unofficially expressed displeasure of the country's ruling Politburo.
from 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall
in 1989. His network of 85,000 full-time domestic spies and 170,000 'voluntary' informers kept tabs on millions of people. So many people collaborated with the Stasi that when the records were opened, it was discovered that in every public building, at least one of its members kept the Stasi informed about everything that happened within it. On his orders, and with his full knowledge, Stasi officers also engaged in arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, brutal harassment of political dissidents, and the inhumane imprisonment of tens of thousands of citizens. On his personal responsibility the MfS launched the counter attacks by the Stasi against the dissident Rudolf Bahro
and his book Die Alternative: Zur Kritik des 'real existierenden Sozialismus and those who supported, discussed and published his work. Mielke was one of the most powerful – and most hated – men in East Germany, feared even by members of his own ministry.
According to John O. Koehler,
According to John Koehler,
Despite Mielke's attempts to squelch them, East Germany's protesters grew more emboldened with every arrest.
According to Koehler,
However, just days later, Mielke became part of the conspiracy that toppled Honecker as leader of the SED. Suspecting that Honecker's personal bodyguards might try to arrest the members of the Politburo when it met to vote Honecker out in favour of Egon Krenz
, Mielke saw to it that reliable Stasi men were stationed near the meeting room.
On 7 November 1989, Mielke resigned, along with all of the other members of the GDR government (the Council of Ministers of the GDR), in response to the changing political and social situation in the GDR. Six days later, on 13 November 1989, Mielke was at the center of one of the most famous televised incidents in German history. When Mielke addressed the members of the GDR parliament, or (Volkskammer
), as "Comrades", angry non-SED members demanded that he refrain from calling them that. The shattered Mielke first tried to justify his wording, "That is a question of formality" and then apologized, declaring: "But I love – I love all – all people..." . This was met with jeers and laughter from the assembly.
On 18 November 1989, following the Volkskammer's decision a day earlier to rename the MfS as the Amt für Nationale Sicherheit (AfNS - Office for National Security), Mielke's tenure in office finally ended when Generalleutnant Wolfgang Schwanitz was elected by the Volkskammer as the director of the AfNS.
On 3 December 1989, Mielke was expelled from membership in the SED. On 7 December 1989, he was arrested and placed in, "investigative custody," or (Untersuchungshaft) as he was charged with "damaging the national economy" (Schädigung der Volkswirtschaft).
in October 1990, Mielke was arrested and charged with the 1931 murders of police Captains Anlauf and Lenck. Much of the evidence used at his trial was taken from the files of the original investigation, which were found in Mielke's personal safe after the dissolution of the Stasi.
According to John Koehler,
Despite all this wrangling, Mielke was convicted of both murders and in October 1993 was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He was paroled after less than two, and in 1998 all further legal action against him was ended on the grounds of his poor health.
in Berlin. Mielke's unmarked grave is outside the memorial section established at the entrance in 1951 by East German leaders for communist heroes.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
communist politician and Minister of State Security—and as such head of the Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
(secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
)—of the German Democratic Republic between 1957 and 1989. Mielke spent more than a decade as an operative of the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
during the rule of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. He was one of the perpetrators of the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
as well as the Stalinist decimation of the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
.
Following the 1945 Battle of Berlin
Battle of Berlin
The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II....
, Mielke returned to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and had a major role in organizing the Soviet Zone into a dictatorship
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...
under the Socialist Unity Party
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
. For nearly fifty years, he held the military rank of Armeegeneral
Armeegeneral
Armeegeneral was a senior military rank of East Germany, used until 1990. It was the equivalent of a Four-Star-General in Western nations and ranked below the Marschall der DDR , although no one was ever promoted to the latter rank.East German officers who achieved the rank of Armeegeneral were:*...
. After German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
, he was tried and convicted of murdering police officers Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck in 1931.
Early life
In handwritten biographies written for Stalin's secret police, Mielke described his background as follows,"I, Erich Mielke, was born on December 28, 1907, in BerlinBerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, (PrussiaKingdom of PrussiaThe Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
). My father was a poor, uneducated woodworker, and my mother died in 1911. Both were members of the SPD [ Social Democratic Party ] and joined the KPD [ Communist Party of GermanyCommunist Party of GermanyThe Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
] when it was formed in 1918. My stepmother was a seamstress and she also belonged to the KPD. My younger brother Kurt and two sisters were Communist sympathisers."
Mielke became a member of the Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
in 1925 and worked as a reporter for the communist newspaper Rote Fahne from 1928 to 1931. He then joined the Parteiselbstschutz ("Party Self Defense Unit").
Like their Nazi counterparts, the Selbstschutz men were thugs who served as bouncers at Party meetings and specialized in cracking heads during street battles with political enemies. Besides the Nazis, their arch foes included the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) -- the Social Democratic Party of Germany -- and radical nationalist parties. They always carried a Stahlrute, two steel springs that telescoped into a tube seven inches long, which when extended became a deadly, fourteen inch weapon. Not to be outdone by the Nazis, these streetfighters were often armed with pistols as well.
Murders of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck
On August 2, 1931, KPD Members of the ReichstagReichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...
Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger received a dressing down from Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
, the Party's leader in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Enraged by police interference, Ulbricht snarled, "At home in Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
we would have done something about the police a long time ago. Here in Berlin we will not fool around much longer. Soon we will hit the police in the head."
Enraged by Ulbricht's words, Kippenberger and Neumann decided to target Captain Paul Anlauf, the forty-two year old commander of the Seventh Precinct. Captain Anlauf, a widower with three daughters, had been nicknamed Schweinebacke, or "Pig Face" by the KPD. According to 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.
On the morning of Sunday August 9, 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
Max Matern
Max Matern was a member of the Communist Party of Germany .Max Matern was a communist storm trooper who was convicted of murder and executed for his involvement in the assassinations of Police Captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. The murders took place in 1931 at Bülow-Platz in Berlin...
gave a Luger pistol
Luger pistol
The Pistole Parabellum 1908 or Parabellum-Pistole , popularly known as the Luger, is a toggle-locked recoil-operated semi-automatic pistol. The design was patented by Georg J...
to a fellow lookout and said, "Now we're getting serious... We're going to give Schweinebacke something to remember us by."
Kippenberger then asked Mielke and Ziemer, "Are you sure that you are ready to shoot Schweinebacke?" Mielke responded that he had seen Captain Anlauf many times during police searches of Party Headquarters. Kippenberger then instructed them to wait at a nearby beer hall which would permit them to overlook the entire Bülow-Platz. He further reminded them that Captain Anlauf was accompanied everywhere by Senior Sergeant Max Willig, who the KPD had nicknamed, "Hussar
Hussar
Hussar refers to a number of types of light cavalry which originated in Hungary in the 14th century, tracing its roots from Serbian medieval cavalry tradition, brought to Hungary in the course of the Serb migrations, which began in the late 14th century....
."
Kippenberger concluded, "When you spot Schweinebacke and Hussar, you take care of them." After the assassinations were completed, Mielke and Ziemer were informed that a diversion would assist in their escape. They were then to return to their homes and await further instructions.
That evening, Captain Anlauf was lured to Bülow-Platz by a violent rally demanding the dissolution of the Prussian Parliament. According to John 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 GoebbelsJoseph GoebbelsPaul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
even shared a speaker's platform with KPD agitator Walter UlbrichtWalter UlbrichtWalter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
. 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.
At eight o'clock that evening, Mielke and Ziemer, spotted Captain Anlauf, Sergeant Willig, and Captain Franz Lenck walking in front of the Babylon Cinema, which was located at the corner of Bülowplatz and Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße. As they reached the door of the movie house, the policemen heard someone scream, "Schweinebacke!"
As Captain Anlauf turned towards the sound, Mielke and Ziemer opened fire at point blank range. Sergeant Willig was wounded in the left arm and the stomach. However, he managed to draw his Luger and fired a full clip at the assailants. Captain Franz Lenck was shot in the chest and fell dead in front of the entrance. Willig crawled over to Captain Anlauf, who had taken two bullets in the neck. As his life drained away, the Captain gasped, "Wiedersehen... Gruss..." ("So Long... Goodbye...") Meanwhile, Mielke and Ziemer made their escape.
After the murders, the act was celebrated at the Lichtenberger Hof, a favorite with the Rotfrontkämpferbund
Rotfrontkämpferbund
Rotfrontkämpferbund was a paramilitary organization of the Communist Party of Germany created on 18 July 1924 during the Weimar Republic. Its first leader was Ernst Thälmann...
, where Mielke boasted: "Today we're here to celebrate a trick I pulled." .
Fugitive
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 Belgian border. Agents of the Communist International (CominternCominternThe Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
) in the port city of Antwerp supplied them with money and forged passports. Aboard a merchant ship, they sailed for LeningradLeningradLeningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
. When their ship docked, they were met by another Comintern representative, who escorted them to MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
Mielke would later claim falsely that he had been convicted of the murders in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
in a German court. Three other German communists were arrested for these murders, convicted, and received the death penalty, among them Max Matern
Max Matern
Max Matern was a member of the Communist Party of Germany .Max Matern was a communist storm trooper who was convicted of murder and executed for his involvement in the assassinations of Police Captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. The murders took place in 1931 at Bülow-Platz in Berlin...
.
In the aftermath, Captain Anlauf's oldest daughter was forced to drastically rush her planned wedding in order to keep her sisters out of an orphanage
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
. Max Matern was subsequently glorified as a martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
by KPD and East German propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
. Ziemer was officially killed in action while fighting for the Second Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
. Mielke, however, would not face trial for the murders until 1993.
Working for the Soviet Union
In 1932 Mielke attended the CominternComintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
's Military Political school and later the Lenin School and was subsequently recruited into the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
. Although Moscow's German Communist community was decimated during Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
, Mielke survived and was promoted. In a handwritten biography prepared after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Mielke recalled,
"During my stay in the S.U. (Soviet Union), I participated in all Party discussions of the K.P.D. and also in the problems concerning the establishment of socialism and in the trials against the traitors and enemies of the S.U."
Among the German communists executed during the Great Purge were Mielke's former mentors Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger.
Spanish Civil War
From 1936 to 1939 Mielke served in Spain as a operative of the Servicio Investigacion Militar, the political police of the Second Spanish RepublicSecond Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
. While attached to the staff of future Stasi minister Wilhelm Zaisser
Wilhelm Zaisser
Wilhelm Zaisser was a German communist politician and the first Minister for State Security of the German Democratic Republic .- Life :...
, Mielke used the alias Fritz Leissner.
At the time, the S.I.M. was heavily staffed by agents of the Soviet NKVD, whose Spanish rezident was General Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov. According to author Donald Rayfield
Donald Rayfield
Donald Rayfield is professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary, University of London. He is an author of books about Russian and Georgian literature, and about Joseph Stalin and his secret police...
,
"Stalin, YezhovNikolai YezhovNikolai Ivanovich Yezhov or Ezhov was a senior figure in the NKVD under Joseph Stalin during the period of the Great Purge. His reign is sometimes known as the "Yezhovshchina" , "the Yezhov era", a term that began to be used during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s...
, and BeriaLavrentiy BeriaLavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....
distrusted Soviet participants in the Spanish war. Military advisors like Vladimir Antonov-OvseenkoVladimir Antonov-OvseenkoVladimir Alexandrovich Antonov-Ovseyenko , real surname Ovseyenko, party aliases the 'Bayonet' and 'Nikita' , a literary pseudonym A. Gal , was a prominent Soviet Bolshevik leader and diplomat. He was born in Chernigov into an officer's family.In 1903, Antonov-Ovseyenko joined the Menshevik party...
, journalists like KoltsovMikhail KoltsovMikhail Efimovich Koltsov , born Mikhail Efimovich Fridlyand , was a Soviet journalist.-Biography:...
were open to infection by the heresies, especially TrotskyLeon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
's, prevalent among the Republic's supporters. NKVD agents sent to Spain were therefore keener on abducting and murdering anti-Stalinists among Republican leaders and International Brigade commanders than on fighting FrancoFrancisco FrancoFrancisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
. The defeat of the Republic, in Stalin's eyes, was caused not by the NKVD's diversionary efforts, but by the treachery of the heretics."
Walter Janka, a German communist and company commander in the International Brigade, was repeatedly interrogated by Mielke, who falsely accused him of spying for the Falangists. In an interview years later, Janka recalled:
"While I was fighting at the front, shooting at the Fascists, Mielke served in the rear, shooting Trotskyites and Anarchists."
After the defeat of the Spanish Republic, Mielke fled to France and was interned with thousands of his comrades. However, he soon escaped and returned to the Soviet Union.
World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Mielke's movements remain mysterious. In a biography written after the war, he claimed to have infiltrated Organisation Todt
Organisation Todt
The Todt Organisation, was a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in Germany named after its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi figure...
under the alias Richard Hebel. Historian John O. Koehler considers this unlikely, however.
Koehler admits, however,
"Mielke's exploits must have been substantial. By war's end, he had been decorated with the Order of the Red BannerOrder of the Red BannerThe Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War...
, the Order of the Great Patriotic War First Class, and twice with the Order of LeninOrder of LeninThe Order of Lenin , named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union...
. It is likely that he served as an NKVD agent, at least part of the time with guerrilla units behind German lines, for he knew all the partisan songs by heart and sang them in faultless Russian."
Building East Germany
Ivan Serov
State Security General Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov was a prominent leader of Soviet security and intelligence agencies, head of the KGB between March 1954 and December 1958, as well as head of the GRU between 1958 and 1963. He was Deputy Commissar of the NKVD under Lavrentiy Beria, and was to play a...
, who was headquartered at the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst
Karlshorst
Karlshorst is a locality in the borough of Lichtenberg in Berlin. It houses a harness racing track and the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin , the largest University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, and the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst.-History:Established in 1895 as the...
. On August 16, 1947, Serov ordered the creation of Kommissariat 5, the first German political police since the defeat of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. Wilhelm Zaisser
Wilhelm Zaisser
Wilhelm Zaisser was a German communist politician and the first Minister for State Security of the German Democratic Republic .- Life :...
was appointed the organization's head and Mielke as 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 eleven concentration camps, including the former Nazi death camps of Buchenwald and SachsenhausenNKVD special camp Nr. 7NKVD special camp Nr. 7 was a NKVD special camp that operated in Weesow until August 1945 and in Sachsenhausen from August 1945 until the spring of 1950. It was used by the Stalinist Soviet occupying forces to detain political prisoners....
."
The investigation
In January 1947, however, two Weimar-era policemen recognized Mielke at an official function. Informing the head of the criminal police in West BerlinWest Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
, the policemen demanded that Mielke be arrested and prosecuted for the murders of Captains Anlauf and Lenck. Prosecutor Wilhelm Kühnast of the Kammergericht
Kammergericht
The Kammergericht is the Oberlandesgericht for the state of Berlin. Its name differs from Germany's other state courts for historic reasons. There are no other courts called Kammergericht in Germany.-Overview:...
was immediately informed and ordered a search of the archives. To his astonishment, the files of the 1931 murders had survived the wartime bombing of Germany. Finding ample evidence of Mielke's involvement, Kühnast ordered the arrest of the communist policeman.
According to John Koehler,
"At that time, the city administration, including the police, was under the control of the Allied Control Commission, which consisted of U.S., British, French, and Soviet military officers. All actions by city officials, including the judiciary, were to be reported to the Commission. The Soviet representative alerted the MGB. Action was swift. MarshalMarshal of the Soviet UnionMarshal of the Soviet Union was the de facto highest military rank of the Soviet Union. ....
Vasily SokolovskyVasily SokolovskyVasily Danilovich Sokolovsky was a Soviet military commander.Sokolovsky was born into a peasant family in Kozliki, a small town in the province of Grodno, near Białystok in Poland . He worked as a teacher in a rural school, where he took part in a number of protests and demonstrations against the...
, who had replaced Zhukov, protested, and his representatives at the Commission launched a vicious campaign to discredit Kühnast."
The Soviet representatives falsely claimed that Kühnast, a longtime anti-Nazi, had been an official of Roland Freisler
Roland Freisler
Roland Freisler was a prominent and notorious Nazi lawyer and judge. He was State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the People's Court , which was set up outside constitutional authority...
's People's Court. As a result, the Western Allies agreed to remove Kühnast from his position and placed him under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
. During the Berlin airlift, Kühnast escaped from his home in the Soviet Zone and was granted political asylum in the west.
Meanwhile, the Soviet authorities confiscated all documents relating to the murders of Captains Anlauf and Lenck. These were handed over to Mielke, who subsequently kept them in his personal safe.
Aftermath
Mielke was a member of the Central CommitteeCentral Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
(SED) from 1950 until his forced retirement in November 1989. From July 1946 to October 1949 he served as vice-president of the Administration of the Interior. From October 1949 to February 1950, Mielke served as head of the Main Administration for the Protection of the People's Economy, the forerunner of the Ministry of State Security (MfS or Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
). From 1950–1953 he was state secretary in the MfS, later serving as full State Secretary from 1953–1955. From 1955–1957 he was deputy minister of state security.
Erich Mielke was also 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 top East German and Soviet officials.
Mielke the football fan
Mielke served as chairman of Sportvereinigung Dynamo, the sports club of the country's security forces. He acted as the powerful patron of football club Berliner FC DynamoBerliner FC Dynamo
Berliner FC Dynamo is a German association football club and is the successor organization to the club that played in East Berlin as Dynamo Berlin from 1953 to 1966.-Founding and Stasi patronage:...
helping his favourite side by manipulating the outcome of the team's games through various means to ensure its dominance of the first division DDR-Oberliga
DDR-Oberliga
The DDR-Oberliga was, prior to German reunification in 1990, the elite level of football competition in the DDR , being roughly equivalent to the Oberliga or Bundesliga in West Germany.-Overview:Following World...
. The team won ten consecutive titles from 1979 to 1988 assisted by crooked referees, unfair player transfers from other teams and assorted other unsportmanlike practices. Dynamo was reviled by many of the citizens of Berlin and the cheating was so blatant that it incurred the unofficially expressed displeasure of the country's ruling Politburo.
Tenure as Stasi head
Mielke headed the StasiStasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
from 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
in 1989. His network of 85,000 full-time domestic spies and 170,000 'voluntary' informers kept tabs on millions of people. So many people collaborated with the Stasi that when the records were opened, it was discovered that in every public building, at least one of its members kept the Stasi informed about everything that happened within it. On his orders, and with his full knowledge, Stasi officers also engaged in arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, brutal harassment of political dissidents, and the inhumane imprisonment of tens of thousands of citizens. On his personal responsibility the MfS launched the counter attacks by the Stasi against the dissident Rudolf Bahro
Rudolf Bahro
Rudolf Bahro was a philosopher, political figure and author who was a noted East German dissident and who became a leader of the West German party The Greens...
and his book Die Alternative: Zur Kritik des 'real existierenden Sozialismus and those who supported, discussed and published his work. Mielke was one of the most powerful – and most hated – men in East Germany, feared even by members of his own ministry.
According to John O. Koehler,
"Mielke was the longest serving secret police chief in the Eastern BlocEastern blocThe term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
. He was on the most intimate of terms with eleven Soviet secret police chiefs, and he survived them all. Subservient to a fault while they were in power, Mielke switched loyalties without a beat when they were fired. His allegiance was not to a person but to the joint KGBKGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
/StasiStasiThe Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
venture in the quest of maintaining and expanding the powers of communismCommunismCommunism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
."
The Peaceful Revolution
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 cattle prodCattle prodA cattle prod, also called a stock prod, is a handheld device commonly used to make cattle or other livestock move by striking or poking them, or in the case of a Hot-Shot-type prod, through a relatively high-voltage, low-current electric shock...
s but much more powerful. In a secret speech to top-ranking Stasi officers on June 29, Mielke warned that, "hostile opposing forces and groups have already achieved a measure of power and are using all methods to achieve a change in the balance of power." Former Stasi Colonel Rainer Wiegand told me he was horrified when Mielke compared the situation with that of ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
two months earlier. Chinese students in BeijingBeijingBeijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
had begun massive protests in April and in May, during a student demonstrationTiananmen Square protests of 1989The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
in Tiananmen SquareTiananmen SquareTiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world...
, security troops had opened fire on the killing hundreds. "Mielke said our situation was comparable and we had to be ready to counter it with all means and methods," Wiegand recalled. "Mielke said that the Chinese leadership had succeeded in smothering the protests before the situation got out of hand."
Despite Mielke's attempts to squelch them, East Germany's protesters grew more emboldened with every arrest.
According to Koehler,
Despite the unrest, the regime celebrated its fortieth with a huge, pompous ceremony in Berlin on October 7, while tens of thousands of jeering citizens stood 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 Günther Kratsch, the counterintelligence chief, Mielke screamed at police: "Club those pigs into submission!" The police ignored Mielke's ranting.
However, just days later, Mielke became part of the conspiracy that toppled Honecker as leader of the SED. Suspecting that Honecker's personal bodyguards might try to arrest the members of the Politburo when it met to vote Honecker out in favour of Egon Krenz
Egon Krenz
Egon Krenz is a former politician from East Germany , and that country's last Communist leader...
, Mielke saw to it that reliable Stasi men were stationed near the meeting room.
On 7 November 1989, Mielke resigned, along with all of the other members of the GDR government (the Council of Ministers of the GDR), in response to the changing political and social situation in the GDR. Six days later, on 13 November 1989, Mielke was at the center of one of the most famous televised incidents in German history. When Mielke addressed the members of the GDR parliament, or (Volkskammer
Volkskammer
The People's Chamber was the unicameral legislature of the German Democratic Republic . From its founding in 1949 until the first free elections on 18 March 1990, all members of the Volkskammer were elected on a slate controlled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany , called the National Front...
), as "Comrades", angry non-SED members demanded that he refrain from calling them that. The shattered Mielke first tried to justify his wording, "That is a question of formality" and then apologized, declaring: "But I love – I love all – all people..." . This was met with jeers and laughter from the assembly.
On 18 November 1989, following the Volkskammer's decision a day earlier to rename the MfS as the Amt für Nationale Sicherheit (AfNS - Office for National Security), Mielke's tenure in office finally ended when Generalleutnant Wolfgang Schwanitz was elected by the Volkskammer as the director of the AfNS.
Trial and conviction
After German reunificationGerman reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
in October 1990, Mielke was arrested and charged with the 1931 murders of police Captains Anlauf and Lenck. Much of the evidence used at his trial was taken from the files of the original investigation, which were found in Mielke's personal safe after the dissolution of the Stasi.
According to John Koehler,
"Defenders of Mielke would later claim that confessions had been obtained under torture by the Nazi GestapoGestapoThe Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
. However, all suspects were in the custody of the regular Berlin city criminal investigation bureau, most of whose detectives were SPD members. Some of the suspects had been nabbed by Nazi SA men and probably beaten before they were turned over to police. In the 1993 trial of Mielke, the court gave the defense the benefit of the doubt and threw out a number of suspect confessions."
Despite all this wrangling, Mielke was convicted of both murders and in October 1993 was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He was paroled after less than two, and in 1998 all further legal action against him was ended on the grounds of his poor health.
Death
Mielke died on 21 May 2000 aged 92 in a Berlin nursing home. An estimated 100 people reportedly attended the funeral. His remains are buried in the Zentralfriedhof FriedrichsfeldeZentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde
The Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery , also known as the Memorial to the Socialists , is a cemetery in the borough of Lichtenberg in Berlin. When the cemetery was founded in 1881 it was called the Freidrichsfelde Municipal Cemetery Berlin...
in Berlin. Mielke's unmarked grave is outside the memorial section established at the entrance in 1951 by East German leaders for communist heroes.
East German jokes about Mielke
- Honecker and Mielke are discussing their hobbies.
Honecker: "I collect all the jokes about me that are in circulation."
Mielke: "Then we have almost the same hobby. I collect those who bring the jokes into circulation."