Erich Mielke

Erich Mielke
Mielke in 1976
Minister for State Security
In office 11 December 1957 – 7 November 1989
Chairman of the Council of Ministers	Otto Grotewohl Willi Stoph Horst Sindermann Willi Stoph
Deputy	See list Hermann Gartmann Otto Last Rudolf Menzel Martin Weikert Otto Walter Markus Wolf Bruno Beater Fritz Schröder Alfred Scholz Rudi Mittig Gerhard Neiber Werner Großmann Wolfgang Schwanitz
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[a]
In office 8 February 1950 – 11 December 1957 Serving with Joseph Gutsche, Ernst Wollweber
Minister	Wilhelm Zaisser Ernst Wollweber
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Member of the Volkskammer for Hohenmölsen, Naumburg, Weißenfels, Zeitz
In office 25 June 1981 – 16 November 1989
Preceded by	multi-member district
Succeeded by	Ursula Schönburg
Personal details
Born	Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (1907-12-28)28 December 1907 Wedding, Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire (now Germany)
Died	21 May 2000(2000-05-21) (aged 92) Neu-Hohenschönhausen, Berlin, Germany
Political party	Socialist Unity Party (1946–1989)
Other political affiliations	Communist Party of Germany (1928–1946)
Spouse	Gertrud Müller
Children	Frank Ingrid
Occupation	Politician Civil servant Freight forwarder
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	East Germany
Branch/service	National People's Army
Rank	Armeegeneral
Battles/wars	Spanish Civil War World War II
Criminal status	Served prison sentence 7 December 1989 – 9 March 1990; 26 July 1990[b] – 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 1976–1989: Full member, Politburo of the Central Committee 1971–1976: Candidate member, Politburo of the Central Committee 1950–1989: Full member, Central Committee Other offices held 1960–1989: Member, National Defence Council 1950–1989: First Chairman, SV Dynamo

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. Dubbed "The Master of Fear"^[1] (German: der Meister der Angst) by the West German press, Mielke was one of the most powerful and most hated men in East Germany.^[2]

A working-class native of the Wedding slum district of Berlin and a second-generation member of the Communist Party of Germany, Mielke was one of two gunmen in the 1931 murders of Berlin Police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. After learning that a witness had survived, Mielke escaped arrest by fleeing to the Soviet Union, where the NKVD recruited him. He was one of the key figures in the decimation of Moscow's many German Communist refugees during the Great Purge^[3] as well as in the Red Terror; the witch-hunt by the Servicio de Información Militar for both real and imagined members of the anti-Stalinist Left within the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.^[4]

Following the end of World War II in 1945, Mielke returned to the Soviet Zone of Occupied Germany, which he helped organize into a Marxist–Leninist satellite state under the Socialist Unity Party (SED).^[5] The Stasi under Mielke has been called by historian Edward Peterson the "most pervasive police state apparatus ever to exist on German soil".^[6] During the 1950s and 1960s, Mielke led the process of forcibly forming collectivised farms from East Germany's family-owned farms, which sent a flood of refugees to West Germany. In response, Mielke oversaw the 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall and co-signed standing orders for the Border Guards to use lethal force against all East Germans who attempted to commit "desertion of the Republic".

Throughout the Cold War, Mielke also oversaw the establishment of other pro-Soviet police states throughout the Third World. Mielke covertly trained and armed far-left guerrillas and militant organisations aimed at committing terrorist attacks and violent regime change in Western Europe, Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Due to his close ties to former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, John Koehler has accused Mielke and the Stasi military advisors he assigned to Ethiopia under the Derg of complicity in the Red Terror, genocide, and many other crimes against humanity. In addition to his role as head of the Stasi, Mielke was also an Army General in the National People's Army (Nationale Volksarmee).

Mielke, who joined the SED's ruling Politburo fairly late, was regarded as belonging to its pro-Moscow faction alongside Willi Stoph and Werner Krolikowski.^[7] During the later years of SED leader Erich Honecker's rule, Mielke was part of the small clique of Politburo members who made all consequential decisions on their own, alongside Joachim Herrmann and Günter Mittag. He was instrumental in the removal of both major SED leaders Walter Ulbricht and Honecker, partly motivated by their respective transgressions of Soviet policies.^[8]

After German reunification in 1990, Mielke was prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for the 1931 policemen's murders. A second murder trial for the 260 killings of defectors at the Inner German border was adjourned after Mielke was ruled not mentally competent to stand trial. Mielke was also charged, but never tried, with ordering two 1981 terrorist attacks by the Baader-Meinhof Group against United States military personnel in West Germany. Released from incarceration early due to ill health and senile dementia in 1995, Mielke died in a Berlin nursing home in 2000.

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