Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (December 28, 1907 - May 21, 2000 in Berlin), was a German Communist. He was the head of the intelligence and secret police force in East Germany from 1957 to 1989. Image File history File links late DDR photo of Erich Mielke This work is copyrighted. ... December 28 is the 362nd day of the year (363rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 3 days remaining. ... 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... May 21 is the 141st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (142nd in leap years). ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Berlin is the capital city and a state of Germany. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... Secret police (sometimes political police) are a police organization which operates in secrecy for the national purpose of maintaining national security against internal threats to the state. ... GDR redirects here. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Mielke became a member of the German Communist Party during the 1920s and worked as a reporter for a communist newspaper from 1928-1931. He took part in street battles against the Nazis and the officials of the Weimar Republic, and on August 9, 1931 (according to his later trial) he and Erich Ziemer, at the urging of Walter Ulbricht, and planned by Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger, gunned down two Berlin police officers, Captain Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. Fleeing arrest for that crime, he was smuggled to the Soviet Union where he joined numerous other German Communist exiles in Moscow. He was convicted of the murders in absentia by the new Nazi regime in 1934, apparently using evidence extracted under torture. Three other German communists were arrested for these murders, convicted and sentenced to death. Among them was communist martyr, Max Matern. The 1920s was a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... The Weimar Republic (German Weimarer Republik, IPA: []) is the common name for the republic that governed Germany from 1919 to 1933. ... August 9 is the 221st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (222nd in leap years), with 144 days remaining. ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ... Walter Ulbricht (June 30, 1893 – August 1, 1973) was a German communist politician. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ... In Absentia is the eighth studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released in September 24, 2002. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Torture is any act by which severe pain, whether physical or psychological, is intentionally inflicted on a person as a means of intimidation, deterrence, revenge, punishment, or information gathering. ... Max Matern (born 19 January 1902 in Berndshof near Ueckermünde; died 22 May 1935) was an antifascist and a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). ...

In 1932 Mielke attended the Comintern's Military Political school and later the Lenin School. Due to his record as a reliable Stalinist who blindly served the system, Mielke survived Stalin's purges, which decimated the exiled German community. 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... The Comintern (Russian: Коммунистический Интернационал, Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional – Communist International, also known as the Third International) was an international Communist organization founded in March 1919, in the midst of the war communism period (1918-1921), by Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), which intended to fight by all available means, including... Stalinism is a brand of political theory, and the political and economic system implemented by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ... In history and political science, to purge is to remove undesirable people from a government, political party, profession, or from community/society as a whole, usually by violent means. ...

From 1936 to 1939 he was sent to fight in the Spanish Civil War as a political officer assigned to the Republican side. During World War II he found himself caught in France and was interned as an enemy alien by the Vichy regime. However Mielke's activities during World War Two are disputed, for he was often heard singing Soviet Partisan songs with fellow Stasi officials and hence it is possible that Mielke fought as a partisan behind German lines on the Eastern Front. Combatants Spanish Republic CNT UGT POUM Soviet Union International Brigades Spanish State Falangists Carlists Fascist Italy Nazi Germany Commanders Manuel Azaña Francisco Largo Caballero Juan Negrín Francisco Franco The Spanish Civil War, which lasted from July 17, 1936 to April 1, 1939, was a conflict in which the... This article is becoming very long. ... Vichy France (French: now called Régime de Vichy or Vichy; called itself at the time État Français, or French State) was the French state of 1940-1944 which was a puppet government under Nazi influence, as opposed to the Free French Forces, based first in London and later in Algiers. ... This article is becoming very long. ... Soviet redirects here. ... Logo of East Germanys Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS or Stasi) / Ministry for State Security This article is about Stasi, the secret police of East Germany. ...

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, where he was a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) Central committee from 1950 until his forced retirement in 1989. From July of 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 Stasi. From 1950-1953 he was state secretary in the Stasi, later serving as full State Secretary from 1953-1955. From 1955-1957 he was deputy minister of state security. 1945 (MCMVL) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... The logo of the SED The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (German: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED) was the governing party of East Germany from its formation in 1949 until the elections of 1990. ... 16th Central Committee meeting of the Communist Party of China Central Committee most commonly refers to the central executive unit of a communist party, whether ruling or non-ruling. ... Logo of East Germanys Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS or Stasi) / Ministry for State Security This article is about Stasi, the secret police of East Germany. ...

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 GDR and Soviet officials. Disambiguation Page Global Depositary Receipt East Germany ... Soviet redirects here. ...

Tenure as Stasi head

Mielke with Honecker and Ulbricht

Mielke headed the Stasi 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 on all the activities within it. At 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. He was one of the most powerful – and most hated – men in East Germany, feared even by members of his own Stasi. Image File history File links Mielke_hon_ulb. ... Image File history File links Mielke_hon_ulb. ... Logo of East Germanys Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS or Stasi) / Ministry for State Security This article is about Stasi, the secret police of East Germany. ... East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 20 November 1961. ... Harassment refers to a wide spectrum of offensive behavior. ... A dissident is a person who actively opposes the established order. ... The word citizen may refer to: A person with a citizenship Citizen Watch Co. ...

In 1989 Mielke was responsible for one of the most famous TV incidents of East Germany: When he addressed the members of the Volkskammer as "comrades", as he was accustomed to doing, some angry non-SED members asked him to 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 people..." (Laughter in the crowd). The Volkskammer (Peoples Chamber) was the de jure Legislature of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). ...

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mielke was arrested by the new German authorities and charged with the murder of police officers Anlauf and Lenck. Coincidentally, this trial took place in the same courtroom as the Nazi one. Much of the evidence used in the trial was taken from the files of the original investigation, which were found in Mielke's house after the collapse of East Germany. He was conicted of both murders and on October 1993 he was sentenced to six years, 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.

Mielke died on May 21, 2000 aged 92 in a Berlin nursing home. About 100 people reportedly attended the funeral. His remains are buried in the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde in Berlin. Mielke's unmarked grave is outside the memorial section established at the entrance in 1951 by East German leaders for communist heroes. May 21 is the 141st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (142nd in leap years). ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Berlin is the capital city and a state of Germany. ... Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde, also known as the Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten (the Memorial to the Socialists), is a cemetery that contains most of the graves of former East German (GDR) leaders including Walter Ulbricht who ordered the building of the Berlin Wall, and Wilhelm Pieck, the first President of the GDR... Berlin is the capital city and a state of Germany. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ...

References

Stasi by John O. Koehler, West View Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8133-3409-8

External links

• Mielke's office and picture