Persecution by the secret services
Arrests by People’s Police in Berlin, 1952.
Persecution by the secret services
After the founding of the GDR, the Soviet occupying power gradually transferred tasks and powers to the newly created East German security organs. The Ministry for State Security (MfS), founded in February 1950, was modeled on the Soviet State Security Service (MGB) and was under its direct supervision for a long time.
The “Stasi” also adopted the enemy stereotypes and arbitrary actions against supposed enemies from its Soviet advisors. The MGB/MfS considered enemies to be opponents of socialist reconstruction, church members or sympathizers and members of democratic parties.
The MfS investigated and arrested on behalf of the Soviet authorities and handed over all those suspected of espionage and “opponents of the system” to the so-called “Friends”.
GDR President Wilhelm Pieck receives the head of the People’s Police Karl Maron in Berlin-Niederschönhausen on May 1, 1950. Following an agreement concluded with Erich Mielke in June 1951, Maron handed over fugitive GDR police officers directly to the MfS. At least 41 former People’s Police members were executed by the MGB in Moscow. / Polizeihistorische Sammlung, Berlin / Heilig
The victims were usually arrested in their homes without attracting public attention. The MfS employees often disguised themselves as members of the People’s Police. Those arrested were then taken to People’s Police or MfS prisons and interrogated there. After being handed over to the Soviet secret service, they were interrogated again for weeks in their places of detention.
The Ministry for State Security (MfS) was officially founded with the law of February 8, 1950. However, the employees of the MfS mostly posed as police officers and used identification badges from the criminal investigation police department.
“Tarantula”
The satirical monthly magazine “Tarantula”, which was published in West Berlin from 1950 to 1962, was distributed there free of charge or sent to the GDR via cover addresses. By the end of 1953, the magazine had a circulation of around 100,000 copies. Possession of the magazine was punishable by law in the GDR.
Heinz Wenzel (alias “Heinrich Bär”, 1919-1971) ran the magazine. He was arrested by the NKVD/MGB in July 1946 and sentenced as an alleged French spy and was interned in the Sachsenhausen special camp until it was dissolved in 1950.
Detention facilities
In order to extort “confessions”, the prisoners were mistreated in the MGB/MfS detention centers. Every page of the interrogation protocols, written in Russian, had to be signed by the accused afterwards. Unaware of the language, most of those arrested did not know what absurd “self-incriminations” they were signing. The protocols served the Soviet military tribunals (SMT) as the basis for their verdicts.
