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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.
May 26, 2000 · Erich Mielke, the former head of the dreaded East German security agency known as the Stasi, has died at 92, German officials said yesterday. The daily Kurier said Mr. Mielke had died May 21 in...
- Overview
- Inside the pervasive surveillance by East Germany's Stasi
- Transcript
Inside the pervasive surveillance by East Germany's Stasi
Overview of East Germany's Stasi (Ministry for State Security) under the leadership of Erich Mielke.
Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz; Thumbnail © Badboo/Dreamstime.com; © Steve Scott/Dreamstime.com; German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv), Bild 183-69281-0005/Zimontkowski
•Inside the pervasive surveillance by East Germany's Stasi
•Introduction of the deutsche mark in East Germany
•The journey to Germany's reunification
NARRATOR: Images of East Germany in the 50s intended to demonstrate the unity between the state and its citizens. After the popular uprising on June 17, 1953, concessions are made, but the government remains wary. It wants to identify all signs of resistance in time. The agency in charge is the Ministry for State Security under Erich Mielke, who becomes director in 1957.
WERNER STILLER: "He never wanted to be the leader of the Party. He preferred to wait in the background like a spider in its web and if something twitched, he'd strike."
NARRATOR: Erich Mielke: As a young communist in 1931, he shot two policemen in Berlin and fled to Moscow. His great idol is Stalin, also adept in the persecution of political opponents.
GÜNTER GANßAUGE: "The attitude in the ministry was that when everything else had failed, we're the ones, the swords and shields of the party, the ones who have to rescue the Republic."
NARRATOR: When it was founded in 1950, the Stasi had only 1,000 employees. When Mielke assumes power in 1957 it has grown to 14,000. By the end of the GDR more than 90,000 full-time employees and over twice as many unofficial collaborators work for this notorious institution.
GÜNTER SCHABOWSKI: "If you want to look at it that way, in the GDR there was one Stasi man for every 180 citizens. But with the Soviets it was about one to 600. The Czechs had about 800-900, and in Poland it was more than 1,500. That's how tight the mesh was in the GDR."
- 3 min
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security, better known as the Stasi, from 1957 until shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
May 27, 2000 · Erich Mielke, who has died in Berlin aged 92, was feared and hated more than any other man in communist East Germany. As minister for state security from 1957 until the regime's collapse in...
May 26, 2000 · rich Mielke, the former head of the dreaded East German security agency known as the Stasi, has died at age 92, officials in the German capital said. The Kurier daily said that Mielke died four...
May 20, 2024 · Under Erich Mielke, its director from 1957 to 1989, the Stasi became a highly effective secret police organization. Within East Germany it sought to infiltrate every institution of society and every aspect of daily life, including even intimate personal and familial relationships.
