Stasi Archives - Walled In Berlin

Posts Tagged ‘Stasi’

Day X – East German Conquest of West Berlin

Monday, January 16th, 2023

Day X referred to East German plans for military conquest of West Berlin during the 1970s and 80s. In the latter part of the Cold War, detailed plans existed to attack and conquer West Berlin on a moment’s notice in case of a military conflict. Only the highest-ranking members of East German leadership had full knowledge of it. The plans were top-secret and did not come to lights until after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and German reunification in 1990. To head off discovery, most details were communicated only verbally. Few documents survived. Most were shredded. Only one document with Erich Mielke’s handwriting survived. He was the head of the Stasi, East Germany’s state security service.

Role of the Kaiserdamm Brücke on Day X

Ultimate key to the success of the takeover of West Berlin on Day X was a bridge located in the British sector of the city, called the Kaiserdamm Brücke (Emperor’s bridge). For twenty-one years, I lived a short walk from the bridge, completely unaware until recently, that this bridge could have played a vital part in the invasion of West Berlin, and possibly of West Germany and even Western Europe. The reason the Kaiserdamm Brücke played a key role was that by putting the bridge out of commission, the western allies would have been isolated in their respective sectors, unable to coordinate a defense of West Berlin. With the French located in the north of Berlin, the Americans in the south and the British in the central part of the city, the 32,000 East German soldiers, earmarked for the offensive, would have had time to fortify their positions and take over strategic functions before the western allies could react. Growing up in Berlin, I remember how we always feared the possibility of such an attack. But I didn’t dream that I practically lived at the epicenter of the happening.

View of transit corridor from Kaiserdamm Bruecke toward Neue Kantstrasse in 1996. The bridge was considered vital to the successful takeover of West Berlin on Day X. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, https://www.walled-in-berlin.com

Details of the Takeover on Day X

Day X called for completion of a takeover of West Berlin within only 24 hours. Detailed plans existed for East German paratroopers to occupy West Berlin’s three airports: Gatow, Tegel, and Tempelhof. Any resistance was to be broken immediately. West Berlin’s key politicians, top office holder in enforcement, the media, economy, science, and technology were to be imprisoned. Over 600 staffers, loyal to the Communist Party, were to assume their functions. Duplicate keys for the various city halls had been secured, and a new wartime currency was ready to be issued. Little was left to chance.

Insuring Readiness on Day X

The East German National People’s Army (Nationale Volksarmee or NVA) conducted frequent maneuvers for the successful implementation of Day X. The operation was overseen by the Ministry for State Security or MfS, commonly known as the Stasi, the state security service of the East German Republic under the leadership of Erich Fritz Emil Mielke.

Blitzkrieg against Western Europe

Attacking and conquering West Berlin was not the only objective. Warsaw Pact members also planned a simultaneous blitzkrieg against Western Europe. In that blitzkrieg, the NVA and MfS were to first bring West Berlin under complete control, then its troops were reach the Rhine River within seven days. Today, documentation relative to Day X is kept in the Bundesarchiv – Militaerarchiv in Freiburg, Germany.

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic or current events, people, places or food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

Tags: Cold War. Day X. East German Takeover of West Berlin, Emperor's bridge, Erich Mielke, Kaiserdamm Bruecke, Militaerarchiv in Freiburg, Stasi
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Konrad Schumann Paid High Price for Freedom

Monday, August 15th, 2022

Konrad Schumann (also referred to as Conrad Schumann in English speaking countries) leapt to freedom in the blink of an eye. It happened on 15 August 1961, the third day of construction of the Berlin Wall. Ordered to guard the beginnings of this newly created barrier, he made a split-second decision and jumped into West Berlin.

Konrad Schumann’s Early Years

He was born in 1942 and grew up in a small town between Dresden, and Leipzig, both located in East Germany. Following high school, he apprenticed as a shepherd. Because the military offered better pay and greater promotional opportunities, Schumann enlisted in the East German border police (Grenzpolizei) soon after his 18^th birthday. Following a brief training period, he was posted to a non-commissioned officers’ college in Potsdam. In early August 1961, he volunteered for service in East Berlin, the capital of East Germany. That’s how he came to be in East Berlin on the fateful day in August 1961.

Berlin Crisis

The East German state had been in crisis mode since November 1958. At that time, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had given the three western occupying powers an ultimatum. He had demanded that they transform West Berlin into a demilitarized free city within six months or the Soviets would sign a peace treaty with East Germany and allow the East Germans to control the access routes between West Germany and West Berlin. In spring of 1961, Khrushchev repeated his demands. He believed the free city concept to be a solution to East Germany’s people drain. Between 1950 and 1960, 2.4 million East Germans had fled to the west, pushing the East German economy to the brink of collapse. If West Berlin was a neutral city, however, East Germans might not be so eager to migrate into the west.

Konrad Schumann’s Decision to Jump

At 11 p.m. on August 12, a Saturday, Schumann’s unit was ordered to help seal the border between East and West Berlin at Bernauer Strasse. There were no incidents the first night, but by morning, 1,000 West Berliners had gathered in protest. The demonstrations continued for the next couple of days. The crowd grew more and more menacing. By Tuesday, August 15, they yelled profanities. Schumann was nervous and chain-smoked one cigarette after the other. This was not the kind of job he had bargained for. When he casually pressed down a section of barbed wire with his foot, West Berlin bystanders shouted, “Komm rüber, komm rüber” (come across, come across). When one young man came too close to the border, Konrad Schumann bellowed “Get back at once”, then whispered “I’m going to jump!” The young man alerted the West Berlin police, who soon arrived in a van.

Konrad Schumann’s Leap to Freedom

All of a sudden, Sergeant Schumann threw his machine gun over his shoulder and jumped across the knee-high concertina wire. The act took no more than a couple of minutes, and Konrad Schumann stood on West Berlin soil. He was immediately ushered into the police van and driven off. Eventually, he was flown to West Germany, where he settled in Bavaria. He was free. He felt relief. But fear and grief lurked not far behind. What if the East German Stasi, the secret police, located him? His desertion was punishable with death in East Germany. Would he ever see his family and old friends again?

Konrad Schumann leaps to freedom across the Berlin Wall on 15 August. 1961. Photo: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, <https:/creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0> walled-in-berlin.com

Life goes on in West Germany

In West Germany, Konrad Schumann picked up the pieces. At first, he worked as a caregiver, then as a worker at a winery, and later at Audi car factory. He married a local girl and seemed content until … the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. He was elated. Now, he could visit his family and friends again. But it turned out to be more difficult than that. Some members of his family and former friends no longer accepted him in their circle. In their minds, he had lost the right to belong with his desertion. As time went on, Schumann got more and more depressed, and nine years later, in 1998, he took his life. The price he paid for freedom had been too high.

Schumann was only three years my senior. We both were in Berlin when the Berlin Wall went up: he on the East side; I on the West side. I saw his escape on film. A few years later, I too, left Berlin for greater freedom, but under very different circumstances. I left for adventure and independence. Would I have had the courage to do what he did?

Tags: 15 August 1961, Berlin Crisis, Berlin Wall, Conrad Schumann, fall of the Berlin Wall, free city berlin, Konrad Schumann, Stasi
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Entenschnabel – a Cold War Relic of the Berlin Wall

Monday, June 21st, 2021

Entenschnabel (duck’s bill in English) is one of the last remaining Cold War relics in Berlin. Nicknamed for the narrow strip of residential land in the shape of a duck’s bill, it gives the visitor an idea of the magnitude of the impact of the Berlin Wall on civilian life during the Cold War. “Entenschnabel” protrudes from Berlin’s Glienicke district (former East Berlin) into the Reinickendorf district (former West Berlin). This roughly 650-yard-long and 100-yard-wide piece of land has a unique history.

1989 aerial photo of Entenschnabel in the upper left corner. www.walled-in-berlin.com

History of Entenschnabel

Berlin’s district of Reinickendorf purchased the land in 1907 and, thirteen years later, incorporated it into its newly established and posh Fronau neighborhood. Until the 1950s, there was nothing unusual about the small community. Residents and visitors came and went freely. After 1952 however, when the Cold War deepened, West Berliner were all of a sudden denied access to the community. After the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961, Entenschnabel residents were also prevented from gaining access to the surrounding western part of the city.

The Bizarre Course of the Berlin Wall Relative to Duck’s Bill

When the city of Berlin was divided into four Allied occupation sectors in 1945, Entenschnabel became part of the Soviet sector. Of the four sides of the strip of residential land, only one side was open to the Soviet sector. The other three sides abutted the French sector. That posed a grave security problem for East German authorities. When the Berlin Wall was constructed, border fortifications had to be less extensive than usual in this area because the “almost enclave” was so narrow. The wall ended up running directly through the Entenschnabel residents’ gardens for the next 28 years.

Entrance to Entenschnabel on Silvesterweg. – Where the Berlin Wall once ran. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2019. www.walled-in-berlin.com

Life for Entenschnabel Residents During the Berlin Wall Years

East German border security classified Entenschnabel as an inhabited special restricted area, which required special observation. Due to its high-risk location, only people who were considered loyal to the regime were allowed to make their home on the small strip of land. Nonetheless, since the risk of fleeing over the wall into the west remained high, residents and visitors alike were subject to special restrictions. All visitors, including doctors, craftsman, repairmen and delivery services were required to obtain a permit before entering the area. In addition, empty buildings were used by the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) to construct radio technology. All contact with their western neighbors was forbidden to Duck’s Bill residents.

Tags: Allied occupation sectors, Berlin Wall, Cold War, Division of Berlin, Duck's Bill, Entenschnabel, Stasi
Posted in J. Elke Ertle, Tête-à-Tête, Walled In Berlin | 2 Comments »

Berlin Expo-Center City – Formerly Messe Berlin

Monday, November 11th, 2019

The Berlin Expo-Center City has been Berlin’s main trade fair ground for almost 100 years. An average of 120 events per year are showcased in 26 exhibition halls and 1,700,000 Sq. Ft. of exhibition space. The grounds are is centrally located, surrounding Berlin’s 500-ft landmark, the Funkturm.

The top venues of the Berlin Expo-Center City are the Internationale Gruene Woche (International Green Week, an agricultural fair), the Internationale Funkausstellung (International Radio Exhibition) and the Internationale Tourismus-Boerse (International Tourism Exchange).

Berlin Expo – Center City prior to WW II

Aside from the very first trade fair building, which was built in 1914 and stood across the street from the current fair grounds on the site of today‘s RBB Broadcasting Station, the Berlin Expo-Center City has been in its current location since 1924. All but one of its exhibition halls were constructed in the 1930s and 1950s and are protected under the historic preservation program.

Hitler used Trade Fair Shows for political purposes

The first exposition in the current location was the Grosse Deutsche Funkausstellung (German Radio Exhibition) in 1933. It was an enormously successful event due to the invention of the Volksempfaenger (People’s Receiver). The Nazis immediately recognized the radio’s propaganda potential and held the purchase price to the equivalent of two weeks average salary. Everyone was eager to get one. Of course, the Nazis did not mention that the set’s sensitivity was so limited that it could receive only the Nazi propaganda channel.

The radio exhibition continued to take place annually and was later renamed International Radio Exhibition. Hitler used the following year’s Green Week Expo for his propaganda as well. Along with the display of agricultural products, fair goers learned how to get the most nutrients out of their food and how to avoid waste. While useful information, Hitler’s men imparted this knowledge with an eye on the upcoming war years.

Berlin Expo–Center City during and after WW II

During World War II, the exhibition grounds were almost completely destroyed, and the Radio Tower suffered extensive damage. Reconstruction began in 1946. During the 1950s, the Berlin Expo–Center City (called Messe Berlin at that time) became a favorite setting for spies from east and west to obtain information on each other’s new products, to meet exhibitors and to get the scoop on the buyers. Members of the Stasi were fixtures at these events.

The Berlin Expo-Center City has been Berlin’s main trade fair ground for almost 100 years. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2019. www.walled-in-berlin.com

Tags: Adolf Hitler, Berlin Expo - Center City, International Green Week, International Radio Exhibition, International Tourism Exchange, Internationale Funkausstellung, Internationale Gruene Woche, Internationale Tourismus-Boerse, Messe Berlin, People's Receiver, RBB Broadcasting, Stasi, Volksempfaenger
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Hagen Koch marked off the Berlin Wall

Monday, October 30th, 2017

Hagen Koch, just 21 years old at the time, was a little known, yet important, player in the construction of the Berlin Wall. It was Koch who researched the exact location of the boundary between East and West Berlin. And it was Koch who painted the white line that would mark off the border. Hagen Koch walked 30 miles in a single day in August of 1961 of, hunched over to paint that line. Once finished, construction of the Berlin Wall began.

Hagen Koch researched the exact location of the boundary between East and West Berlin and then, in August of 1961, painted the white line that demarcated that border. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2015. www.walled-in-berlin.com

How did the Berlin Wall come about?

Since earliest times, man built walls to keep others out. However, the Berlin Wall was a rare example of a wall built to keep people in. It was constructed to keep East Germans from defecting to the West because between 1949 (the creation of East Germany) and 1961 (the construction of the Berlin Wall) over two million East Germans had done just that. They had left East Germany and fled to the West. For years, East German leader Walter Ulbricht http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/image-challenged-walter-ulbricht/ pleaded with the Soviets to let him close the border to put an end to the workforce drain. By August 1961, the Soviets agreed, and Ulbricht proceeded with his plan.

Berliners awoke on 13 August 1961, a beautiful Sunday morning, to find Operation Rose (Ulbricht’s code name for the construction of the Berlin Wall) in full swing. By the wee hours of the morning, most of the border between East and West Berlin was already primitively closed. Barbed wire and concrete posts severed streets. The underground and elevated trains terminated at the border. Armed soldiers stood guard. Within a few days, a block-and-mortar wall replaced the barbed wire fence. The Berlin Wall stood for 28 years. It split the city and separated families and friends. It became a symbol of the Cold War.

Hagen Koch’s Rise to Fame

Having graduated a technical draftsman, Hagen Koch joined the Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security) – better known as Stasi – as a cartographer. http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/the-stasi-and-how-it-worked/ Upon joining the Stasi in 1960, Koch made a speech, which quickly propelled him up the Stasi ladder. In his speech, Hagen Koch denounced “American imperialism” and emphasized his pride in East German socialism. Upon hearing Koch talk, Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi, remarked, “He’s the man of our future.” http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/erich-mielke-master-of-fear/ Soon thereafter, Hagen Koch was promoted to Head of Cartography.

Hagen Koch’s transformation

One hundred percent committed to East German-style socialism at the beginning of his career, Hagen Koch’s conviction began to fade when the Stasi insisted that he divorce his wife on account of her ties to the West. His commitment to East German ideology took a further plunge when Hagen’s father lost his job for protesting the expulsion of his Dutch father, Hagen’s grandfather.

After having fulfilled his service requirement, Koch left the Stasi in 1985. Four years later, the Berlin Wall fell. http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/the-day-the-berlin-wall-fell/ Thereafter, Hagen Koch began to talk openly about his part in creating the hated barrier. He had had a change of heart in the preceding years relative to East Germany’s political system. In 1990, Koch became Cultural Heritage Officer at East Germany’s Institute for the Preservation of Historical Monuments and was appointed Minister of Culture, responsible for the demolition of the Wall. After German reunification the same year, http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/germanys-unite-through-treuhandanstalt/ Hagen Koch began creating an extensive Wall Archive at his home and welcomed visitors to view his collection. Visiting dignitaries included the Queen of Sweden and the artist Christo. Over time, Koch turned self-styled chronicler of the Wall and became a sought-after speaker. As part of a Historical Witness Project, the Wende Museum in Los Angeles, California, invited Hagen Koch to tell his story. Click http://www.wendemuseum.org/participate/historical-witness-hagen-koch to watch the interview.

Tags: Berlin, Berlin Wall, Cold War, Erich Mielke, German reunification, Hagen Koch, imperialism, Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit, Ministry for State Security, Operation Rose, socialism, Stasi, Walter Ulbricht, Wende Museum
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Erich Mielke – Master of Fear

Monday, May 1st, 2017

Erich Mielke headed the feared East German Ministry for State Security (Ministerium fuer Staatsicherheit – MfS) for over 30 years. The agency became known as the STASI. http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/the-stasi-and-how-it-worked/ From 1957 until shortly before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Stasi was enormously powerful, making Erich Mielke the most influential man in East Germany, right behind Communist Party leader, Erich Honecker. http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/erich-honecker-berlin-wall-architect/ One hundred thousand full-time agents and up to two million unofficial “citizen helpers” were under Mielke’s control. His agency stifled opposition by using assassination, kidnapping, execution, denunciation and intimidation to keep the 16.5 million East Germans in fear. In a 1993 interview, Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said that the Stasi was “much, much worse than the Gestapo.”

Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi from 1957 to 1989. Photo courtesy of Bundesarchiv.

Erich Mielke’s Pre-Stasi Days

Erich Mielke’s parents were founding members of the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD, making Erich a second-generation communist. Born into poverty in 1907 in Berlin, he joined the communist youth movement at age 15 and the KPD at age 20. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the Communist party and the Nazi party were frequently involved in violent armed conflicts, Mielke was member of the communist paramilitary forces.

Together with another member of the paramilitary forces, Erich Mielke shot two Berlin police captains in 1931. Their names were Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. Mielke escaped prosecution by fleeing to the Soviet Union. He was not tried for the murders until 1993 when incriminating papers were found in his home safe during a search. While in exile in the Soviet Union, Erich Mielke attended the Communist International’s Military-Political School and the Lenin School in Moscow.

From 1936 to 1939, Mielke served as an operative in Spain’s political police. Upon the defeat of the Spanish Republic, he fled to France, was imprisoned, but managed to escape to Belgium. His activities during World War II remain largely unknown. In 1945, at he end of the war, a law enforcement agency closely associated with the Soviet Secret Police ordered him to return to Occupied Germany. His assignment was to build up a security force in the Soviet occupation zone, which involved tracking down Nazis, anti-communists and hundreds of members of the Social Democratic Party. The number of arrests exceeded the number of available spaces in existing prisons so that eleven concentration camps were re-opened or newly established.

Erich Mielke’s Stasi Days

With the establishment of the Ministry for State Security in 1950, Mielke was appointed deputy director of the institution. In November 1957, he became the head of State Security. At that time, the Stasi had 14,000 full-time employees. By 1989 that number had increased to near 100,000. Along the way, Mielke helped Erich Honecker to topple Walter Ulbricht http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/image-challenged-walter-ulbricht/ as the party leader.

Erich Mielke’s Final Stasi Days

On 8 October 1989, Erich Mielke and Erich Honecker ordered the Stasi to implement “Plan X,” a plan to arrest and indefinitely detain 85,939 East Germans during a state of emergency. On 13 November 1989, a few days after the opening of the wall, Erich Mielke gave a speech at the Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik) http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/the-palast-der-republik-lives-on/ and in which he said, “I love all – all people.” On 3 December 1989, Erich Mielke was expelled from the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitsparty Deutschlands – SED). Four days later he was arrested and imprisoned on remand in Hohenschoenhausen. http://www.walled-in-berlin/j-elke-ertle/berlin/hohenschoenhausen-prison-part1/ Soon thereafter he was released due to medical reason and arrested again three months later for “crimes against humanity” and “perversion of justice.” He was moved to several prisons in succession. In 1993, the by then 85-year-old Erich Mielke was sentenced to six years in prison for the murders of Captains Anlauf and Lenck in 1931. At the end of 1995, Mielke was released due to ill health. He died at the age of 93.

Tags: Berlin Wall, Communist International's Military-Political School, Communist Party of Germany, East Germany, Erich Mielke, Franz Lenck, Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Lenin School, Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit, Ministry for State Security, Palace of the Republic, Palast der Republik, Paul Anlauf, Plan X, Simon Wiesenthal, Stasi
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The Stasi and how it worked

Monday, February 29th, 2016

The STASI was the secret police agency of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The name stands for Ministerium fuer STAatsSIcherheit (Ministry for State Security). In keeping with their motto “Schild und Schwert der Partei” (Shield and Sword of the Party) the Stasi became one of the most repressive and feared institutions that ever existed.

How the Stasi got its start

The Stasi grew out of the internal security and police agency that was launched by the Soviets in their occupation zone of Germany in the aftermath of World War II. On 8 February 1950, four months after the East German state was established, the state’s new legislature established the Ministry for State Security. The agency’s initial responsibility was limited to domestic political surveillance and foreign espionage. Soon its power grew exponentially.

What made the Stasi so powerful?

Under Erich Mielke http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/erich-mielke-master-of-fear/, director of the agency from 1957 to 1989, the Stasi gained access to every aspect of the daily lives of East German citizens: Aside from foreign espionage, it suppressed internal political opposition; it imprisoned hundreds of thousands of citizens; it infiltrated every major East German institution; it even went so far as to analyze the garbage for suspect western food and/or materials. In addition, the Stasi maintained detailed files on family and personal relationships.

It accomplished these tasks with approximately 100,000 full-time Stasi officers, 15,000 soldiers, army officers and police in addition to a vast network of full-time and part-time citizen informants and unofficial collaborators. The number of these citizen-helpers has been estimated at somewhere between 500,000 and 2,000,000. These unpaid collaborators were often recruited from people whose jobs entailed frequent contact with the public. They included doctors, nurses, clergy, lawyers, teachers, trolley conductors, waiters, janitors and actors. In return for small incentives designed to make them feel important, they were asked to spy on and denounced colleagues, friends, neighbors and family members. By 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell the Stasi employed one full-time agent for every 166 East Germans. Adding full-time and part-time informers and collaborators, the Stasi relied on one informer per 6.5 people. https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/koehler-stasi.html The agency maintained files on more than one-third of the East German population.

By the 1970s, the Stasi decreased its number of overt persecutions, such as arrests and torture, and increasingly focused on the use of psychological tactics, called Zersetzung (undermining). Favored methods included gaslighting, which is a form of mental manipulation with the intent to make the victims doubt their sanity. Gaslighting tactics included breaking into homes and moving furniture, changing the time on the clock, removing pictures from walls or simply replacing one variety of tea with another.

End of the Stasi

Soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the East German legislature tried to rebrand the Stasi as the Amt fuer Nationale Sicherheit (Office for National Security). But because of a public outcry this agency was never established. Instead, the Stasi was formally disbanded in February 1990. But before the agency was dissolved, Stasi officials destroyed a vast amount of the organization’s files. East German citizens occupied the Stasi’s main headquarters in Berlin on 15 January 1990, stopped the destruction and saved the remaining files.

Attempted destruction of files by the Stasi and bags of files recovered – photos on exhibit in “Haus in der Runden Ecke”, Leipzig.

Since 2015, East German Stasi files are open to the public online for the first time. Please visit http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/stasi-files-online-now/

Tags: Amt fuer Nationale Sicherheit, Erich Mielke, fall of the Berlin Wall, foreign espionage, gaslighting, mental manipulation, Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit, Ministry for State Security, occupation of Stasi headquarters, Office for National Security, Stasi, surveillance, Zersetzung
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Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen Prison- Part 1

Monday, November 9th, 2015

Between 1951 and 1989 East Germany’s deeply feared State Security, the Stasi, operated a notorious political prison in Hohenschoenhausen. Located in Berlin’s northeastern district of Lichtenberg, some 40,000 political prisoners passed through the sprawling compound’s gates during its 38-year operation. Few people actually knew of the prison’s existence because the prison was located within a large, restricted military area and hermetically sealed-off from the outside world. It never even appeared on any East Berlin map. http://www.visitberlin.de/en/spot/gedenkstaette-berlin-hohenschoenhausen

History of Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen

In 1939, the Hohenschoenhausen compound was built as a canteen. In June 1945, at the conclusion of World War II, the Soviet Secret Police took over the area, transformed it into a detainment camp and called it Special Camp No. 3. During the winter of 1946-1947, the Soviets turned the camp into a prison and converted the cafeteria into an underground prison area.

Original Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen prison building, photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2015

In 1951, the Ministry of State Security (Mfs) – better known as the Stasi – reopened the prison. In the late 50s, using prisoner labor, they added an additional building. It included 200 prison cells and interrogation rooms. The Stasi also converted the existing cafeteria. It became known as the “U-Boot” (submarine) among inmates because the Stasi applied water torture in some of its cells. Employing predominantly psychological torture to break the prisoners’ resistance and will, Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen functioned as a prison until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Most of the prisoners had tried to flee or emigrate from East Germany or had been persecuted due to their political views. The compound officially closed on October 3, 1990, the day of German reunification.

Expanded Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen prison building, photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2015

Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen Memorial

In 1995, the Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen Memorial (Gedenkstaette Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen) opened on the site of the former East German political prison. On the initiative of its former Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen inmates, the compound has become a registered memorial site. To help us comprehend the extent and methods of political persecution in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany), former prisoners conduct guided tours. In 2013, a museum opened as well. It displays close to 500 objects that tell the stories of those who were imprisoned here. The Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen Memorial is open year-round.

Read about my impressions of to Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen in next week’s blog. http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/berlin-hohenschoenhausen-prison-part-2

Tags: Berlin, Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen Memorial, Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen prison, East Germany, fall of the Berlin Wall, Gedenkstaette Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen, Special Camp No.3, Stasi, U-Boot
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Wolfgang Vogel: East German Profiteer

Monday, November 2nd, 2015

Not only capitalist societies spawn profiteers. During the Cold War, Wolfgang Vogel, largely unknown to the general public but known to many prominent figures, pulled strings in Moscow as effectively as in Washington. For three decades, he was an extremely successful communist profiteer. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/world/europe/23vogel.html?_r=0

Licensed to practice law in both East and West Berlin, Vogel was the “point man” between East and West Germany. He was central to the exchanges of more than 150 spies from 23 countries and the last hope for many emigrants from East Germany. He earned millions in the process.

Wolfgang Vogel was central to the exchanges of more than 150 spies from 23 countries, photo www.dw.com

The life of Wolfgang Vogel

Born in 1925 in Lower Silesia (now Poland), Wolfgang Vogel studied law in Jena and Leipzig and passed the equivalent of the bar exam in 1949. In 1954, he began practicing law in East Berlin. Three years later, he gained the right to practice in West Berlin as well. The East German Ministry for State Security, known as the Stasi, employed Vogel to make contacts among West German lawyers and politicians. These contacts eventually helped him broker exchanges of spies captured by the West for political prisoners held by the East. Vogel died in Bavaria in 2008.

Wolfgang Vogel’s famed spy swaps

Wolfgang Vogel brokered some of the most famous spy swaps between East and West. In 1962, he was instrumental to negotiating the exchange of both, the American U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers and the American Ph.D. student Frederic L. Pryor for the Soviet KGB spy, Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher (also known as Rudolf Abel). The exchange inspired the 2015 movie, “Bridge of Spies, starring Tom Hanks as James Donovan, Abel’s defense attorney, and Sebastian Koch as the East German attorney Wolfgang Vogel. For more information on the Glienicke Bridge, visit http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/glienicker-bruecke-bridge-of-spies/

In 1981, Vogel negotiated the exchange of East German Stasi-agent Guenter Guillaume for Western agents captured by the Eastern bloc.

In 1986, Wolfgang Vogel brokered the exchange of Israeli human rights activist and author Anatoly Shcharansky for Czech sleeper-agent Karl Koecher and his wife.

Wolfgang Vogel – the profiteer

Representing the East German leader Erich Honecker, Wolfgang Vogel not only helped facilitate East-West prisoner exchanges, he also negotiated the re-location of thousands of East Germans to the West. However, his assistance did not come cheap. He became a wealthy man in the process.

Between the 1950s and 1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall), Wolfgang Vogel was an official “representative of the German Democratic Republic for humanitarian issues.” In that capacity, he “sold” 33,755 political prisoners to West Germany. Their value varied according to their profession, their “crime” and how well they were known in the West. He also reunited 215,019 families and individuals in line with to the East German government’s maxim, “Human relief against hard Deutschmark”. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/wolfgang-vogel-tot-der-anwalt-zwischen-den-welten-1.692361 The family reunion-seekers were individuals who had been left behind when the Berlin Wall was erected in August 1961, or they were relatives of escapees or relatives of those who had defected on business trips to the West. When these individuals turned to Vogel to obtain permission to emigrate, he was often able to negotiate the necessary permissions, provided these family reunion-seekers had private property to sell. Only then would Vogel locate buyers – for a fee, of course.

For his efforts, Wolfgang Vogel received benefits in cash and in kind. These benefits amounted to the equivalent of more than a half billion euros. http://www.welt.de/geschichte/article130633378/Darf-man-einen-Menschenhaendler-heiligsprechen.html At times, he earned half a million Deutschmark and more in just one year, practically tax-free. Still, Wolfgang Vogel saw himself as a humanitarian and a lawyer of the people. He said, “My ways were not white and not black; they had to be gray.”

Tags: 2015 movie "Bridge of Spies", Anatoly Shcharansky, Berlin, Berlin Wall, Cold War, Erich Honecker, Francis Gary Powers, Frederic L. Pryor, Guenter Guillaume, Karl Koecher, Rudolph Abel, spie exchanges, Stasi, Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher, Wolfgang Vogel
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Stasi files online now

Thursday, January 22nd, 2015

“East German Stasi files open to public online for the first time,” states Justin Huggler’s in an article in the Telegraph on January 9, 2015.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11336288/East-German-Stasi-files-open-to-public-online-for-first-time.html

Who is the Stasi?

The term *Stasi” refers to the East German Ministry for State Security (Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit – MfS for short). The Stasi has been called the most repressive secret police agency ever. One of its tasks was to spy on its own population through agents but also through a vast network of citizen-informants. The Stasi countered opposition by overt and covert means, often involving psychological techniques.

Stasi files since German reunification

Following the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Stasi tried to destroy the almost 70 miles of documents it had on file. It was stopped by ordinary citizens who stormed and occupied the agency’s offices. As a result, the Stasi was able to destroy only about 5% of all documents. Following a declassification ruling by the new German government in 1992, the remaining files were opened. According to the Telegraph, almost 7 million applications to view these files have been registered since then.

What Stasi files are available online?

Available for viewing online are 161 documents, 29 photos, 6 audios and 18 videos. They include information on the 1953 East German uprising against communist rule, the 1960 execution of defected border officer Manfred Smolka, Stasi chief Erich Mielke’s comments on the shoot-to-kill policy (read also: http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/erich-mielke-master-of-fear/, the 1983 concert of West German rock star Udo Lindenberg and the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. For privacy reasons, the website does not include files on living individuals.

To access the online information, currently available only in German, go to http://www.stasi-mediathek.de/sammlungen/.

Tags: East German Ministry for State Security, Erich Mielke, fall of the Berlin Wall, Manfred Smolka, Stasi, Telegraph.co.uk, Udo Lindenberg
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