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Wilhelm Zaisser | |
|---|---|
 Wilhelm Zaisser in 1950. | |
| Minister of State Security of theGerman Democratic Republic | |
| In office 8 February 1950 – 18 July 1953 | |
| President | Wilhelm Pieck |
| Prime Minister | Otto Grotewohl |
| Deputy | Erich Mielke |
| Preceded by | Office created |
| Succeeded by | Ernst Wollweber |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Wilhelm Zaisser (1893-06-20)20 June 1893 |
| Died | 3 March 1958(1958-03-03) (aged 64) |
| Political party | Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany(1919–1921) Communist Party of Germany(1921–1932) Communist Party of the Soviet Union(1932–1947) Socialist Unity Party of Germany(1947–1954) |
| Spouse | Elisabeth Knipp / Zaisser |
| Children | Renate Böttcher-Zaisser, born 22 April 1924 |
| Occupation | Politician, Soldier, Spy, Government Minister |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | German Empire Soviet Union Republic of China(1927–1930) Czechoslovakia(1930–1932) Second Spanish Republic(1936–1938) East Germany |
| Branch/service | Imperial German Army Main Intelligence DirectorateNational Revolutionary Army Spanish Republican Army |
| Years of service | First World WarSpanish Civil War |
Wilhelm Zaisser (20 June 1893 – 3 March 1958) was a Germancommunist politician and statesman who served as the founder and firstMinister for State Security of theGerman Democratic Republic (1950–1953).[1]
Born inGelsenkirchen,Westphalia in to the family of agendarmerie sergeant, Zaisser studied to become a teacher from 1910 to 1913 inEssen. WhenWorld War I began a year later, Zaisser joined theImperial German Army. Upon leaving the service in 1918, Zaisser joined theIndependent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and in 1919 returned to Essen, where he became a school teacher. During this period, Zaisser became an activecommunist. During theKapp Putsch in 1920, he was a military leader of the fledglingRed Ruhr Army, which led to his arrest and dismissal as a teacher in 1921. After his release, Zaisser worked for theCommunist Party of Germany (KPD) as a propagandist. From 1921 to 1922, Zaisser edited theRuhr Echo and theBergischen Voice of the People. In 1923, Zaisser was recruited into the KPD's intelligence wing and worked to covertly subvert theThird French Republic'soccupation of the Ruhr.
Zaisser's efficient work caused him to be summoned toMoscow a year later, where he received both political andmilitary intelligence training by theGRU.
After returning to theWeimar Republic in 1924, Zaisser became one of the leaders of the KPD intelligence wing, reporting directly to theCentral Committee. Throughout the 1920s, Zaisser was also aparamilitary instructor and political leader for the KPD in such the areas ofRhine, Westphalia andBerlin. He also worked covertly in other nations for the [GRU from 1925 to 1926 as amilitary advisor toSyria. Starting in 1927, Zaisser worked almost exclusively for the Executive Committee of theComintern, serving as a military advisor toChina (1927–1930) and theCzechoslovak Army (1930–1932). His covert activities were ultimately rewarded by full membership in theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union in 1932 and fullSoviet citizenship in 1940. In 1936, Zaisser traveled to theSecond Spanish Republic under the covert identity of "Gomez."
On behalf of the Soviets, Zaisser became amilitary advisor to theSpanish Republican Army, while secretly remaining a,GRU agent,[2] and as the Chief of theServicio de Investigación Militar, thepolitical police of theSecond Spanish Republic.[3] Wilhelm Zaisser's deputy was a careerNKVD operative and futureStasi MinisterErich Mielke, who used the cover name "Fritz Leissner."
In addition to Zaisser and Mielke, the S.I.M. was filled with countless other agents of the GRU andNKVD, whose Spanishrezident was GeneralAleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov. According to authorDonald Rayfield, "Stalin,Yezhov, andBeria distrusted Soviet participants in the Spanish war. Military advisors likeVladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, journalists likeKoltsov were open to infection by the heresies, especiallyTrotsky's, prevalent among the Republic's supporters. NKVD agents sent to Spain were therefore keener onabducting and murdering anti-Stalinists among Republican leaders andInternational Brigade commanders than on fightingFranco. The defeat of the Republic, in Stalin's eyes, was caused not by the NKVD's diversionary efforts, but by the treachery of the heretics."[4]
Zaisser quickly achieved the rank ofbrigadier general (initially commandingXIII International Brigade), and in 1937, he became leader of all the pro-RepublicanInternational Brigades operating in Spain. Following the end of theSpanish Civil War in 1939, Zaisser returned to Moscow to resume working for the Comintern, but was thrown into jail, apparently because of the failure of the Soviet intervention in Spain.[5] During and afterWorld War II, Zaisser taughtStalinistre-education courses to Germanprisoners of war.
In 1947, Zaisser returned to Germany and joined theSocialist Unity Party (SED). Zaisser's career took off rapidly soon afterwards, and by 1948 he was Minister of the Interior and Deputy Minister-President ofSaxony-Anhalt. From 1949 to 1954, Zaisser served as a representative in theVolkskammer and in 1950 worked on military and tactical issues at theMarx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute, a facility to which very few non-Soviets had access.
In 1950, Zaisser gained membership in East Germany'sPolitburo and theCentral Committee of the SED, thus becoming one of the most powerful men in the country. In the same year, Zaisser was awarded the Karl Marx Medal and appointed Director of theMinistry of State Security. Using his vast knowledge of intelligence work, Zaisser built the Stasi into a powerful organization.
After the death of Soviet leaderJoseph Stalin on 5 March 1953, Moscow favored replacing East Germany's Stalinist party leaderWalter Ulbricht and considered Zaisser a potential candidate. However, theworkers' uprising, which was suppressed by theRed Army on 17 June, led to a backlash.
Alarmed by the uprising,Lavrenty Beria, theFirst Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union and head of theMinistry of Internal Affairs, personally travelled fromMoscow toEast Berlin. He conferred with Wilhelm Zaisser and with Erich Mielke, his deputy, both of whom he had known since the early 1930s. During both conversations, Beria demanded to know why the Stasi had failed to recognize the extreme discontent of the population and inform the Party leadership, which could then have prevented the uprising by taking extremely repressive measures in advance. Both Zaisser and Mielke answered Beria's questions circumspectly, and were accordingly left in their posts.
Beria accordingly returned to Moscow intending to remove Ulbricht from power as Premier. However, he was arrested on 26 June 1953, as part of acoup d'état led byNikita Khrushchev andMarshalGeorgy Zhukov. Beria was tried on charges of 357 counts ofrape andhigh treason. He wassentenced to death andshot byRed ArmyColonel-GeneralPavel Batitsky on 23 December 1953.[6]
Meanwhile, when the East German Politburo met on 8 July, it still seemed that Ulbricht would be deposed as Party General Secretary. While Zaisser conceded that the SED's whole Politburo was responsible for the "accelerated construction of socialism" and for the subsequent fallout. But he also added that to leave Ulbricht as Premier, "would be opposed catastrophic for the New Course".[7]
By the end of the meeting, only two Politburo members still supported Ulbricht's leadership:Free German Youth League chiefErich Honecker and Party Control Commission ChairmanHermann Matern. Ulbricht only managed to forestall a decision then and there with a promise to make a statement at the forthcoming 15th SED CC Plenum, scheduled for later that month.[7]
Meanwhile, Mielke informed a Party commission looking for scapegoats that Zaisser, was calling for secret negotiations withWest Germany and that, "he believed the Soviet Union would abandon the DDR."[8]
Once he knew he had the complete support of new Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, Ulbricht removed Zaisser and all other critics of his leadership from the SED's ruling Politburo. Zaisser was also forced to resign as Minister for State Security in July 1953.[9] However, in 1953 Zaisser was decorated with theOrder of Karl Marx.[1]
Ultimately, Zaisser and all other anti-Ulbricht members of the Politburo and the Central Committee were dismissed from all their other positions. Ulbricht particularly accused Zaisser of not using more of the repressive power of theStasi during the uprising of June 1953. Zaisser was stripped of all his posts, expelled from the SED, and classified as anenemy of the people.
Wilhelm Zaisser spent his final years working as a translator and at the Institute of Marxism and Leninism. He died in obscurity inEast Berlin in 1958.
Only after the 1989Peaceful Revolution andGerman Reunification in 1990, was Zaisser formally rehabilitated. His Party membership posthumously was also restored by theParty of Democratic Socialism (PDS), thesuccessor party to the SED, in 1993.
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