Fritz Peter (General)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fritz Peter (born December 28, 1927 in Bralitz ) was an officer in the NVA and the last head of civil defense in the GDR . He was also the last General of the NPA, which the Colonel was promoted. After reunification , he was charged and sentenced for his joint responsibility for the dead on the inner-German border .

Life

The son of a butcher and farmer took up the profession of farmer after attending eight-year school. In September 1944 he was first drafted into the RAD , then drafted into the Wehrmacht as a 16-year-old in November 1944 and was taken prisoner by the Soviets in April 1945 .

After his release in 1948, he joined the SED and the German People's Police . After a year as a course instructor , Peter was a group leader at the VP-Readiness Potsdam . This was followed by the service as platoon leader and deputy commander for training at the Apolda VP readiness . After a special course in the Soviet Union, Peter was senior adjutant and head of the adjutant office in the Ministry of the Interior from 1952 to 1956 .

In 1956 he moved to the Ministry of National Defense and served there until 1959, among other things as head of the operations department. After attending the General Staff Academy of the USSR from 1959 to 1961, Peter was deputy commander and chief of staff of the 9th Panzer Division in Eggesin until 1962 . Then he served until 1964 as deputy city ​​commandant and chief of staff in the city command of East Berlin .

Until 1969 Peter worked as deputy chief and chief of staff of Military District III ( Leipzig ). During this time (1966) he was appointed major general. The service in Leipzig was followed by the post of Deputy Chief of Staff of the United Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty until 1972 . After the formation of the Land Forces Command (Kdo. LaSK), Peter became deputy chief of the LaSK and chief of staff. He was then Horst Stechbarth's deputy . On March 1, 1974, Peter was promoted to lieutenant general. From 1976 until his retirement on April 30, 1990, he was head of civil defense in the GDR. On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the GDR on 7 October 1989 Peter was appointed Colonel-General conveyed.

In January 1990, Prime Minister Hans Modrow made his appointment as government commissioner for the dissolution of the Office for National Security (AfNS) . On May 31, 1990 he was appointed secretary of the government commission for the dissolution of the former MfS / AfNS by the new Interior Minister Peter-Michael Diestel . With the date of accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany on 3 October 1990 his activity ended.

Awards in the GDR

Sentenced for aiding and abetting manslaughter

Peter was on 1 March 1994 in the wake of Wall Protect processes together with other former NVA officers before the Court of Berlin indicted for complicity in homicide and attempted homicide. The public prosecutor's office relied on annual orders on measures at the inner-German border, which Peter, as a member of the College of the Ministry of National Defense of the GDR, helped to decide. He was accused of being jointly responsible for the order to fire and the self-firing systems at the border. On May 30, 1997, he was sentenced to one year and ten months suspended prison sentence. Joachim Goldbach , Heinz Handke and Harald Ludwig were also convicted in the same process .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ New Germany of June 1, 1990
  2. ↑ Michael Mielke: NVA generals blow a certificate to withdraw. In: Die Welt , August 17, 1995, accessed September 9, 2018
  3. ^ Karl-Wilhelm Fricke: Border violators are to be arrested or destroyed. , Website of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation . Retrieved September 9, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Peter, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German military, head of civil defense in the GDR
DATE OF BIRTH December 28, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Bralitz