Gehlen trial

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The Gehlen Trial is a series of court trials in the German Democratic Republic that took place in the years 1953–1956 against alleged agents of the Gehlen organization , the predecessor organization of the BND .

Some of these were secret trials , such as the one against Elli Barczatis , the chief secretary of Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl , and her friend Karl Laurenz , which ended in 1955 with death sentences for the accused.

Other processes were large-scale as show trials and planned in advance in detail. These include the proceedings against Werner Wilhelm Haase and six other defendants from December 1953, which ended with long prison sentences, and the proceedings against Karli Bandelow , Ewald Misera and 5 co-defendants, in which the two named death sentences were pronounced in early November 1954.

The declared main aim of the show trials was to portray the Gehlen organization in public as "warmongering" and a "criminal gang". This was also necessary for the grounds of the judgment itself, as there was no espionage offense in the GDR up to the Criminal Law Supplementary Act (StEG) of February 1, 1958, and therefore other charges had to be used. Another essential aim of the show trials was to emphasize the importance of state security and to anchor it in the population. The press repeatedly called for "greater vigilance". After the uprising of June 17, 1953 , the ministry was accused of failure and downgraded to the State Secretariat for State Security . The State Security under its new head Ernst Wollweber did everything in its power to show success to restore its reputation. On November 24, 1955, the State Secretariat was converted back into a ministry.

The November 1954 trial of Bandelow and others

Seven people were indicted and convicted in this process: the civil engineer and main consultant in the State Secretariat for Motor Transport and Roads of the GDR Karli Bandelow, the clerk Ewald Misera, the sales clerk Vitalis Dalchau, the financial accountant Gottfried Schröer, the fisherman Christoph Komorek, the lathe operator Werner Laux and the typist Käthe Dorn. Most of them were among the more than 500 arrested by the State Security's "Pfeil" campaign. The selection of the accused for this show trial was made solely for reasons of political expediency and agitational use. Except for Karli Bandelow and Käthe Dorn, who had been friends, they had not known each other.

preparation

The show trial, including the judgments, was planned in advance in the Politburo of the SED . This dealt with the matter for the first time on August 24, 1954. According to Protocol No. 22/54, Willi Stoph , then a member of the Politburo and Minister of the Interior, reported on the arrest of so-called Gehlen agents under item 18 of the agenda.

The propaganda preparations were time-coordinated with a diplomatic approach by the High Commissioner of the USSR in Germany Georgi Maximowitsch Pushkin on September 23 and an international press conference on October 4 in East Berlin , which was to take place two days after the originally planned pronouncement of the verdict.

Anton Plenikowski , head of the “State Administration” department, was entrusted with the preparation of the show trial . Regarding his submission, he said in the Politburo on September 25th: “The aim of the public trials to be carried out is to further expose the Gehlen organization as a gang of war criminals, fascists and revanchists who not only promote the peace of the German people, but also the peace of the Endanger the world. "

On September 28, the Politburo will discuss the implementation and evaluation of the process as well as three other planned processes before the district courts of Erfurt, Frankfurt / Oder and Magdeburg. That concerned the objective, the course and the judgment. The Politburo saw life imprisonment for the main defendants Bandelow and Misera. Erich Mielke was supposed to prepare the arguments for the speakers and agitators about the Gehlen organization. The press should attend the hearing and send daily reports. Certain places should be filmed. The agitation department should select 120-130 people as process listeners to ensure that “the participants in the negotiation use the results in their companies, administrations and in agitation operations.” For political reasons, the process was postponed by a few weeks. It should now start on November 1st and last eight days.

The Politburo set further details in a meeting on October 26th. Litigation should be organized according to Walter Ulbricht's suggestions . Plenikowski should bear personal responsibility. At this meeting, it increases the sentence for Bandelow and Misera to the death penalty.

propaganda

As planned, massive propaganda in the newspapers and on the radio accompanied the entire process reporting. On November 2, the daily newspapers Neues Deutschland , Berliner Zeitung and Neue Zeit published large excerpts from the indictment of the Attorney General Ernst Melsheimer . With sensational headlines such as "Gehlen criminals in court", "hideous crimes come to light", "dishonorable villains - the tools of the USA ", "crimes against Germany", "the harshest punishment for these subjects", "convicted of war preparation" they raised the mood among the population. Parallel to the actual reporting, reports were made on the mood among the population, which had been thoroughly prepared by agitators. For almost every newspaper article a parallel article appeared with content such as "2,000 Müchelner miners and 900 radio workers in Dresden demand the strictest punishment of the Gehlen agents in resolutions".

The broadcasting stations Berlin 1, Berlin 2 and Deutschlandsender also broadcast daily reports at prime time, which were repeated the next morning.

In 1954 the Kongress-Verlag published an autobiographical novel prepared for propaganda by Hans-Joachim Geyer with the title In the beginning stood the end ... As a double agent, Geyer had contributed significantly to the wave of arrests of the “Aktion Feuerwerk” before the first Gehlen trial in 1953 and was also in the November 1954 was used as a witness.

After the trial was over, the Kongress-Verlag also published the propaganda publication Halt! We speak the verdict. About the activities of imperialist secret services , which mainly deal with the defendants and the Gehlen organization.

procedure

The timing of the process can largely be traced back to the reports in the daily newspapers Neues Deutschland , Berliner Zeitung and Neue Zeit . The chairman of the court was Walter Ziegler , the assessors were Helene Kleine and Heinrich Löwenthal. Attorney General Ernst Melsheimer represented the indictment. Bandelow was represented by public defender Friedrich Wolff .

In court, the defendants were not accused of industrial espionage, which would have corresponded to the specific alleged acts. Instead, the public prosecutor accused them of planning bomb attacks to "mass annihilate the population" and destroy the GDR economy. The defendants confirmed the charges in every detail in rehearsed statements and confessed everything.

The summoned witnesses could not make any statements about the offenses of the accused because they had not known them, but reported in detail on the work of the Gehlen organization. These witnesses included the double agents Wolfgang Höher and Hans-Joachim Geyer, who were only questioned three days before the start of the main hearing, as well as the alleged defectors Gerhard Kapahnke and Gerhard Prather. Another witness was abducted by state security in the GDR secret service -Staff Friedrich Karl Bauer , who had been prepared only on 28 October on the process. In addition, the military scientist Egbert von Frankenberg and Proschlitz was called as an expert. He stated that "every assignment to the agents in the GDR should serve the direct preparation for war on German soil".

The judgment of November 9, 1954 corresponded to the guidelines of the Politburo. Karli Bandelow and Ewald Misera were sentenced to death. Werner Laux and Käthe Dorn were sentenced to life, Gottfried Schröer and Vitalis Dalchau to 15 years and Christoph Komorek to 12 years in prison.

Aftermath

On March 4, 1992, the Court of Cassation of the Berlin Regional Court overturned the judgment because it was based on "a serious violation of the law" and acquitted all those convicted in the trial:

“At the time of the conviction, espionage was not punishable in the GDR territory. The use of the provision in Article 6 of the GDR Constitution and Control Council Directive 38 represents an analogy that is prohibited in criminal law; the norms had a different regulatory purpose. The Supreme Court should therefore not have sentenced the victims for the offenses they were accused of. With lengthy political explanations, which take up a considerable part of the verdict, the Supreme Court seeks to declare the 'Organization Gehlen' to be a fascist organization, in order to subjugate the conduct of the convicted to criminal law while bending the law. Obediently, only political expectations of the state and party leadership should be demonstrated by means of criminal law. "

Historical sources

  • Judgment of the Supreme Court of the German Democratic Republic of November 9, 1954 . Supplement to Neue Justiz , issue 22/1954.
  • Lessons from the Gehlen Trial . In: Neue Justiz , 8th year (1954), issue 22, Berlin (East), p. 645 ff.

literature

  • Ronny Heidenreich, Daniela Münkel , Elke Stadelmann-Wenz: Secret Service War in Germany. The confrontation between the GDR State Security and the Gehlen Organization in 1953 (= publications by the Independent Historical Commission for Research into the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968. Volume 3). Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-922-3 .
  • Richard J. Evans : Rituals of Retribution: The Death Penalty in German History 1532–1987. 1st edition, Kindler, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-463-40400-1 , pp. 995 ff. ( Espionage, Sabotage, “Diversion”: The aftermath of June 17th ).
  • Karl Wilhelm Fricke , Roger Engelmann : "Concentrated blows". State security campaigns and political trials in the GDR 1953–1956. Ch. Links, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-86153-147-X , pp. 130-138 ( Cold war and espionage - the case of Karli Bandelow, Ewald Misera and others ).
  • Rudi Beckert: The first and last instance. Show and secret trials before the Supreme Court of the GDR. Keip, Goldbach 1995, ISBN 3-8051-0243-7 .
  • Reinhard Gehlen : The service. Memories 1942–1971 , v. Hase and Koehler, Mainz / Wiesbaden 1971, ISBN 3-920324-01-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Roger Engelmann: "Concentrated blows". State security actions and political trials in the GDR 1953–1956 , Berlin 1998.
  2. Rudi Beckert: The first and last instance. Show and secret trials before the Supreme Court of the GDR. Keip, Goldbach 1995, ISBN 3-8051-0243-7 , p. 230.
  3. a b c d Richard J. Evans: Rituals of Retribution , Berlin 2001.
  4. ^ Ronny Heidenreich, Daniela Münkel , Elke Stadelmann-Wenz: Secret Service War in Germany. The confrontation between the GDR State Security and the Gehlen Organization in 1953 (= publications by the Independent Historical Commission for Research into the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968. Volume 3). Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-922-3 , p. 434.
  5. Protocol No. 27/54; P. 1; SAPMO-BA, DY 30, J IV 2/2 A 380; quoted from Fricke / Engelmann, p. 133.
  6. ^ New Germany of November 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th and 9th, 1954; quoted from Fricke / Engelmann, p. 135.
  7. ^ New Germany of November 4, 1954; cited Fricke / Engelmann, p. 135.
  8. Review in: Military History Museum (Ed.): Attention Spies! Secret services in Germany from 1945 to 1956. Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2016, ISBN 978-3-95498-208-0 , pp. 382–386.
  9. Stop! We speak the verdict. About the activity of imperialist secret services. Based on documents and court records, edited by Albert Hermann . Kongress-Verlag, Berlin 1955.
  10. Wolfgang Höher in the marjorie-wiki
  11. ^ From the report on the military importance of espionage missions for the Gehlen agents, in: Neues Deutschland from November 7, 1954; cited Fricke / Engelmann, p. 135.
  12. ^ Judgment of the Supreme Court of the German Democratic Republic of November 9, 1954 . Supplement to Neue Justiz , issue 22/1954, p. 12.
  13. Order of the Berlin Regional Court - Court of Cassation - of March 4, 1992, file number: 552/506 Kass 453 / 91-3 Js 217/91; quoted from Fricke / Engelmann, p. 133.