Gottfried Strympe

Gottfried Strympe (* 1924 ; † June 21, 1962 in Leipzig ) was executed as a criminal in the GDR .

Life

Gottfried Strympe had not learned a trade, was divorced three times and is said to have changed jobs frequently. On April 24, 1961, after a series of arson attacks, he was arrested and taken to the remand prison of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the GDR in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen . The reasons for the arson he was accused of and which he is said to have committed in the vicinity of his home town of Bautzen were allegedly failed attempts at masturbation while observing women. On these occasions he allegedly also committed theft.

The Ministry of State Security recorded a total of 64 thefts from 1957 to 1961 and 28 arson attacks from September 1960. With the exception of a burned roof structure, neither the thefts he was accused of nor the arson are said to have caused any major damage and no one is said to have been injured or killed in the process. The investigations were delayed by incidents in the prison, which, in the opinion of the GDR judicial authorities , made it necessary for Strympes to stay in the closed ward of a psychiatric clinic for six weeks.

Judgment and death

To justify the building of the Berlin Wall by propaganda , the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED also intended to hold show trials .

The investigation revealed that Strympe had visited his father, who lived in West Berlin , about weekly until his death in 1958. During these stays he went to cinema screenings and the Amerika-Haus and procured literature and pornographic images. Once he had smuggled a Social Democratic newspaper into Bautzen. Although the Ministry of State Security was aware of the psychiatric background of Strympe's actions and a psychiatric report contained doubts about his sanity , it stated in its final report that the latter had carried out the arson at the behest of the "West German and American imperialists" . Strympe is "a violent criminal, terrorist and diversant, who during the time of his terrorist activity kept well over 60,000 people in the city and district of Bautzen in constant fear psychosis [...]"

After the investigation was over, the Minister for State Security Erich Mielke , the Minister of Justice Hilde Benjamin , the acting Attorney General Werner Funk and the head of the State and Legal Affairs department at the Central Committee of the SED, Klaus Sorgenicht , jointly proposed to the Politburo on December 7, 1961, to counter Strympe to impose the death penalty in a trial before "the general public" . As regards the planned court hearing, this submission said:

“Here, the population is clearly shown the dangers of ideological diversion , as it is carried out by the RIAS and the West German agitation broadcasters. The trial proves that Strympe's hostile attitude during his stays in West Berlin ... was significantly strengthened. "

It also read:

"[...] the still fluctuating parts of the population of Bautzen will better recognize the dangerousness of connections and trips to West Berlin and understand the necessity of the measures taken on August 13, 1961."

The Politburo agreed on December 12th and Strympe was sentenced to death in the main hearing of the Dresden District Court from January 22nd to February 2nd, 1962 for "continued acts of diversification" according to §§ 17, 22 and 24 StEG .

The public court hearing with daily reporting was accompanied by a signature campaign organized by the SED in companies and institutions in the Dresden district , in which hundreds of GDR citizens employed there, often unanimously , demanded the maximum penalty for “the beast” .

During the hearing, the court did not address Strympes' mental illness or the terrorism allegations. The defense attorney was also not allowed to raise these circumstances. He was previously referred to an appeal to be made later to the Supreme Court of the GDR . This appeal was rejected as unfounded on May 18, 1962. Strympe was executed by beheading on June 21, 1962 .

The investigations of the government crime working group, which began in 1992, against those responsible Mielke and worries about perversion of the law , who were still alive, were discontinued in 1996 in accordance with Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure .

See also

• GDR justice
• List of people executed in the GDR

literature

• Klaus Bästlein: The Mielke case. The investigation against the Minister for State Security of the GDR (Law and Justice of the GDR; Vol. 3). Nomos VG, Baden-Baden 2002, ISBN 3-7890-7775-5 , pp. 199-204 (also dissertation, FU Berlin 2002).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Falco Werkentin : Political criminal justice in the Ulbricht era (research on GDR history; vol. 1). Links-Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-86153-069-4 , pp. 105-110.