Gustav Szinda

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On March 2, 1962, Gustav Szinda (right in the picture) was awarded the Labor banner by the President of the People's Chamber of the GDR, Johannes Dieckmann .

Gustav Szinda (born February 13, 1897 in Blindgallen , East Prussia ; † September 23, 1988 ) was a German communist and major general (from 1964) of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) and first head of the counter-espionage department in the GDR's foreign policy intelligence service (APN) , the predecessor of the MfS.

Life

Szinda, the son of a carpenter , completed an apprenticeship as a machine fitter. During the First World War , Szinda was a soldier at the front. In 1919 he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and was a member of the Red Front Fighters League , and in 1920 a member of the Red Ruhr Army . In 1924 he joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and was involved in illegal party work after the National Socialists “ seized power ” from 1933 to 1935.

Szinda emigrated to Amsterdam in 1935 , where he belonged to the KPD's secret intelligence service. From 1936 to 1938 he participated in the Spanish Civil War as a member of the International Brigades , where he was temporarily chief of staff and commander of the Thälmann battalion , and from 1937 chief of counter-espionage of the international brigades. In 1938 he became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE).

After the defeat of the International Brigades, he emigrated to Moscow and became an employee of the Comintern . By the Comintern, at the end of 1939, Szinda was commissioned to inspect the cadre material laid out for the German-speaking volunteers. For example, he wrote about the Spanish fighter Hermann Diamanski :

“Dimanski (sic!), Hermann. Came to Spain in October 1937, was suspected of having come to Spain on behalf of the enemy and was under the control of the Sim (Servico de Investigacion Militar = military surveillance service). We do not know anything about his further activity and his whereabouts in Spain. "

Szinda graduated from the Central Committee School in the Soviet Union . After the attack on the Soviet Union in 1943, Szinda was deployed with the partisans in the Ukrainian Pripyat region. In December 1943, Szinda was parachuted near Berlin as a reconnaissance officer for the intelligence service of the Red Army . However, after landing, he was unable to establish radio contact with his clients as planned. In the spring of 1945 he was picked up by the Red Army in the Guben area and imprisoned by the NKVD .

From September to December 1945 he was a teacher at Antifa School 12 . After his return to Germany in January 1946, he began working for the police in the Soviet zone of occupation and from April 1946 in the SED Central Committee , where he was head of the SED Central Committee's department for security issues from 1949 to 1951. In 1951 he became department head of the Defense Department in the Foreign Policy Intelligence Service of the GDR (APN), which from 1953 was Main Department XV of the MfS and from 1959 part of the Headquarters Enlightenment (HV A). In 1954 he became head of Department VII of the MfS and from 1958 head of the district administration of the MfS in the Neubrandenburg district . In 1965 he was retired.

Szinda was the initiator of the so-called "convicts-GI" (GI = social informant), where he recruited willing prisoners in addition to the regular guards as informants for the MfS.

tomb

His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

Honors

Fonts

  • Combative solidarity with the Spanish people. In: Heinz Vosske : Proven in combat. Berlin 1977.
  • The XI. Brigade in the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 , published in the Marxist-Leninist series for history, politics, economics and philosophy, issue 79.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Sakowski: The life of a revolutionary , Offizin Andersen Nexö Leipzig , 1989
  2. ^ Heike Amos: Politics and Organization of the SED Headquarters 1949–1963: Structure and working methods of the Politburo, Secretariat, Central Committee and Central Committee , LIT Verlag, Berlin / Hamburg / Münster 2003, ISBN 978-3-82586-187-2 , P. 28.
  3. ↑ Peter Huber , Matthias Uhl: The International Brigades: Political Surveillance and Repression after Viewing Russian and Western Archive Files , December 2004, p. 15 ( pdf )
  4. ↑ Gustav Szinda's report on Hermann Diamanski Quoted in: Heiko Haumann : Hermann Diamanski: A German Fate Between Auschwitz and the State Security Service. Perspectives of Memory , in: Birgit E. Klein; Christiane E. Müller, (ed.): Memoria - Ways of Jewish Remembrance. Festschrift for Michael Brocke on the occasion of his 65th birthday, Berlin 2005, p. 518f. (pdf; 6.1 MB) .
  5. ^ Matthias Judt: GDR. History in documents. Resolutions, reports, internal materials and everyday testimonies (research on GDR society), Ch. Links Verlag ; Edition 1 (1997), ISBN 978-3861531425 , ff. P. 447
  6. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke : Committed to Truth: Texts from five decades on the history of the GDR , Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86153-208-5 , p. 472
  7. ^ Social informants in Double Surveillance: Secret Service Investigation Methods in the GDR . Page 340, by Rita Sélitrenny, ISBN 978-3-86153-311-5
  8. ↑ Neues Deutschland, May 7, 1955, p. 2
  9. ^ New Germany of February 28, 1957
  10. ↑ Colonel Gustav Szinda, head of the district administration Neubrandenburg of the Ministry for State Security was awarded the order "Banner of Labor"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.zapsation.com
personal data
SURNAME Szinda, Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German intelligence officer, head of the GDR State Security
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Blindgallen , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 1988