Horst Behrendt (MfS employee)

Horst Behrendt (born December 16, 1910 in Lanz ; † November 29, 1975 in Berlin ) was a lieutenant colonel and party secretary in the Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the GDR .

Life

Behrendt, son of a seamstress and a hairdresser and later a chemical worker, completed an apprenticeship as a machine fitter after elementary school and worked in this profession in Halle (Saale) until 1931 . In 1926 he became a member of the General German Trade Union Federation , the Friends of Nature , the Red Front Fighters Federation and the Workers' Gymnastics and Sports Federation and in 1931 the KPD . Behrendt was unemployed from 1931 to 1934.

After the National Socialists came to power , Behrendt also supported the party under the code name Hermann in illegality. In 1934 he was considered country helper according Hundeluft ( district Zerbst sent). In July 1934 Behrendt emigrated to Czechoslovakia , where he ran a youth home and was an instructor for the KPD emigrants. After the invasion of the German Wehrmacht , Behrendt was arrested by the Gestapo in March 1939 and sentenced in October by the Reich Chamber of Commerce in Halle to 18 months in prison for “preparing for high treason ”. Behrendt was imprisoned in Halle prison and the Sachsenhausen and Fallersleben concentration camps until 1945 . In April 1945 he managed to escape.

From June 1945 to November 1946, Behrendt was Agitprop secretary of the KPD / SED district leadership in Halle and at the same time a liaison to the headquarters of the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) in Halle. In December 1946 he became head of the land / real estate department at the Saxony-Anhalt State Association of the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB). In 1949 Behrendt attended the state trade union school in Beesenstedt and from December 1949 to May 1950 was acting personnel manager at the German shipping and handling companies in Berlin .

In June 1950 Behrendt went to the People's Police and became head of department in Halle. From September 1951 to August 1953 he was deputy head of the Wernigerode People's Police District Office and from September 1953 to January 1954 he was deputy sub-department head of the district authority of the German People's Police in Magdeburg . From 1954 to 1956 Behrendt attended the party college "Karl Marx" and graduated as a social scientist . From July 1956 to November 1957 he was an instructor in the Security Department of the Central Committee of the SED .

From December 1957 to December 1960, Behrendt worked in the Ministry for State Security (MfS) and became first secretary of the SED party organization in the MfS's main intelligence office with the rank of major . From 1961 to 1963 he was chairman of the district party control commission of the Ministry of the Interior and became a lieutenant colonel. From 1963 to 1967 he was chairman of the District Party Control Commission of the National People's Army . In 1967 he retired for health reasons. Behrendt died in Berlin in 1975.

Honors

• 1958 medal for fighters against fascism
• 1961 Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze

literature

• Jens Gieseke and Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Horst Behrendt . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Manfred Wilke (ed.): Anatomy of the party headquarters . Studies by the SED State Research Association at the Free University of Berlin. Akademieverlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-05-003220-0 .
• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 1: Abendroth - Lyr. KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 .