Joachim Groth

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Joachim Groth (* 1952 in Rostock ; † 2007 ) was a full-time employee of the Ministry for State Security , who worked as an investigator in the Stasi remand prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen .

Life

Joachim Groth first attended the children's and youth sports school in Güstrow as a boxer . Since he did not meet the requirements for the Olympic squad, he switched to a normal EOS in Rostock. After graduating from high school, Groth joined the State Security Service in 1971, where he was initially deployed in the security service of the Rostock district administration. In his circle of friends and acquaintances, however, he initially upheld the legend that he had completed his military service with the NVA and then began studying at the Humboldt University in Berlin .

In 1973 Groth became the investigator and interrogator of the Stasi investigation department ( main department IX ) in the Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, where he was employed by HA IX / 2 in combating “underground political activity”. In this function, Groth interrogated the writer Jürgen Fuchs , the opposition party Bärbel Bohley and the SED critic Rudolf Bahro . The Bahro biographer Guntolf Herzberg describes Groth as intelligent, arrogant-friendly and occasionally cynical, while the West German Jörg Kürschner , who was arrested in the GDR , described Groth as a “smart guy, well-dressed, friendly to deal with”. In his methods he was "a pig". From 1975 onwards, Groth, who was closely related to the married couple Christel and Günter Guillaume, was temporarily employed as a supervisor and monitor of the then 18-year-old Pierre Guillaume , who had moved to the GDR as an MfS spy after his parents were arrested. Groth introduced himself to Pierre Guillaume as a "great-great-cousin" and stuck to his camouflage legend towards him.

Due to his high level of intelligence, Groth, who was regarded as arrogant and in need of validation in the MfS, quickly made his career. In October 1977 the previous sergeant major was promoted to lieutenant. In October 1979 he became a lieutenant, two years later a first lieutenant. In 1978, Groth began to study law at the Humboldt University and became Dr. jur. and in May 1984 Head of Unit. This was followed by a rapid decline within a few months: Groth had been drinking a lot for years. After his marriage had also failed, his private problems made themselves felt in the work of the MfS. "Excessive alcohol consumption, overconfidence, arrogance and arrogance," noted the MfS management department. Criticized were "manifestations of non-compliance with investigation principles, the superficiality, the lack of political-ideological influence on the relatives under him as well as signs of dishonesty". After an examination by the Central Medical Service (ZMD), Groth was supposed to undergo group therapy in the MfS hospital in Berlin-Buch . Instead, however, he submitted a “request for release”, whereupon he was dismissed in March 1985 due to “unsuitability for service in the MfS”.

In the following years, Groth had several jobs mediated by the MfS in industry and commerce, which he gave up without consulting. Since the MfS suspected that Groth had “made contact with the political underground and with church circles”, an operational identity check (OPK “Hannes”) was initiated against him and a house search was carried out. After Groth visited the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic on March 1, 1989 , he was questioned by his former colleagues. When Groth went underground afterwards, an "exit ban and manhunt with arrest" was imposed on him. In September 1989 he was arrested by the People's Police and transferred to the MfS, but was released again immediately. This ends the files concerning him.

After reunification, Groth went into hiding again temporarily, as, among other things, he was being investigated because of a complaint against Jörg Kürschner, who was convicted in the GDR. Later he was questioned several times by scientists and those affected and also sought contact himself, for example with Rudolf Bahro.

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Biography Joachim Groth ( Memento from September 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). In: Arthur Schmidt: Raum Stasi detention zone. 2011 (accessed June 8, 2014).
  2. ↑ a b c Pierre Boom , Gerhard Haase-Hindenberg : The foreign father. The son of Chancellor's spy Guillaume remembers . Berlin 2004, especially pp. 72–120, 170–200, 305.
  3. ^ Jürgen Fuchs: memory protocols. Interrogation protocols. Reinbek near Hamburg 1990, pp. 172-223 (“Stasi V”) ; Astrid Carlsen: Describing what is, what was: Jürgen Fuchs sin bok interrogation protocols - et bilde av GDR. Master thesis. University of Oslo , 2013, p. 74 ( PDF , accessed June 8, 2014).
  4. ^ A b Guntolf Herzberg, Kurt Seifert: Rudolf Bahro - Belief in the changeable. A biography. Berlin 2002, pp. 197-212.
  5. ↑ Guntolf Herzberg: 'My crime is to have written this book'. Rudolf Bahro in court. In: Germany Archive . 34/4 (2001), pp. 577-592, here: p. 580.
  6. ↑ a b Torsten Gellner: The great carelessness. In: Märkische Allgemeine. April 5, 2008.
  7. ↑ a b c d Guntolf Herzberg: Afterword 2004 to the paperback edition. In: Guntolf Herzberg, Kurt Seifert: Rudolf Bahro - Belief in the changeable. A biography. Berlin 2005, p. 617f.
  8. ↑ Torsten Gellner ( Märkische Allgemeine dated April 5, 2008) according to Groth, on the other hand, studied at the MfS Law School in Potsdam.
  9. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Grasemann: The own people made the enemy (review). In: Law and Politics . 3/2012, pp. 189-191.
  10. ^ André Gursky : Legal positivism and conspiratorial justice as political criminal justice in the GDR. Frankfurt am Main 2011; Guntolf Herzberg, Kurt Seifert: Rudolf Bahro - Belief in the changeable. A biography. Berlin 2005, p. 207.
personal data
SURNAME Groth, Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German full-time employee of the GDR State Security
DATE OF BIRTH 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Rostock
DATE OF DEATH 2007