Combat group against inhumanity

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The Combat Group Against Inhumanity ( KgU ) was a militant anti-communist organization that supported the resistance against the SED dictatorship in the GDR from West Berlin , organized a tracing service for those abducted in the Soviet occupation zone , carried out acts of sabotage and attacks, and carried out espionage in military and civil areas operation.

The KgU was founded in 1948 by Rainer Hildebrandt , Ernst Benda and others and received a license from the Allied Command as a political organization on April 23, 1949 . The KgU received financial support from Western secret services. After the license expired, the organization was entered as an association in the register of associations at the Charlottenburg District Court on April 2, 1951 . The chairman of the association was from 1951 to 1958 the social democrat Ernst Tillich . In 1959 the group disbanded. Members of the group were persecuted in the GDR, several were sentenced to death and executed, others sentenced to heavy sentences.

Beginnings

The KgU was controlled by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until it was dissolved in 1959 . In the beginning there was an “Office Dr. Hoffmann ”, which was run by Heinrich von zur Mühlen together with Hildebrandt.

Act

Tracing service, propaganda and espionage

The origin of the KgU was the task of a tracing service for people who were arrested after the end of the Second World War in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) by the Soviet secret police as opponents of the occupying power or the communist regime and who were arrested alongside former National Socialists in one of the ten special camps locked up for years or taken to Russia.

The KgU was founded in 1948 by Rainer Hildebrandt, Günther Birkenfeld , Ernst Benda, Herbert Geisler and Winfried von Wedel-Parlow and gained supporters, especially in schools and universities, who then distributed leaflets and pamphlets or painted slogans in the SBZ or GDR (" F ”campaign where“ F ”stood for freedom). The printed products illegally brought into the Soviet zone provided information about the politics of the SED, FDJ and in particular the activities of the Ministry for State Security or its predecessors and the Soviet secret police, and in the 1950s also promoted German reunification and against the Red Army agitated. According to the historian Siegfried Lokatis, it was “purposeful anti-communist propaganda and psychological warfare .” The KgU referred to this internally as “disintegration work”.

In the course of West Berlin's preparations for the III. World Festival of Youth and Students from August 5 to 19, 1951 in East Berlin, Tillich chaired the “Politics and Press” working group. His concept, which was reminiscent of “communist propaganda campaigns - only with the opposite sign”, found no response in the rest of the committee in which the motto “We show you the free world” prevailed. On the night of August 11th to 12th, 1951, members of the group supported the deployment of the West Berlin police in the smuggling of around 100,000 festival participants, who attended the major demonstration to celebrate the Stalin contingent planned for August 12th by spending the night in Wished to withdraw from West Berlin, back to East Berlin. A KgU event on August 15 was part of the counter-games program. Hildebrandt gave a speech in front of domestic and foreign festival participants in which he declared the liberation of the “area from the Elbe to the Bering Strait” to be the goal of the Cold War and called out to them: “Many will forego a secure existence and have to take on tasks that to help, to awaken world consciousness and to fight ”.

The KgU used programs from the RIAS in Berlin to support its tracing service and thus also recruited residents of the GDR to participate. Their task was not only to distribute leaflets, but also to provide information that could be used by the intelligence service, which initially only emerged incidentally from interviews with the tracing service. After the cooperation with the American secret service CIC began , a copy of each index card was passed on to the secret service.

In the founding phase, the KgU cooperated with the Gehlen organization . Reinhard Gehlen , however, distanced himself from the methods of the KgU in his memoirs.

Sabotage and attacks

At the beginning of the 1950s, the KgU switched to sabotage attacks on civilian facilities. KgU groups damaged the Finow Canal Bridge at Zerpenschleuse and blew up the railway tracks. In 1951, in the run-up to the World Festival, the KgU issued “tire killers” (steel spikes scattered on streets) to disrupt the participants' arrival.

On the afternoons of September 4 and 8, 1951, the KgU started fires in department stores in Leipzig during opening hours using phosphor ampoules . The arson attacks failed, however, because the fires could always be discovered and extinguished in good time.

The KgU collected information about GDR functionaries with the intention of punishing these people after the end of the GDR dictatorship. But threatening letters were also sent. On July 6, 1951, Richard Hennig (code name "Rux") and a KgU group from Calbe an der Saale thought about the murder of the SED district chairman from Calbe by poisoned chocolates. The plan could not be carried out because the group was arrested a short time later.

In addition, the KgU operated economic sabotage through administrative disruptions by forging official mail. In this way, food transports were misdirected, changes in production and price reductions in retail were “ordered”. The KgU also destroyed machines, products and foodstuffs and forged stamps (including the Wilhelm Pieck motifs and the five-year plan ). In addition to two arson attacks on a wooden motorway bridge in August 1951, which could be discovered and extinguished, it was planned to blow up a railway bridge over the motorway near Erkner in May 1952. This attack was intended to target an express train on the Berlin-Moscow route that was used by Soviet personnel. It was obviously intended that people should be harmed in the process. The explosives were handed over by the KgU. The demolition was allegedly not carried out because of a missing escape vehicle. The explosives were then to be used to blow up the railway bridge at Spindlersfeld, which was prevented there by the people's police.

The KgU intended to paralyze the power grid of the GDR by blowing up high-wire pylons and delivered explosives for it.

Prosecution

Show trial of 5 "KgU agents" before the 1st Criminal Senate of the Supreme Court of the GDR on June 21, 1955. From left to right: Gerhard Benkowitz, Hans-Dietrich Kogel and Willibald Schuster and their defense lawyers.

The GDR and the Soviet military administration in Germany took massive action against the KgU. Within a few weeks after Hanfried Hiecke ( code name Fred Walter) was arrested on September 8, 1951, about 200 KgU employees, including the West Berlin student Günter Malkowski, were arrested there . At the end of November 1951, Soviet military tribunals imposed the death penalty in 42 secret trials , and the remaining defendants were sentenced to ten to 25 years in camp. The death sentences were carried out in Moscow. Few of those sentenced to death were pardoned in Moscow for camp detention. A large number of those sentenced to camp detention from the wave of arrests of autumn 1951 were taken to the Vorkuta Gulag . In 1955, following negotiations between Adenauer and the Soviet Union, the German political prisoners were released to Germany from the Soviet camps at the same time as the German prisoners of war.

In 1952 Werner Tocha , Gerhard Blume and Gerhard Schultz received sentences of eight, nine and five years in prison.

Johann Burianek was sentenced to death and executed in 1952, among other things, for preparing to attack the railway bridge near Erkner. Wolfgang Kaiser was convicted and executed in the same year. He was accused of providing high-percentage acids, incendiary devices, explosives, and poison; the cantharidin issued by the KgU was not intended, as the GDR propaganda claimed, for aimlessly poisoning the drinking water of the population, but rather for poisoning Soviet troops in the event of war .

After 1952, the militant activities of the KgU declined significantly. The rapid overthrow in the GDR hoped for by the KgU did not take place. Show trials against KgU members were also carried out during this phase . Gerhard Benkowitz , Hans-Dietrich Kogel , Willibald Schuster, Gerhard Kammacher and Christian Busch were tried as KgU agents from June 14, 1955 before the 1st Criminal Senate of the Supreme Court of the GDR. On June 23, 1955, the SED Central Committee passed death sentences against Gerhard Benkowitz and Hans-Dietrich Kogel (both living in Weimar) for preparing sabotage. In the period 1951–1952, Gerhard Benkowitz scouted out bridges and a dam in preparation for an explosion in an emergency. It was agreed that a demolition squad would stay with Hans-Dietrich Kogel. Later, the activities of the group around Benkowitz and Kogel were limited to sending threatening letters to party and state officials, gathering information and distributing information and propaganda material. The death sentences were carried out on June 29, 1955.

Support and goals

Substantial financial support for the group against inhumanity came from the USA through the intelligence service CIC and initially also from the American Ford Foundation , the Red Cross and Caritas . In the early years there was also cooperation with agencies in the Berlin Senate . The Federal Center for Political Education (1952–1963 still under the name Federal Center for Homeland Service ) also provided financial support to the KgU in the 1950s.

Klaus Körner sees the functions of groups such as the KgU as "concrete assistance for GDR citizens, mailing of letters to the GDR and obtaining news from the GDR", whereby the amount of the donations from the secret services was based on the "value of the news". For Enrico Heitzer , the CIA set the tone in the KgU from 1951: "It financed it almost completely and largely determined the course." Before that, it would have the Gehlen organization and other American and British secret services from the organization, which was initially shaped by former members of the Nazi secret services pushed. The humanitarian work, which was the focus of their self-portrayal, was actually only carried out by a small part of the KgU. Intelligence intelligence, psychological warfare and sabotage formed the focus of the work of the KgU.

"In addition to charitable, propagandistic and intelligence activities, such as those carried out by other resistance organizations", the KgU pursued in the early 1950s, according to Karl Wilhelm Fricke, "a strategy of massive destabilization of the SED dictatorship, whose repertoire of actions even included fire. and explosive attacks belonged. "This included the" building of an underground network ", which also had" approaches of a 'military' component. "

resolution

It was not only in 1957 and 1958 that the KgU was severely fragmented internally. It was dissolved in March 1959 at the instigation of the Berlin Senate and the Federal Ministry for All-German Issues.

People within or around the KgU

literature

Web links

Commons : Combat group against inhumanity  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniela Münkel , BStU : The GDR in view of the Stasi: the secret reports to the SED leadership , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009. ISBN 978-3-525-37503-7
  2. ↑ Roger Engelmann: Deterrence and Propaganda - Death Sentence in GDR Show Trials in the 1950s ( Memento of November 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), p. 4, Hohenschönhausen Memorial Foundation
  3. ^ Resistance students. Federal Agency for Civic Education and Robert Havemann Society eV, 2008, accessed on March 20, 2017 .
  4. ↑ a b c d later werewolf Der Spiegel, July 2, 1958.
  5. ↑ The Battle of the Systems: Foolish and Deadly , Spiegel Geschichte 3/2008
  6. ^ Commission for the Guidance and Review of Selected PP Activities in West Berlin. (PDF) Central Intelligence Agency , November 23, 1955, accessed March 15, 2015 .
  7. ^ Spiegel Online: Cold War: CIA financed sabotage and attacks in the GDR. Retrieved January 23, 2017 .
  8. ^ Siegfried Lokatis : Secret readers in the GDR. Control and dissemination of illicit literature. Ch.links Verlag , 1st edition, 2008, p. 143.
  9. ↑ Michael Lemke: "The counter games". World Youth Festival and FDJ Germany meeting in the system competition 1950–1954 . In: Heiner Timmermann (Ed.): The GDR in Europe - between isolation and opening . Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8884-3 , p. 473 f.
  10. ↑ Michael Lemke: "The counter games". World Youth Festival and FDJ Germany meeting in the system competition 1950–1954 . In: Heiner Timmermann (Ed.): The GDR in Europe - between isolation and opening . Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8884-3 , p. 485.
  11. ↑ Kai-Uwe Merz: Cold War as Anti-Communist Resistance , p. 143.
  12. ↑ Bombs, Poison and Tire Killers - The Combat Group Against Inhumanity Documentary by Erika Fehse, 1996.
  13. ↑ Reinhard Gehlen : The service. Memories 1942–1971. v. Hase & Koehler Verlag, Mainz / Wiesbaden 1972, p. 204.
  14. ↑ a b Heinz Höhne: The war in the dark. Ullstein, 1988, ISBN 3-548-33086-X , p. 516.
  15. ^ A b Enrico Heitzer: "Affair Walter". The Forgotten Wave of Arrests , 2008, p. 59.
  16. ↑ Enrico Heitzer: "Affair Walter". The forgotten wave of arrests , 2008, pp. 112, 191ff.
  17. ↑ Enrico Heitzer: "Affair Walter". The Forgotten Wave of Arrests , 2008, p. 112.
  18. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke , Roger Engelmann : "Concentrated Beatings": State Security Actions and Political Processes, BStU series of publications , 11, pp. 84f, online
  19. ↑ Enrico Heitzer: "Affair Walter". The Forgotten Wave of Arrests , 2008, p. 107.
  20. ↑ Combat group against inhumanity. In: jugendopposition.de. Federal Agency for Civic Education and Robert Havemann Society e. V. , accessed March 30, 2017 .
  21. ↑ Karl Wilhelm Fricke , Roger Engelmann : "Concentrated Beatings": State Security Actions and Political Processes, BStU series of publications , 11, p. 86f, online
  22. ↑ Jörg Marschner: The secret of the great treason Sächsische Zeitung, October 6, 2007.
  23. ↑ Enrico Heitzer: "Affair Walter". The Forgotten Wave of Arrests , 2008.
  24. ↑ Something like Feme . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 1952 ( online - Nov. 19, 1952 ).
  25. ↑ Karl Wilhelm Fricke , Roger Engelmann : "Concentrated Beats": State Security Actions and Political Processes, BStU series of publications , 11, p. 87, online
  26. ↑ Hans-Michael Schulze: In the villas of the agents: the Stasi celebrities private . Berlin Edition, 2003, ISBN 978-3-8148-0124-7 ( google.de [accessed on January 23, 2017]).
  27. ↑ Karl Wilhelm Fricke , Roger Engelmann : "Concentrated Beatings": State Security Actions and Political Processes, BStU series of publications , 11, p. 159ff, online
  28. ↑ Bernd Stöver : Liberation from Communism: American Liberation Policy in the Cold War 1947–1991 , 2002, p. 278f online
  29. ↑ Klaus Körner: Political Brochures in the Cold War 1967 to 1963 , page 2, German Historical Museum
  30. ↑ Jan Schönfelder: How the extended arm of the CIA fought against the GDR ( Memento from September 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). Interview with Enrio Heitzer. MDR Thuringia, February 23, 2015.
  31. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke: "Concentrated blows". State security campaigns and political trials in the GDR 1953–1956. Ch.links Verlag , 1st edition, 1998, p. 81.
  32. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke , Roger Engelmann : "Concentrated Beatings": State Security Actions and Political Processes, BStU series of publications , 11, p. 88, online
  33. ↑ Jens Mühling , Björn Rosen: Accommodation for spies: Stasi operated a hotel in West Berlin. The Stasi needed a base for their western spies - and a trio from the demimonde needed money. The bizarre solution: two floors of GDR in the middle of West Berlin. A rogue piece in 1000 files. In: Tagesspiegel.de. August 7, 2011, accessed August 4, 2015 .
  34. ↑ Liquidate the property. Stasi files reveal: The GDR secret service had murder in the West. In: Spiegel Online. August 6, 1992, accessed May 7, 2015 .