Klaus don't worry

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Klaus Sorgeicht 2nd from left in the Volkskammer 1989

Klaus Sorgenicht (born August 24, 1923 in Elberfeld , † October 22, 1999 in Berlin ) was the head of the State and Legal Affairs department of the SED Central Committee . He was notorious for the severity with which he persecuted opponents of the GDR's political system.

Life

After completing elementary and commercial vocational school, Sorgenicht began a commercial apprenticeship. After a brief activity in this occupation, he was drafted into military service and was taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1944 . In the Soviet Union he became a member of the National Committee for Free Germany . After his release from captivity, he became a member of the KPD and was Lord Mayor of Güstrow in 1945/46 . Until 1949 he was district administrator of the Güstrow district.

Career in the GDR

Sorgeicht worked from 1949 to 1951 as head of the personnel affairs department in the Ministry of the Interior of the State of Mecklenburg and from 1951/52 in a similar position in the Interior Ministry of the GDR . From 1952 to 1954 he was head of the coordination and control body for the work of the administrative organs of the GDR.

In 1953 and 1954, Sorgeicht studied at the party college of the CPSU in Moscow . In 1955 he began a distance learning course at the German Academy for Political Science and Law in Potsdam , which he graduated in 1959 with a degree in political science. In 1968, Sorgenicht received his doctorate from rer. pole.

From 1958 to 1990 he was also a member of the People's Chamber and from 1963 to 1990 a member of the State Council of the GDR .

Head of the State and Legal Affairs Department of the SED Central Committee

After returning from his studies in Moscow in 1954, Sorgenicht became head of the state and legal affairs department of the SED Central Committee , he remained in this position until the fall of 1989. He was responsible for supervising judges and prosecutors in cooperation with the MfS . At the beginning of 1958, together with Karl Polak , he led the fight against the remaining "revisionists" in the judiciary of the GDR, that is, those lawyers "who clung to bourgeois or social democratic positions". The campaign culminated in the Babelsberg Conference in April of the same year. He never put aside his distrust of the specialist lawyers, whose arguments differed drastically from the "ideologically crude statements of the apparatchik's worries".

Participation in death sentences

In his role as head of department, he was in charge of the preparation and implementation of the trials against political opponents. a. some show trials (“trials before the wider public”). Before many trials in the 1950s and early 1960s, Klaus Sorgenicht suggested that the Politburo impose death sentences. As soon as they were approved by the Politburo, no worries' proposals were binding for the courts, for example in the trials against Gerhard Benkowitz , Heinz-Georg Ebeling and Paul Köppe, Sylvester Murau , Gottfried Strympe , Werner Flach, Karl Laurenz and Elli Barczatis . After the death sentences against Karl Laurenz and Elli Barczatis had been passed, he recommended Wilhelm Pieck to reject the petition for clemency. In the RIAS trial , Sorgeicht proposed a life sentence for Joachim Wiebach . In this case, Ulbricht went beyond Sorgeicht's suggestion and ordered the death penalty. In December 1961 Sorgeicht suggested that the death penalty be imposed on a peasant who had opposed the forced conclusion of collectivization in the spring of 1960. The party held him and another farmer, who was also sentenced to death and executed , responsible for the fact that in their village more than half of the farmers who joined the Agricultural Production Cooperative in 1960 had declared their departure in July 1961.

The turning point 1989 and the time after the turning point

In early 1989, Sorgeicht was involved in the preparation of the election fraud in the local elections on May 7, 1989 . On October 22 and 23, 1989, together with Erich Mielke , Wolfgang Herger and Friedrich Dickel , he wrote a draft for the Politburo on “Measures to prevent further formation and to suppress anti-socialist collection movements”, one of the last attempts of the “old guard” within the SED to end the demonstrations for freedom "by all means". This model has come down to us in several drafts, the style of which is becoming increasingly acute. However, the SED Politburo returned the template to the authors for further revision.

In 1992, there was a number of indictments of not worrying about perversion of justice in unity with manslaughter and deprivation of liberty. As a result of illness-related incapacity to stand trial, he could no longer be held criminally responsible.

Awards

Fonts

  • Constitution of the GDR . Berlin 1969 (together with W. Weichelt)
  • State, law and democracy after the IX. Party congress of the SED . Dietz, Berlin 1976.
  • Our state in the 80s . Dietz, Berlin 1982.

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Honorary citizen of the Barlachstadt Güstrow , accessed on August 31, 2015.
  2. ↑ Annette Weinke : The GDR justice in transition 1989/90 . In: Roger Engelmann , Clemens Vollnhals (ed.): Justice in the service of party rule. Legal Practice and State Security in the GDR . Ch. Links, Berlin, 2nd, through. Edition 2000, ISBN 3-86153-184-4 , pp. 411-431, here p. 423.
  3. ^ Helmut Irmen: Stasi and GDR military justice. The influence of the Ministry for State Security on criminal proceedings and the penal system in the military justice system of the GDR . De Gruyter, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-031664-3 , p. 62.
  4. ↑ Michael Stolleis : A state without constitutional law, an administration without administrative law? - On public law in the jurisprudence of the GDR ( academy lecture in the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences on March 5, 2009), pp. 45–47.
  5. ↑ Stefan Güpping: The meaning of "Babelsberg Conference" in 1958 for the constitutional and scientific history of the GDR . Berlin-Verlag Spitz, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-87061-676-8 .
  6. ^ Christian Booß: The dammed republic. Failed generation change and reform backlog as prerequisites for the Peaceful Revolution . In: Federal Agency for Civic Education (ed.): Germany Archive Online , August 11, 2014.
  7. ^ Helmut Irmen: Stasi and GDR military justice. The influence of the Ministry for State Security on criminal proceedings and the penal system in the military justice system of the GDR . De Gruyter, Berlin 2014, p. 325.
  8. ^ "In-house communication" from Sorgeicht to Walter Ulbricht dated June 13, 1955. In: Foundation Archive of Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR in the Federal Archives (SAPMO), Central Party Archives of the SED, ZPA, Reg. No. IV / 2/13. See: Karl Wilhelm Fricke , Peter Steinbach , Johannes Tuchel : Opposition and Resistance in the GDR. Political images of life . CH Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-47619-8 , pp. 311-315, here p. 314.
  9. ↑ Gerhard Sälter: Internal repression. The persecution of defected MfS officers by the MfS and the GDR justice system 1954–1966 . Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism, Dresden 2002, ISBN 3-931648-39-7 , pp. 66–67. Online (PDF; 905 KB).
  10. ^ Submission of worry not for the Politburo of January 3, 1956. In: Working protocol No. 2 of the Politburo of January 13, 1956. Foundation Archive of Parties and Mass Organizations of the GDR in the Federal Archives (SAPMO), J IV 2/2 A / 456, Az. 363 Js 74/93, Bl. 143-146; quoted in: Gerhard Sälters: Internal Repression. The persecution of defected MfS officers by the MfS and the GDR justice system 1954–1966 . Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism, Dresden 2002, p. 110. See: Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : Obliged to the truth. Texts from five decades on the history of the GDR . Published by the Foundation for the Processing of the SED Dictatorship and Deutschlandfunk. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86153-208-5 , p. 504.
  11. ↑ Falco Werkentin: "He who decides about death is sovereign". The SED leadership as judge and court of grace for death sentences . In: Roger Engelmann, Clemens Vollnhals (ed.): Justice in the service of party rule. Legal Practice and State Security in the GDR . Ch. Links, Berlin, 2nd, through. Edition 2000, pp. 181–204, here p. 190.
  12. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Roger Engelmann: "Concentrated blows". State security campaigns and political trials in the GDR 1953–1956 . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-86153-147-X , p. 335.
  13. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Roger Engelmann: " Concentrated blows". State security campaigns and political trials in the GDR 1953–1956 . Ch.links Verlag, Berlin 1998, p. 194.
  14. ↑ Roger Engelmann: Blood justice as a political lesson. Death sentences in GDR show trials in the 1950s . In: Listen and Look. Journal of the Museum Memorial in the “Runden Ecke” Leipzig , year 2008, issue 1, pp. 8–13.
  15. ^ Eberhard Wendel: Ulbricht as judge and executioner - Stalinist justice on behalf of the party. Evidence of German history . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-351-02452-5 , p. 105.
  16. ↑ Falco Werkentin: "He who decides about death is sovereign". The SED leadership as judge and court of grace for death sentences . In: Roger Engelmann, Clemens Vollnhals (ed.): Justice in the service of party rule. Legal Practice and State Security in the GDR . Ch. Links, Berlin, 2nd, through. 2000, pp. 181–204, here p. 194.
  17. ↑ Klaus Bästlein: One fake too many. The GDR local elections on May 7, 1989 . In: Jens Schöne (ed.): Revolution. The GDR in 1989 . The Berlin State Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-934085-33-6 , pp. 19–47, here p. 26.
  18. ^ Walter Suess : State Security at the End. Why the powerful did not succeed in preventing a revolution in 1989 . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-86153-181-X , p. 364.
  19. ↑ The Federal Commissioner for the Documents of the State Security Service of the Former German Democratic Republic (BStU): Facsimile of the version of October 30, 1989.
  20. ↑ Klaus Bästlein: The Mielke case. The investigation against the Minister for State Security of the GDR . Nomos, Baden-Baden 2002, ISBN 3-7890-7775-5 , p. 187.
  21. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke: The GDR show trial against the RIAS . In: The Political Opinion , Issue 427, June 2005, pp. 63–67, here p. 67.
personal data
SURNAME Don't worry, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SED), Member of the Bundestag, head of the State and Legal Affairs department of the SED Central Committee
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1999
Place of death Berlin