Kurt Zipper

Kurt Zipper (born March 16, 1906 in Kolberg , † October 1, 1952 in Moscow ) was a German tax official and politician ( LDPD ). From 1950 to 1952 he was a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR . He was arrested and executed in 1952 on charges of espionage for the American secret service.

Life

Zipper was born in Kolberg in 1906. After school he trained as a telegraph operator. From 1924 to 1945 he served as a professional soldier, most recently with the rank of captain. As a technical administrative officer of the Army Intelligence Service , he was in charge of a radio operations research center from 1942 to 1945. Towards the end of the war he fell into American captivity. He then returned to Berlin and joined the LDP (D) in 1946. There he became district secretary of Berlin-Köpenick and an assessor in the LDP state executive committee in Berlin. From 1947 he worked as an accountant and auditor for the Köpenick district office. Most recently, he was responsible for monitoring trade as a company and price auditor at the Berlin-Baumschulenweg tax office . With the election of October 19, 1950 , he moved into the Volkskammer as the Berlin representative of the LDP.

On May 10, 1952, his son Horst (born 1932) was arrested on charges of espionage. He had previously noted the license plates of Soviet vehicles in exchange for pocket money. Believing that he had immunity as a member of the People's Chamber, Kurt Zipper turned to the Soviet headquarters. Nevertheless, he was arrested May 17, 1952. On August 8, 1952, the Soviet Military Tribunal (SMT) No. 48240 in Berlin-Lichtenberg sentenced him to death for espionage for the American secret service .

The state executive of the LDP (D) excluded Kurt Zipper from all party offices on August 12, 1952. The Volkskammer mandate was revoked on September 5, 1952. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet rejected a petition for clemency on September 27, 1952. He was taken to the Butyrka prison in Moscow , where the death sentence was carried out on October 1, 1952. He was then buried in Moscow's Donskoy Cemetery. On January 31, 2002, the Russian Military Prosecutor rehabilitated Kurt Zipper.

Kurt Zipper was married and the father of a total of seven children. His son Horst was also initially sentenced to death, but later pardoned to 25 years in a labor camp; Released from Soviet custody in 1955, he fled to West Berlin . It was only in 2002 that the family received news of Kurt Zipper's further fate.

literature

• Jörg Rudolph / Frank Drauschke / Alexander Sachse: Executed in Moscow - Victims of Stalinism from Berlin 1950-1953 , series of publications by the Berlin State Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR , vol. 23, Berlin 2007, p. 39f, p. 128. ( PDF, 3 MB )