Max Zaspel

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Max Zaspel (born August 31, 1914 , † after 1961) was a German police officer in the Soviet occupation zone and in the GDR . He was head of the border police and the district authority of the German People's Police (BDVP) Halle .

Life

Zaspel had to do military service in the Wehrmacht in World War II . During his deployment in Albania, he joined the Albanian partisans in September 1944. From October 1944 to January 1945 he was involved in the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Division of the National Liberation Army of Albania, clearing mines, building bridges, roads and telephone connections. With Paul Ludwig and other Germans he reached the Hungarian border via Elbasani , Skopje and Belgrade , where on February 21, 1945 they were attached to the 96th Rifle Division of the Red Army, which was used as a reserve in the Subotica - Szeged area . They took part with her in battles near Szombathely before they went home with Austrian anti-fascists on May 11, 1945 and arrived there on May 13, 1945.

Then he went to the Soviet occupation zone, became a member of the KPD (1946 the SED ) and a member of the German People's Police (VP). From 1948 to 1949 he was VP-Inspector (Colonel) Head of the Main Department (HA) Training in the German Administration of the Interior (DVdI). From July 20, 1949 to September 15, 1949 he acted as head of the main border police department (successor to Hermann Rentzsch ) with the rank of chief inspector (major general). Because of unauthorized removal from duty, he was relieved of his command and demoted to VP commander (lieutenant colonel).

After the districts were formed in the GDR, he was head of the BDVP Halle from 1952 to 1955 with the rank of VP inspector. On the morning of June 17, 1953 , Zaspel proposed that the demonstration be dispersed in front of the city center, which the Soviet city commanders forbade him. In the afternoon he issued the order to secure the state objects and allowed the use of firearms, whereupon eight demonstrators and bystanders in the city of Halle lost their lives.

He was later commissioned to set up the higher police school in Berlin-Kaulsdorf and was its director from 1955 to 1958. Then he was briefly head of the staff in the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR and until 1959 deputy head of the penal administration. His last position in the People's Police was that of Deputy General of the Head of the Central Administration of the German People's Police (HVDVP) with the rank of Colonel of the VP.

In December 1961, he completed a one-year course at the Friedrich Engels Military Academy (together with Hermann Gartmann , Rudolf Menzel , Josef Schütz , Walter Allenstein , Ottomar Pech , Rudolf Bossenz, Walter Borning , Fritz Clement and Willi Seifert ).

literature

  • Andreas Herbst (eds.), Winfried Ranke, Jürgen Winkler: This is how the GDR worked. Volume 1: Lexicon of organizations and institutions, departmental union management , League for Friendship between Nations (= rororo-Handbuch. Vol. 6348). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-16348-9 , p. 224.
  • Torsten Diedrich, Hans Ehlert u. Rüdiger Wenzke, In the service of the party - Handbook of the armed organs of the GDR, Links Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-86153-160-7 , p. 715.
  • Heinz Kühnrich, Franz-Karl Wärme: Germans among Tito's partisans 1941-1945 , GNN Verlag 1997, ISBN 3-929994-83-6 , p. 245.
  • Rüdiger Wenzke: Ulbricht's soldiers: Die Nationale Volksarmee 1956 to 1971 , Christoph Links Verlag GmbH, 2013 Berlin, ISBN 978-3-86284-206-3 , p. 156.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Sälter: border police: conformity, denial and repression in the border police and the border troops of the GDR 1952-1965 , p 65th
  2. ↑ Manfred Wilke: June 17, 1953 - "Day of German Unity" (II) , p. 15.
personal data
SURNAME Zaspel, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German police officer
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1914
DATE OF DEATH after 1961