Paul Kienberg

Paul Kienberg (born October 15, 1926 in Mühlberg / Elbe ; † October 5, 2013 in Erfurt ) was a main department head of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) and headed the main department (HA) XX (state apparatus, churches, culture, Underground) of the MfS.

Life

The son of a working-class family completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith after attending elementary school from 1941 to 1944 . However, he was refused the skilled worker examination because of his father's Jewish origins and was instead sent to a labor camp in 1944.

After the war, Kienberg joined the KPD in 1945 ( member of the SED from 1946 through the compulsory unification of the SPD and KPD ). Between 1945 and 1949 he was initially a volunteer and then a technical manager at the municipal electrical works in Mühlberg.

In December 1949 Kienberg was employed by the People's Police (VP) and in 1950 moved to the MfS in Berlin in Department VI (state apparatus, parties). In 1953 he was transferred to the HA V (state apparatus, culture, churches, underground) and was head of department there from 1956. In 1955 he was - alongside Gerhard Niebling and Karli Coburger - interrogator for Karl Laurenz , an agent of the western secret service Gehlen , and his conspiratorial lover Elli Barczatis ; both were executed in 1955. In 1959 he was appointed deputy head of HA V. This was given the number XX after an internal restructuring of the MfS, which is why he was appointed head of HA XX in 1964 (initially provisionally as Fritz Schröder's successor ).

In this position, Paul Kienberg was responsible for the management of the unofficial employees (IM) and officers on special operations (OibE) and thus for the monitoring of religious communities , cultural and media companies, block parties and social organizations , the education and health system as well as sports clubs in the DDR. In this function he blessed various decomposition measures , which in individual cases could lead to the murder of opposition members . With his knowledge and on his behalf, the MfS carried out spying on leading opposition figures such as Jürgen Fuchs or Wolfgang Templin , as well as well-known German citizens such as Joseph Ratzinger . Between 1963 and 1965 and from 1966 to 1968, Kienberg completed a distance learning course at the University of the Ministry for State Security (JHS), where he obtained the title of qualified lawyer . In 1973 he received the Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold. Shortly before the end of the SED regime, he was promoted to lieutenant general in 1989. He was released from all duties in December 1989, dismissed in January 1990 and retired as one of the longest serving senior department heads.

Kienberg was a member of the Society for Legal and Humanitarian Support eV In March 2001 he and 22 other former high-ranking MfS officers signed an open letter in the Young World , in which they claimed an alleged "witch hunt" on former State Security employees.

literature

• Jens Gieseke : Paul Kienberg . In: BStU : Who was who in the Ministry for State Security? (PDF, 537 kB), MfS-Handbuch V / 4, Berlin 1998, p. 36f.
• Jens Gieseke:  Kienberg, Paul . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Thomas Auerbach / Matthias Braun / Bernd Eisenfeld / Gesine von Prittwitz / Clemens Vollnhals : Main Department XX . In: BStU: Anatomy of the State Security , Berlin 2008.
• Roger Engelmann , Bernd Florath , Helge Heidemeyer, Daniela Münkel , Arno Polzin, Walter Süß : The MfS Lexicon. 3rd updated edition, Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-900-1 , p. 192, online version .

Web links

• MfS Lexicon: Paul Kienberg

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Focus 40/1996: Secretly on the scaffold - MfS files reveal the background to one of the largest domestic German espionage affairs .
2. ↑ Cf. Thomas Auerbach : Liquidation = Murder? ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in Horch and Guck 01/2008, pp. 4-7.
3. ↑ Cf. geraldpraschl.de: Roland Jahn: How the opposition to the SED got on western television .
4. ↑ Cf. Die Zeit of March 6, 1992: Open Words ( Memento of the original of December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
5. ↑ Cf. Focus Online of October 2, 2005: Stasi spies on Ratzinger .
6. ↑ Cf. GRH Mitteilungen 10/2011 ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , last accessed on February 26, 2012. 
7. ↑ See Stasiopfer.de: Explanation by former MfS officers .
8. ↑ Hubertus Knabe : The perpetrators are among us. About the glossing over of the SED dictatorship. Berlin 2008, p. 284