Peter-Michael Diestel

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Peter-Michael Diestel (left) with Joachim Gauck (1990)
Candidate poster for the state election in Brandenburg in 1990

Peter-Michael Diestel (born February 14, 1952 in Prora , Rügen district , Mecklenburg ) is a German lawyer and former politician. He was the last Minister of the Interior of the GDR in Lothar de Maizière's cabinet .

Life

Peter-Michael Diestel on the roof of a prison during a prisoner revolt on July 9, 1990
Peter-Michael Diestel at a demonstration by members of the police on July 19, 1990

Diestel comes from a family of NVA officers. In 1972 he completed vocational training with a high school diploma as a skilled worker for animal production . As a high school graduate, Diestel said he joined the East German CDU and left it after a few months. “They shouted hurray even louder than the SED, and that irritated me immensely that Christians had placed their Christian faith under the dogma of Marxism-Leninism. That was nothing for me. That's why I was out there again quickly, ”said Diestel in retrospect in November 2019. He was always a "big fan of Franz-Josef Strauss", so Diestel. He saw Strauss as his role model, he said.

He was happy in the GDR and, among other things, had a “fantastic childhood”, said Diestel. However, he was not happy with the political system. The Germans lost the Second World War together, the East Germans “went to prison for it. A Stalinist-Communist prison. And we got out of this prison through a peaceful revolution. We didn't choose the prison, ”he said in 2019 about his life in the GDR.

For political reasons he was initially not allowed to study. He therefore worked as a swimming instructor, pool attendant and cattle breeder before studying law at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig from 1974 to 1978 . He was named “Honored Milker of the People”. Diestel later worked from 1978 to 1989 as head of the legal department of the Delitzsch Agricultural Industry Association . In 1986 he was awarded a doctorate degree with a dissertation on LPG law. jur. PhD.

In December 1989 Diestel co-founded the Christian Social Party of Germany (CSPD) and in January 1990 the German Social Union (DSU), of which he was General Secretary until June. For him, German unity was “a political goal from the start” and the DSU was the “first political structure” that demanded unity, Diestel said in 2014.

From March to October 1990 Diestel was a member of the People's Chamber and from April to October Deputy Prime Minister and, as the successor to Lothar Ahrendt, Minister of the Interior of the GDR. In June 1990 he left the DSU and became a CDU member on August 3 . On June 7, 1990, at Diestel's initiative, the RAF terrorist Susanne Albrecht was arrested, after which it became known that nine other RAF members had been admitted to the GDR . On July 1, 1990, he and Wolfgang Schäuble signed the contract for the dismantling of the border fortifications between the GDR and the Federal Republic. During his tenure in 1990, the Stasi wiretaps about West German politicians were handed over to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany .

While he was in office as Minister of the Interior, critics accused him of belittling former employees of the Ministry of State Security or of IMs who remained employed as employees of the Interior Ministry. Diestel later explained this decision as follows: “If you are to command a hundred police officers, you have to have learned that. If you want to lead a thousand police officers or a ministry, then you have to have graduated from an academy, then you have to have a qualification. And that's why I didn't throw colonels and generals out [...] During my tenure, not a single politically motivated shot was fired, [...] there were no upheavals, and I am with these people as they were, moved into German unity. And that is a result that I would not have been able to achieve without these Stasi officers, without these police generals, customs generals [...]. "

Furthermore, many Stasi files are said to have been destroyed during his tenure. He covered the destruction of files of the Central Enlightenment Administration (HVA). According to his own admission, he had nothing to do with the exterminations, which should have been carried out before the beginning of his term of office. Diestel sued journalists and publishers who reported that he was "as the last interior minister of the GDR who was jointly responsible for the destruction of part of the Stasi files". On July 10, 1995, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court ruled that Diestel was politically responsible for the destruction of files from the Ministry for State Security during his tenure as Interior Minister of the GDR. Diestel later explained that he had campaigned politically to destroy the files and was also supported in this regard by Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble . In 2019 he said in retrospect: “Later, the opinion changed when it was noticed that the files that concern the actual, the own comrades, namely from the old federal territory, that they are already gone, that the the Russians already have and the like. The files were sorted out. Before the free, democratic De Maizière government came to power, the State Security had already had six months to nine months to get its own people out of these files. That is why it can be said that the State Security took care of it: Who can survive after the fall of the Wall and who will be beaten to death in the Stasi files? The simple ones were beaten to death. ”He did not give the order to destroy files, it was illegal during his term of office, so Diestel.

In the first election of the Brandenburg state parliament on 14 October 1990, he resigned as CDU - leading candidate to, but was defeated by former Konsistorialpräsidenten the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg, Manfred Stolpe from the SPD , which formed the first democratic government of the re-established state of Brandenburg.

Subsequently, Diestel was a member of the Brandenburg State Parliament until 1994. From 1990 until his resignation in 1992, among other things because of the controversial gas station privatization, he was the first parliamentary group leader of the CDU and the first opposition leader in the state parliament. As a co-initiator of the “Committee for Justice” he suggested the investigative committee on Manfred Stolpe - but later made a personal declaration of honor for him in connection with Stolpe's still controversial Stasi contacts. In 1993 Diestel published a declaration with others "Reconciliation instead of retaliation".

Diestel has been running a law firm in Potsdam since 1993, and he heads further offices in Berlin , Leipzig and in the Mecklenburg towns of Güstrow and Zislow , where he lives. In his practice he represented, among other things, former full-time Stasi employees, Stasi IMs and former GDR athletes and GDR sports officials who were suspected of doping. In 2004 he worked as legal advisor for the PDS top candidate for the state elections in Saxony, Peter Porsch , who was suspected of being IM work . In 2005 he took over the mandate for the soccer referee Torsten Koop as part of the soccer betting scandal . In 2005 he also represented the athletics trainer Thomas Springstein , who administered doping substances to minors. In 2006 he represented the then ARD sports coordinator Hagen Boßdorf , who was accused of working as an IM. He also represented Jan Ullrich, who was involved in the Fuentes doping scandal . On May 24, 2007, Diestel's mandate for Ullrich ended; while Ullrich manager Wolfgang Strohband said that Ullrich had withdrawn his mandate because of a television appearance by Diestel, Diestel said that he himself had resigned because of differences of opinion. In the VW corruption affair concerning the bribery of VW works councils, Diestel was the defender of the former VW works council chairman Klaus Volkert .

From 1994 to 1997 Diestel acted as president of the football club Hansa Rostock and is honorary president of SC Potsdam . In the club song of the Puhdys , the group described Diestel as "the most beautiful football president in the world". During his tenure as Hansa chairman, Diestel had his headquarters as a lawyer in a villa in Güstrow . In November 1994, Focus described Diestel as a “PR monomaniac” who loved “the light of the public above everything”. Whenever things get tricky for him, he "runs away to reappear somewhere else". Diestel was "a little dazzling, a little vague, a little flirtatious," the paper continued. Gregor Gysi , whom Diestel met in December 1989 and whom he describes as his friend (“who has a worldview that is not mine”), said of Diestel that he “did not really fit into politics from the start”, because he was too It doesn't matter whether he messes with his party, me or someone else. According to Manfred Stolpe, Diestel is “an important and interesting personality in the transition from the GDR to German unity”, who “stood bravely at the fore in the mass protests in Leipzig in autumn 1989”.

Diestel has been married for the third time since 2014. At the wedding in Zislow , Gregor Gysi and Lothar de Maizière were the best men.

Infidelity proceedings

Diestel was found guilty of infidelity in 2001 , the Berlin district court imposed a fine of 9,900 marks on him on probation and issued a warning. In addition, a fine of 20,000 marks was imposed. In 1990 he had acquired a villa in Zeuthen , which had been used as a guest house for the GDR Interior Ministry until then, was far below value. He bought the 3,500 square meter lake property from his ministry for 193,000 marks - estimated on the basis of the price law of the old GDR. The property is said to have been worth 770,000 marks.

Publications

literature

Web links

Commons : Peter-Michael Diestel  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter-Michael Diestel in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  2. ^ GDR 1989/90 Peter-Michael Diestel , accessed on July 14, 2020
  3. ↑ a b c d The last interior minister of the GDR | Lawyer and ex-politician Peter-Michael Diestel | SWR1 people. Accessed December 12, 2019 (German).
  4. ↑ a b c d e ddr89.de: Peter-Michael Diestel on ddr89.de.
  5. ↑ Interview of the week with Peter-Michael Diestel. In: MV1 - My Country. My station on youtube.com. Accessed December 17, 2019 (German).
  6. ↑ If it works, I'll be a member of the CDU today , the complete version is subject to a charge, on nd-archiv.de, accessed September 22, 2013.
  7. ↑ Terrorists: Grandma in the old squad. In: Der Spiegel , June 11, 1990.
  8. ↑ Biography on Chronicle of the Wende , accessed September 22, 2013
  9. ^ Joachim Gauck : Winter in Summer - Spring in Autumn. Memories . Siedler Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-88680-935-6 , p. 239.
  10. ^ Hannes Hoffmann: Diestel. From the life of a good-for-nothing? Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-360-01998-1 .
  11. ^ Henryk M. Broder: Peter-Michael Diestel: Bourgeois head on a communist body . March 4, 2013 ( welt.de [accessed December 17, 2019]).
  12. ↑ Ulrich Rosenbaum: As you me, so I you? In: Berliner Morgenpost , February 26, 2000.
  13. ↑ Last GDR Interior Minister: "I am a friendly anarchist". In: Thüringer Allgemeine , June 8, 2011.
  14. ^ Diestel no longer Ullrich defender , Spiegel online May 24, 2007
  15. ^ Website of the SC Potsdam .
  16. ↑ Thorsten Jungholt: Ex-President Diestel flashes from Hansa Rostock . March 27, 2002 ( welt.de [accessed December 17, 2019]).
  17. ↑ a b In conversation: Dr. Peter-Michael Diestel, known for contentious positions. In: MV1 - My Country. My station on youtube.com. Accessed December 17, 2019 (German).
  18. ↑ FOCUS Online: Eternal career of the Ex. Retrieved on December 17, 2019 .
  19. ↑ thistle Lawyers: QUOTES COLLECTION. Retrieved December 17, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Idilko Röd: Diestel dares - "for the last time". Celebrity casserole at the star lawyer wedding. In: Märkische Allgemeine , June 1, 2014.
  21. ↑ Diestel marries on the Plauer See: Gysi's best man. In: Ostsee-Zeitung. Retrieved December 17, 2019 .
  22. ↑ In 1990 Peter-Michael Diestel bought a villa in Zeuthen below its value - now he has to pay a fine of 20,000 marks as a result: last GDR interior minister convicted of infidelity , Berliner Zeitung, February 16, 2001
  23. ^ The former Minister Diestel convicted of embezzlement , NZZ, February 16, 2001
personal data
SURNAME Diestel, Peter-Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (DSU, CDU), MdV, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior of the GDR, MdL
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Prora , Rügen District , Mecklenburg State