RIAS duck

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The RIAS duck was a term common in the GDR - propaganda of the 1950s against the West Berlin radio in the American sector (RIAS) . Operated by the American occupation forces in Berlin, from the late 1940s onwards it regularly sent messages that were leaked to it by citizens of the young GDR. They pointed out shortcomings in the food supply in the east, described the license plates of military vehicles and named the employees of the State Security Service . Whether and to what extent these reports were correct would have to be clarified on a case-by-case basis. The ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) saw these broadcasts as a general attack on socialist construction and began around 1952 to use the GDR press to present every single RIAS report as a lie - as newspaper duck . In 1955, the State Security started the "Operation Enten" in order to specifically identify informants of the RIAS and bring them to justice. In one case, a death sentence was passed.

Duck caricatures and "Ducks Action"

In parallel to the cartoons and jokes ordered by the party leadership, such as "There's a chicken, if you want a duck, you have to hire a RIAS", the GDR judiciary was looking for ways to bring RIAS listeners to court. A ban on listening to “enemy broadcasts”, as was the case during the Nazi era , was not found in the applicable laws. As a substitute, it referred to Article 6 of the GDR constitution, " War and boycott agitation ". Just listening to the RIAS played a central role in the arguments of the public prosecutor's office in several criminal cases, in particular espionage cases. In February 1955, State Secretary for State Security Erich Mielke started the “Ducks Action” in preparation for a show trial , “not only to smash the RIAS agencies and punish them justly, but to inflict such a blow on the RIAS through correct political and operational measures which makes it possible to expose this American station in front of the entire German people and the world as the spy center of the American secret service. "

Most of the 49 people arrested by “Aktion Enten” were found to have transmitted information from the GDR to the RIAS, for example about the number of axles on a scout vehicle. Among the five chosen for the show trial were the 29-year-old East Berlin decorator Joachim Wiebach and the RIAS broadcaster Richard Baier . However, in their trial before the Supreme Court of the GDR on June 24, 1955, it should not play a role whether the "espionage" had now been kept in the RIAS or had led to false reports, namely "ducks". As part of the preparation for the show trial, Klaus Sorgenicht , head of the State and Legal Affairs department in the SED Central Committee , informed the party's general secretary, Walter Ulbricht , about the penal sentences provided by his department for every defendant. At Wiebach, Ulbricht replaced "life imprisonment" with the words: "Proposal: death sentence" and signed "I agree / W. Ulbricht". The judgments were therefore already clear before the trial was opened. The death sentence against Wiebach was carried out on September 13, 1955 in the central execution site of the GDR in Dresden with the guillotine.

literature

  • Jörg-Uwe Fischer: The Rias duck - a search for clues . In: info 7 - Medien, Archive, Information , Issue 1/2013, p. 61 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The activist from March 1952
  2. ^ See the espionage trial against Elli Barczatis and Karl Laurenz ; both admitted to hearing the RIAS and incriminated themselves in the process.
  3. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke on Deutschlandfunk 2005
  4. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Roger Engelmann (Ed.): Concentrated blows. State security actions and political processes in the GDR 1953–1956 , ISBN 3-86153-147-X
  5. ^ Norbert F. Pötzl: Concentrated blows. In: Der Spiegel , September 5, 2012, accessed on November 3, 2015