Richard Stahlmann

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Richard Stahlmann (born October 15, 1891 , as Artur Illner , in Königsberg ; † December 25, 1974 in Berlin ) was a functionary of the KPD / SED and deputy head of the foreign intelligence service Institute for Economic Research (IWF) of the GDR .

Life

The Illner, who comes from a family of craftsmen, completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter. After military service and British imprisonment, he was a member of the soldiers' council in Königsberg in 1919 and became a member of the KPD. He made a quick career as a party functionary and in the party's military-political apparatus, since 1923 in the KPD's Military Council. In 1924 he emigrated to the Soviet Union , where he accepted Soviet citizenship and became a member of the CPSU . After further training in military politics, he was employed for several years as an agent of the Communist International (Comintern) and as an employee in the GRU . Associated with this were assignments abroad in France, England, China, the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia. In 1931/32 he was a student at the International Lenin School in Moscow and then secretary to Georgi Dimitrov in the Comintern's illegal Balkan office in Berlin .

In the Spanish Civil War he fought as a battalion commander in the International Brigades . Since that time he had the battle name Richard Stahlmann . During the Second World War he led the communist resistance in Germany from Sweden with Herbert Wehner .

After the war he took on military-political and intelligence-related tasks at the SED. In the party secretariat he set up a secret department that initially bore his name. Since 1948 it has been operating as the Transport VK department. In the party leadership of the SED, the department VK to the area of part Hermann Matern , member of the Politburo since 1950. This department organized steel man among other illegal cross-border traffic between SED and West German KPD including money transfers, organized by West Travel of Wilhelm Pieck and Otto Grotewohl their Personal protection. In September 1952 he succeeded Anton Ackermann for three months as acting head of the Institute for Economic Research (IWF), the forerunner of the HVA . From December 1952 he was deputy head of the service under Markus Wolf . In 1960 he retired as a colonel.

Gravestone in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery , Pergolenweg

Stahlmann was awarded several medals, including the Silver Patriotic Order of Merit in 1954 and the Karl Marx Order in 1966 . His urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

In 1986, the Stasi published the work “From the life of a professional revolutionary. Memories of Richard Stahlmann ”, with which Stahlmann's services to the party and the State Security Service were recognized. With the end of the GDR , the font became publicly accessible.

Peter Weiss gives a detailed portrait of Stahlmann in “ Aesthetics of Resistance ”. Stefan Heym made Richard Stahlmann the model for his novel "Collin", which was banned in the GDR .

literature

  • From the life of a professional revolutionary. Memories of Richard Stahlmann. Offizin Andersen Nexö, Leipzig 1986.
  • Jens Gieseke : Richard Stahlmann. In: Roger Engelmann , Bernd Florath , Helge Heidemeyer, Daniela Münkel , Arno Polzin, Walter Süß (eds.): Das MfS-Lexikon. 3rd updated edition, Ch. Links, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-900-1 , p. 317, online version .
  • Michael Kubina : "What can be achieved in one part with the help of the Red Army will be a question of combat in the other part." On the establishment of the central western apparatus of the KPD / SED 1945–1959. In: Manfred Wilke (ed.): The anatomy of the party headquarters: The KPD / SED on the way to power. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 978-3-05-003220-7 .
  • Wilhelm Mensing : Between East and West - couriers and smugglers in the service of the KPD and SED. In: Journal of the SED State Research Association, issue , 18/2005.
  • Michael F. Scholz , Jens Gieseke:  Stahlmann, Richard . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Matthias Uhl : Richard Stahlmann (1891–1974). A henchman of the world revolution on the secret mission of the SED. In: Dieter Krüger , Armin Wagner (ed.): Conspiracy as a profession. German intelligence chiefs in the Cold War . Ch. Links, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-86153-287-5 , S, 84-110.
  • Michael Uhl : The International Brigades in the Mirror of New Documents , in: IWK Heft 4/1999, pp. 486-518.
  • Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst (ed.): German communists . Biographisches Handbuch 1918 to 1945. Second, revised and greatly expanded edition. Karl Dietz Verlag , Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 .
  • Markus Wolf : Chief of espionage in the secret war: memories. Econ & List, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-612-26482-6 .
  • Erich Wollenberg : The Apparatus - Stalin's Fifth Column (Eastern Problems, No. 19). Federal Ministry for All-German Issues, Bonn, May 12, 1951 (with illustrations by Albert Schreiner, Wilhelm Zaisser, Hans Kippenberger, Arthur Illner = Richard Stahlmann , Wilhelm Pieck, Walter Ulbrich, Richard Steimer, Franz Dahlem, General Vinzens Müller, Karl Maron, Heinz Hoffmann, Max Reimann, Ernst Wollweber, Karl Schirdewan, Erich Glückauf).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR (ed.): Head Office A (HV A). Tasks - structures - sources . (= Anatomy of the State Security - MfS manual ). Berlin 2013, p. 26. Online (PDF; 3.2 MB).
personal data
SURNAME Stahlmann, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Illner, Artur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German functionary of the KPD / SED and deputy head of the foreign policy intelligence service in the GDR
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1974
Place of death Berlin