Rudolf Trinks

Rudolf Trinks (born March 31, 1919 ) is a former German police officer. He was major general and head of the air protection administration and chief of the civil defense staff of the GDR (ZV).

Life

Trinks comes from a family of miners from Neuoelsnitz in the Ore Mountains . He learned the profession of typesetter . After completing his training, Trinks was unemployed. He was drafted into the Reich Labor Service (RAD) and took part in the invasion of Poland as a member of the RAD . He then served in the artillery on the eastern front - most recently in the rank of non-commissioned officer on the western front. Here he was taken prisoner of war in the United States during the Battle of the Bulge .

After the end of the war, he returned to his homeland, which at that time was still occupied by the US. He joined the German People's Police (Schutzpolizei) in 1948 and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1950 . He experienced the uprising of June 17, 1953 as VP-Oberrat (Major) and Deputy Head of the Political Department of the District Authority of the German People's Police (BDVP) Halle . Trinks was deputy head of the political administration of the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR (MdI) in 1963/64 . When the Air Protection Command was renamed “Air Defense Administration” in December 1964, he was entrusted with the management of the Air Protection Administration in the MdI with the rank of Colonel of the People's Police (VP). On November 12, 1967, with the conversion of air raid protection into civil defense of the GDR , which initially remained subordinate to the Minister of the Interior Friedrich Dickel , Trinks became deputy head of civil defense and chief of staff. On June 30, 1969 he was appointed major general by the chairman of the National Defense Council of the GDR , Walter Ulbricht . When the ZV changed to the responsibility of the Ministry of National Defense on June 1, 1976, he was retired. His successor was NVA Colonel Rolf Fischer .

Trinks is a member of the Initiative Group for the Protection of Social Rights (ISOR) and lives in Berlin.

Awards

• 1964 Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze, 1972 in silver and 1978 in gold
• 1975 Friedrich Engels Prize
• 1988 Honorary title of Honored Member of the Civil Defense of the German Democratic Republic

literature

• Günther Buch: names and dates. Biographies of important people in the GDR. Dietz, Berlin (West) / Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1973, ISBN 3-8012-0020-5 , p. 291.
• Torsten Diedrich , Hans Ehlert and Rüdiger Wenzke : In the service of the party - manual of the armed organs of the GDR . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-86153-160-7 , p. 712.
• Clemens Heitmann : Protect and help? Air defense and civil defense in the GDR from 1955 to 1989/90 . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-86153-400-6 , p. 469f. and passim.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Congratulations from ISOR In: ISORaktuell, No. 3/2007, p. 3 (accessed on September 23, 2015).