My mother (born in the GDR and lived there until its collaps) always said: "From all those state-criminals Mielke was by far the worst".

I remember a certain joke: Honecker and Mielke are disgussing hobbies. Honecker: I have a hobby, i collect the jokes people tell about me. Mielke: mine Is similar, I collect the people who tell the jokes...

After the fall of east germany, the Stassi building was looted, and months later, it was open for tourists, who could wander around unsupervised. I visited during this time. I walked into the small kitchen of Mielke's office, and I saw some cabinets. I opened them and saw a single blue and white porcelain coffee cup, made in the DDR, and I took it... but I though maybe there is something on the top shelf, out of view, so I put my arm way up there, and I found some blank bank deposit receipts for some kind of east german bank. I would like to think I have Erich Mielke's coffee cup.

Fantastic, thank you very much. The history of this era fascinates me, living in West Germany when the wall was up only added to me wanting to know more. I have many books and my children always ask me of that time and they never get tired of me telling them my thoughts.

"While I was fighting [during the Spanish Civil War] at the front, shooting at the Fascists, Mielke served in the rear, shooting Trotskyites and Anarchists." Walter Janka

I like your video's so much. For us foreigners who live in Germany, this is a true history lessons in English! Thank you

To each according to their needs, Mielke-style. Thanks for making these DDR vids. Excellent job. Would love to see your take on the 1953 Workers Uprising.

Fascinating video. I wish young people would watch these videos. When I speak of the terror of the Cold War, generations Y(millennials) and Z have not a clue as to what I'm talking about. They haven't a clue of all the times the world was almost destroyed in a nuclear conflagration. Dad was a career Navy Officer. From 1959 to 1962 we lived in Yokohama when Dad was with the Seventh Fleet at Yokosuka. I still remember the alerts concerning Soviet testing of their Hydrogen Bombs in Kazakhstan. All Service personnel and their dependents were advised to spend the evening and night indoors as the radioactivity passed above us. Since it always rained in Japan, the radioactivity in the form of Strontium-90 would fall to the ground. We would all just sit in the living room listening to Armed Forces Radio giving updates on the radioactivity. People in the States never had to go thru that. We experienced those evenings often as the Soviets increased the testing of their Hydrogen Bombs in anticipation of the expected Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In the summer of 1962 we moved to Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida. We thought we were done being on the front line of the Cold War. In October, Dad unexpectedly called Mom to say that he had to take duty night for another officer. Duty night insured that a core of Navy Officers were on duty at the base in case of another Pearl Harbor type surprise attack. The next night, a Chief Petty Officer(CPO) called Mom to say that Dad had a second duty night but he could not call Mom himself. Mom was worried. No officer normally served two duty nights in a row. When the next day a different CPO called Mom to say Dad had yet another duty night, Mom demanded to speak with her husband. The CPO said Dad was too busy. Mom was very worried. Mom started calling the other officer wives. Amazingly, every officer on the base had been assigned duty night for the past three nights. America knew nothing. But Navy wives everywhere knew that something serious was happening. On Monday morning, the Pensacola morning paper announced that President Kennedy would address the nation on a matter of national emergency. That night, we all huddled around our TV as Kennedy announced the Cuban Missile Blockade. After three years of dodging Soviet nuclear radiation, we were back on the front line of the Cold War. Every day in the paper was that stupid map showing which cities and Navy bases were within range of their medium range missles. The Soviet missiles had a range of 1,000 miles meaning the Southern USA was within range. Pensacola was always highlighted. Mom was planing to quickly move us to her father's home in Chicago. But then, the White House announced that the Soviets also had intermediate range missiles in Cuba that could hit every city in the lower 48 States except Seattle. Mom realized that Chicago would be also be a target for the Soviet missiles. So she decided we would stay in Pensacola. We would die in either case. Kids today who fear global warming have no real concept of the word fear. Everyday, my four siblings and I went to schol in fear. During class, some of our teachers would suddenly begin to cry. The kids would begin to cry, too. Everyone knew Pensacola would be an early target. Dad did not tell us his role during the crisis until after the Cold War ended. After watching the movie "13 Days" with my Dad, I casually asked him about his role during the crisis. I wasn't expecting an answer. Dad never talked about his combat experiences in the Pacific War or the Korean War. When asked about Cuba, Dad would always refuse to answer. But that day, he finally answered. Dad had been the officer in charge of all aircraft repair and maintenance at Yokosuka and Pensacola. He could repair any plane blindfolded. Officers like him were placed on each aircraft carrier on the blocade line. He had his best team with him. His job was to maintain and keep ready one single plane. It was kept on the flight deck away from everyone else. Dad, his team and the pilots kept his plane ready to fly. They just sat on deck playing cribbage, a card game popular in the Navy. His plane carried a single bomb: an atomic bomb. If the carrier's Captain believed that the carrier was about to be destroyed by a Soviet nuclear weapon, the Captain would order the deck crew to launch Dad's plane immediately. The Navy wanted each carrier to revenge it's destruction. Dad said he was never told of the target. Only the pilots knew the target. All those years, I had no idea that Dad had babysat a nuke during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Hearing him say that reminded me of all the fears we experienced during the Cold War. I was in Moscow two weeks before the idiot hardliners attempted their overthrow of Gorbachev. My late wife was on a teacher exchange mission to the University of Vilnius in Lithuania. The teachers spent a week sightseeing in Moscow. My son and I accompanied her. We made so many life long friends during our time in the Soviet Union. Several medical doctors we met now live in the States. The Russians were also happy to see the end of the Cold War. Now, the Cold War has become a distant memory. No one is building underground bunkers anymore. No one talks of a nuclear end to mankind. I guess, now, we can move on to other worries. I really wish more young people watch videos like yours to learn more about the Cold War and how lucky they are. I would like them to know how lucky they are to not experience the real terrifying fears of the Cold War. Thank you. New subscriber.

I love these topics. I love learning about this area, especially Cold War Era. Can you do something on day to day life on both sides of the wall? Or maybe about families divided by the wall?

Never has the long arm of justice been that long. Incredible that the police murder in the 30s would catch up to him in his last years.

That a man like that should hold high political office in the GDR, tells you all you need to know about the GDR...

He made Honecker look like a choir boy...

I really love this series alot! Thank you so much. I was wondering if you could investigate the Telecommunications system in the GDR?

Regarding future topics, after writing to the east German government in 1983 in search of genealogical information, I was put on a mailing list to receive issues of the journal Neue Heimat for several years. It was an interesting read. Maybe it is worth a video on its mission to educate the west about life in the DDR

Mooi gedetaileerd verhaal. Dank !

Could you do a video on the Military leadership of the GDR such as Heinz Keßler, Heinz Hoffmann, Vincenz Muller and Willi Stoph. I think it would be interesting to see all of them especially Keßler had an interesting path leading up to his post of heading the Volksarmee in 1985, following Hoffmanns death.

4:25: It could also be mentioned that Mielke was considered "Stalin's extended arm" during the Spanish Civil War in fighting many deviants among the Spanish Republic supporters such as Anarchists or other independent Socialist groups.

Hallo From Denmark I all my child hood. I had a dinner plate with two smurfs on it . I was born in 1981 . I still used untill a few years ago. That was untill I discovered a blue stamp in buttom of it saying: Made in DDR (GDR) . Then put I it away and has newer used it again . Now I on display on a shelf. So there a part of east germany in my home , that also are my child hood memory

Just to say how much I am enjoying your videos. They are both informative and nostalgic having spent 5 years in Germany, some of it in Berlin, in the late 80 and early 90s. So saw the "wall come down". Could I suggest a video on the Soxmis and/or the Britmis open spying teams? (The French and Americans also had their teams). Another topic could be the bureaucracy in keeping the air and land corridors open across East Germany between the Inner German Border and Berlin. Good luck with all your endeavours. B

Your series is absolutely amazing! Glad I stumbled upon it.

Now I'd really like to know your thoughts on Markus Wolf, and I assume you've read his Autobiography "The man with no face." In some books about the Stasi people are very harsh in their opinion of him, and naturally his own book was not exactly an unbiased source.

A big FU to the German justice system for taking it easy on this absolute villain. Imagine waiting over 60 years to try the guy for murder and then say "oh, never mind, you're old and sick, it's fine". His last years should have been hell on earth.

i have watched all your videos you have such a great channel

Very interesting, I know nothing about this subject but now I do. Interesting about his awards and medals, very high-ranked decorations. Thank you for posting.

I suggest a video about the Stasi's activities in West Berlin and West Germany.

Very good video. I was soldier between 1986 and 1991. Dutch military stationed in Seedorf near Zeven. We were waiting for the Russians stationed in the DDR/DDR. Can you make a video on the Rosenholz files.

heel erg interessant!

Ridiculous that Erich Mielke didn't die in prison. That's a travesty of justice.

A episode about the DdR Staat Forst Amt would be good to know more about from uour channel one time.

As per to your request , i would suggest a examination of DDR TV programming and how it was used as a tool of propaganda .

Another excellent video. Thank you!

Great videos, thanks

These are very bigh quality documentaries.

Sir, I’m Enjoying your Channel’s content regarding the DDR. I couldn’t find your email, though.

Amazing story. What an arc!

Thanks!

What happened to his wife and children? Considering the latter might be in their 70s now

Can you do a video on east German pensions and how those such as the Stasi people were paid?

Very educational, and I like your style.

Sehr interressant

Great presentation

I enjoy your videos a lot

Well done...Just came aboard.🏆

Incredible work! the east German secret police always sends a chill down my spine... i've seen a documentary about east germany and it's just unimaginable how creepy they were... I can see how things like that made people even here in Brazil terrified of communists in those crazy times. Alhtough i was born in 1991 so i don't feel it in the same way.

Are you able to cover a video on the Generals of the NVA?

Top cop in the DDR murdered a 2 Berlin Police officers in the early 30s, a fact well known to Western Powers in Berlin. Without that zealot there, it’s completely feasible that the DDR’s demise would’ve come much sooner than it did.

This channel is my Roman empire

I visited his office a number of years ago as a leader of a young teenagers’ group from church. It was a very hot day, and some of the kids would proceed to take their shoes and socks off as we walked around the building. Having grown up during the Cold War, to me, that became such an encouraging image: Here we are, at the centre of GDR evil, a place once so restricted, feared, and mythological, and now, young, innocent, angelic children are prancing around barefoot right here, without any ”Ordnung muß sein” or the slightest respect of the kind the Stasi would have insisted on; free individuals able to build a better future, dancing on the ruins of Erich Mielke’s life’s work, learning about his atrocities only as history from the distant past. I honestly wished Erich Mielke could have been there to witness that (he was still alive at the time). Somehow, I suspect that that would have been the ultimate humiliation for him.

On the point of Mielke's hunting lodge, I've heard elsewhere he was something of a hunting fanatic, though a rather bad shot!

It's interesting how he just lived in poor obscurity for the last years. Sometimes that's how it goes.Jean-Bédel Bokassa, self-styled "Emperor" of the Central African Republic, lived out his final days in *relatively* modest surroundings in Bangui - a bungalow in a diplomatic neighborhood, crumbling but still sizable. Some fall, though, as he once had an all-day, all-night, multi-million dollar coronation in that same city.

great stuff

Thankfully justice usually prevails although the “punishment most certainly didn’t meet the crime(s)”. Invariably such people have no conscious and subsequently never feel remorse either.

Kalbsmilken: Rare Köstlichkeit vom jungen Rind

INteresting to learn more about history of rather recent times. I visited DDR in 1988, and still then I couldn´t imagine what was going to happen the year after. I remember when leaving DDR that the passport controller very carefully looked at me and my passport to make sure I wa not a DDR-citizien trying to deffect claiming to be a Swede.

These videos are very good in content - very good indeed - but this time I was distracted a few times by the sometimes strange English of the speaker, Mr EGI. I was particularly baffled to hear that the police chief murdered by Mielke was always accompanied by a surgeon. After the second mention it dawned on me that the man was not a surgeon but a sergeant! (The word is, of course, pronounced as if it were spelled "sarjent".)

Boggles the mind

German state murderers always get away scot-free. Four years in prison is nothing for what he had done. The way Germans had dealt with the GDR criminals always baffled me.

What an awful man! And what an interesting reflection on Stalin, the USSR, East Germany etc!

10:22 I was seriously worried that Angela Merkel aka informelle Mitarbeiterin (IM) Erika was going to say that when she left office.

The CCC once presented a "Mielke-Schily-Award für maximalen Realitätsabstand" (Mielke-Schily Award for maximum distance from reality). Anlauf is a bit of a silly name.

I wonder about the 800 marks pension and 2-room apartment. Was this what GDR provided this Stasi officer or did he only got severely cut goodies because the new gornment took away his benefits

Could you please delete dreadful background noise ruins the video?

Well done for producing such an informative video. I’m glad to note that your work on Mielke was not as awfully hysterical as Koehler’s diatribe of a book is ( I have a much-treasured copy, which, I was fortunate enough to come across in a second-hand book shop in Tokyo. Wonderfully illustrated, but about as reliable as Clair Sterling’s incredible published ravings on a global network of wholly KGB controlled robots, from Mandela to Arafat ),…

♥♥

They had plenty of informers who helped them to target their victims (targets) Opening peoples mail

Too many of these individuals escaped the hangman's noose after the fall of communism...he deserved the Nicolae Ceaușescu treatment...

Wolf isn’t a stellar character witness, I must say-The Man without a Face!

It's amazing how few people today have ever heard of Erich Mielke. The terrible harm suffered by the citizens of the GDR because of this twisted individual was incalculable. If Mielke was like Hitler, then his lackey, Markus Wolf, was Mielke's Albert Speer...the good Stasi. The fact is Wolf was a liar and almost as contemptible as Mielke.

Why is this so intense?

Monster.

I only knew him as one of the people Kleo killed, cool to learn the real story 😉

Served four years for murder. Unreal.

So, a Dutchman diving down the rabbit hole of DDR history.

But the key question is: Did anyone ever call him "Milk Man!" to his face?

"Who was Erich Mielke?" A Communist = Criminal (1st degree Murderer). As if we didn't know that. As to his character: always a willing asocial executioner of innocent people, the worst of his kind, and even in that no leadership whatsoever. Had he not been a Communist, he most certainly would have enslaved himself to any other totalitarian regime such as the Nazis, who shared essential Socialist ideas with the Communists such as antisemitism and a pervert bestial or brutish sense of "solidarity" (with the exception of anti-capitalist exproprietations): as a matter of fact, the Nazis were much more of a leftwing extremist movement than any sort of rightwing conservative movement, a fact that mostly has been ignored until now (see Sebastian Haffner on this very point). Under the Nazis Mielke would have had the "choice" of several "careers": torturer of political opponents (same post as he held in the soc. ""GDR""), concentration camp director or Gestapo executioner of the Nazi shoah. That was Erich Mielke.

Just harmless Do-Gooders!

Another Capone

West Germany had a secret love affair with East Germany.

No better than the NazIs

Are you Dutch or German?

A criminal nothing more.

Goeiedag

Some east German officials politicians military personnel had old to gone too soon

We miss you, comrade Minister. Ich begrüsse genosse Erich Mielke

Несколько моментов: 1. В 1931-1936 г.г. не было КПСС, была ВКП(б) 2. Откуда информация про убийство полицейских? Т.е. вы верите, что КПГ просто вывела кричащих на полицию людей, которые выманили полицейского начальника, чтобы застрелить? Но даже если и так, то это многое говорит о профессионализме веймарской полиции, которая после прихода Гитлера к власти будет соучастником репрессий и убийств коммунистов и социал-демократов. Напомню, что именно полиция с армией и социал-демократами убили Розу Люксембург и Карла Либкнехта 3. Про лагеря - это манипуляция. Каких политических оппонентов арестовывало К-5 Милки? Демократов? В 1945 году? Бухенвальд и Заксенхаузен использовались как временная мера, они не были лагерями смерти. Вы пытаетесь сравнить нацистский лагерь с советским, это недопустимо. На Западе союзники также использовали немецкие лагеря для содержания нацистских преступников, это нормально, использовать действующую инфраструктуру в условиях тотальной разрухи после войны. 4. ПОлучается, что Милка отсидел лишь за убийство двух полицейских в 1931 году, всё остальное, предъявленное ему, - это сведение политических счётов.

he was true heroe.

I don't understand what all the bitching is about: germans strive for order and over-working. DDR gave them PLENTY of work, so much so they made sure their own society was working "as intended", with the Stasi. And boy, was that ever a match in heaven - german perfectionism, workoholism combined with post-stalin soviet practicality and just enough liberalism sprinkle on top. Just a teeny tiny bit. So what was wrong about it? Peak society. Now what do they have? Mercedes lost quality, work morale declining, forever and ever a bitch of USA, no real order. Germany was more german under USSR than it is "free" today. The quotation marks are very intentional and with non-trivial meaning.

Ddr hero❤