Creation of the Stasi

The MfS was founded on 8 February 1950^{[citation needed]}. It was modeled on the Soviet MGB^{[citation needed]}, and was regarded by the Soviet Union as an extremely loyal and effective partner^{[citation needed]}. Wilhelm Zaisser was the first Minister of State Security of the GDR, and Erich Mielke his deputy. Zaisser, who tried to depose SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht after the June 1953 uprising^[2] was after this removed by Ulbricht and replaced by Ernst Wollweber. Wollweber resigned in 1957 after clashes with Ulbricht and Erich Honecker, and was succeeded by his deputy, Erich Mielke.

Early on the Stasi waged a campaign against Jews, who were already subject to widespread discrimination and violence in the Soviet Union. The Stasi censored the fact that Jews had been victims during the previous regime and in one instance, took gold from the bodies of Jews. The Stasi labeled Jews as capitalists and criminals.^[3][4] Gypsies were also blamed in the Stasi propaganda.^[5]

In 1957, Markus Wolf became head of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA) (General Reconnaissance Administration), its foreign intelligence section. As intelligence chief, Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political and business circles of West Germany with spies. The most influential case was that of Günter Guillaume which led to the downfall of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt in May 1974. In 1986, Wolf retired and was succeeded by Werner Grossmann.

[edit]Relationship with the KGB

Although Mielke’s Stasi was superficially granted independence in 1957, until 1990 the KGB continued to maintain liaison officers in all eight main Stasi directorates, each with his own office inside the Stasi’s Berlin compound, and in each of the fifteen Stasi district headquarters around East Germany.^[6] Collaboration was so close that the KGB invited the Stasi to establish operational bases in Moscow and Leningrad to monitor visiting East German tourists and Mielke referred to the Stasi officers as “Chekists of the Soviet Union.”^[6] In 1978, Mielke formally granted KGB officers in East Germany the same rights and powers they enjoyed in the Soviet Union.^[6]

Organization

The Ministry for State Security also included the following entities:

• Main Administration for Reconnaissance: focused its efforts primarily upon West Germany and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but it also operated East German intelligence in all foreign countries.
• Main Coordinating Administration of the Ministry for State Security:coordinated its work with Soviet intelligence agencies.
• Main Department for Communications Security and Personnel Protection: provided personal security for the national leadership and maintained and operated an internal secure communications system for the government.
• Administration for Security of Heavy Industry and Research and Main Administration for Security of the Economy: protection against sabotage or espionage.
• Main Administration for Struggle Against Suspicious Persons: was charged with the surveillance of foreigners — particularly from the West — legally traveling or residing within the country. This included the diplomatic community, tourists, and official guests.
• Division of Garbage Analysis: was responsible for analyzing garbage for any suspect western foods and/or materials.
• Administration 12: was responsible for the surveillance of mail and telephone communications.
• Administration 2000: was responsible for the reliability of National People’s Army (NVA) personnel. Admin 2000 operated a secret, unofficial network of informants within the NVA.
• Penal System: to facilitate its mission of enforcing the political security of East Germany, the Stasi operated its own penal system, distinct from that of the Ministry of the Interior. This system comprised prison camps for political, as opposed to criminal, offenders.
• Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment: the armed force at disposal of the ministry, named for the founder of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. The members of this regiment, who served at least 3 years, were responsible for protecting high government and party buildings and personnel. The regiment was composed of six motorized rifle battalions, one artillery battalion, and one training battalion. Its equipment included PSZH-IV armored personnel carriers, 120mm mortars, 85mm and 100mm antitank guns, ZU-23 antiaircraft guns, and helicopters. A Swiss source reported in 1986 that the troops of the Ministry of State Security also had commando units similar to the Soviet Union’s Spetsnaz forces. These East German units were said to wear the uniform of the airborne troops, although with the violet collar patch of the Ministry for State Security rather than the orange one of paratroopers. They also wore the sleeve stripe of the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.^[7]

Stasi operations

Personnel

Between 1950 and 1989, the Stasi employed a total of 274,000 people in an effort to root out the class enemy.^[8][9] In 1989, the Stasi employed 91,015 persons full time, including 2,000 fully employed unofficial collaborators, 13,073 soldiers and 2,232 officers of GDR army,^[10] along with 173,081 unofficial informants inside GDR^[11] and 1,553 informants in West Germany.^[12] In terms of the identity of inoffizielle Mitarbeiter(IMs) Stasi informants, by 1995, 174,000 had been identified, which approximated 2.5% of East Germany’s population between the ages of 18 and 60.^[8] 10,000 IMs were under 18 years of age.^[8]

While these calculations were from official records, according to the federal commissioner in charge of the Stasi archives in Berlin, because many such records were destroyed, there were likely closer to 500,000 Stasi informers.^[8] A former Stasi colonel who served in the counterintelligence directorate estimated that the figure could be as high as 2 million if occasional informants were included.^[8]

Infiltration

Full-time officers were posted to all major industrial plants (the extensiveness of any surveillance largely depended on how valuable a product was to the economy)^[9] and one tenant in every apartment building was designated as a watchdog reporting to an area representative of the Volkspolizei (Vopo).^[13] Spies reported every relative or friend who stayed the night at another’s apartment.^[13] Tiny holes were drilled in apartment and hotel room walls through which Stasi agents filmed citizens with special video cameras.^[13] Schools, universities, and hospitals were extensively infiltrated.^[13]

The Stasi had formal categorizations of each type of informant, and had official guidelines on how to extract information from, and control, those who they came into contact with.^[14] The roles of informants ranged from those already in some way involved in state security (such as the police and the armed services) to those in the dissident movements (such as in the arts and the Protestant Church).^[15] Information gathered about the latter groups was frequently used to divide or discredit members.^[16] Informants were made to feel important, given material or social incentives, and were imbued with a sense of adventure, and only around 7.7%, according to official figures, were coerced into cooperating. A significant proportion of those informing were members of the SED; to employ some form of blackmail, however, was not uncommon.^[15] A large number of Stasi informants were trolley conductors, janitors, doctors, nurses and teachers; Mielke believed the best informants were those whose jobs entailed frequent contact with the public.^[17]

The Stasi’s ranks swelled considerably after Eastern Bloc countries signed the 1975 Helsinki accords, which Erich Honecker viewed as a grave threat to his regime because they contained language binding signatories to respect “human and basic rights, including freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and conviction.”^[18] The number of IMs peaked at around 180,000 in this year, having slowly risen from 20,000–30,000 in the early 1950s, and reaching 100,000 for the first time in 1968, in response to Ostpolitik and protests worldwide.^[19] The Stasi also acted as a proxy for KGB to conduct activities in other Eastern Bloc countries, such as Poland, where the Soviets were despised.^[20]

The MfS infiltrated almost every aspect of GDR life. In the mid-1980s, a network of IMs began growing in both German states; by the time East Germany collapsed in 1989, the MfS employed 91,015 employees and 173,081 informants.^[21] About one of every 63 East Germans collaborated with the MfS—one of the most extensive police infiltrations of a society in history. In 2007 an article in BBC stated that “Some calculations have concluded that in East Germany there was one informer to every seven citizens.”^[22] Additionally, MfS agents infiltrated and undermined West Germany’s government and spy agencies.

In an extreme case, Stasi informant Knud Wollenberger (code name Daniel) married civil rights and peace activist Vera Lengsfeld specifically to keep a watch on her.^[17]

Executions of dissidents

People were imprisoned for such reasons as trying to leave the country, or telling political jokes. Prisoners were kept, isolated and disoriented, knowing nothing of what was going on in the outside world.^[23]

After the mid-1950s, Stasi executions were carried out in strict secrecy, and were usually accomplished with a guillotine and, in later years, by a single pistol shot to the neck.^[24] In most instances, the relatives of the executed were not informed of either the sentence or the execution.^[24]

After the Berlin Wall fell, X-ray machines were found in the prisons. Indeed, three of the best-known dissidents died within a few months of each other, of similar rare forms of leukaemia. Survivors state that the MfS intentionally irradiated political prisoners with high-dose radiation, possibly to provoke cancer in them.^[23]International operations

International operations

Other files (the Rosenholz Files), which contained the names of East German spies abroad, led American spy agencies to capture them. After German reunification, it was revealed that the MfS had secretly aided left-wing terrorists such as the Red Army Faction, even though no part of the RAF had ever been ideologically aligned with the GDR.

Directorate X was responsible for disinformation. Rolf Wagenbreth, director of disinformation operations, stated “Our friends in Moscow call it ‘dezinformatsiya’. Our enemies in America call it ‘active measures,’ and I, dear friends, call it ‘my favorite pastime'”.

Examples

• Stasi experts helped to build the secret police of Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia.^[25][26]
• Fidel Castro‘s regime in Cuba was particularly interested in receiving training from Stasi. Stasi instructors worked in Cuba and Cuban communists received training in East Germany.^[27] The Stasi chief Markus Wolf described how he set up the Cuban system on the pattern of the East German system.^[28]
• The Stasi’s experts worked with building secret police systems in the People’s Republic of Angola, the People’s Republic of Mozambique, and the People’s Republic of Yemen (South Yemen).^[26]
• Stasi experts helped to set up Idi Amin‘s secret police.^[29][26]
• Stasi organized, trained, indoctrinated Syrian intelligence services.^[30]
• Stasi experts helped Kwame Nkrumah to build his secret police. When Ghanians overthrew the regime, Stasi Major Jurgen Rogalla was imprisoned.^[31][26]
• The Stasi sent agents to the West as sleeper agents. For instance, sleeper agent Günter Guillaume became a senior aide to social democratic chancellor Willy Brandt, and reported about his politics and private life.^[32]
• The Stasi operated at least one brothel. Agents were used against both men and women working in Western governments. “Entrapment” was used against married men and homosexuals.^[33]
• Martin Schlaff—According to the German parliament’s investigations, the Austrian billionaire’s Stasi codename was “Landgraf” and registration number “3886-86”. He made money by supplying embargoed goods to East Germany.^[34]
• Sokratis Kokkalis—Stasi documents suggest that the Greek businessman was a Stasi agent, whose operations included delivering Western technological secrets and bribing Greek officials to buy outdated East German telecom equipment.^[35]
• Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group)—A terrorist organization which killed dozens of West Germans and others.
• The Stasi ordered a campaign in which cemeteries and other Jewish sites in West Germany were smeared with swastikas and other Nazi symbols. Funds were channelled to a small West German group for it to defend Adolf Eichmann.^[36]
• The Stasi channelled large amounts of money to Neo-Nazi groups in West, with the purpose of discrediting the West.^[37]
• The Stasi worked in a campaign to create extensive material and propaganda against Israel.^[38]
• Murder of Benno Ohnesorg—A Stasi agent carried out the murder, which stirred a whole movement of left-wing protest and violence. The Economist describes it as “the gunshot that hoaxed a generation”.^[39][40]
• Operation Infektion—The Stasi helped the KGB to spread HIV/AIDS disinformation that the United States had created the disease. Millions of people around the world still believe in these claims.^[41][42]
• Sandoz chemical spill—The KGB reportedly ordered the Stasi to sabotage the chemical factory to distract attention from the Chernobyl disaster six months earlier in Ukraine.^[43][44][45]
• Investigators have found evidence of a death squad that carried out a number of assassinations (including assassination of Swedish journalist Cats Falck) on orders from the East German government from 1976 to 1987. Attempts to prosecute members failed.^[46][47][48]
• The Stasi attempted to assassinate Wolfgang Welsch, a famous critic of the regime. Stasi collaborator Peter Haack (Stasi codename “Alfons”) befriended with Welsch and then fed him with hamburgers that were poisoned with thallium. It took weeks for doctors to find out why Haack had suddenly lost his hair.^[49]
• Documents in the Stasi archives state that the KGB ordered Bulgarian agents to assassinate Pope John Paul II, who was known for his criticism of human rights in the communist block, and the Stasi was asked to help with covering up traces.^[50]
• A special unit of the Stasi assisted Romanian intelligence in kidnapping Romanian dissident Oliviu Beldeanu from West Germany.^[51]
• In 1975 Stasi recorded a conversation between senior West German CDU politicians Helmut Kohl and Kurt Biedenkopf. It was then “leaked” to the Stern magazine as a transcript recorded by American intelligence. The magazine then claimed that Americans were wiretapping West Germans and the public believed the story.^[52]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Fall of Communism

Recruitment of informants became increasingly difficult towards the end of the GDR’s existence, and after 1986, there was a negative turnover rate of IMs. This had a significant impact on the Stasi’s ability to survey the population, in a period of growing unrest, and knowledge of the MfS’s activities became more widespread.^[53] The Stasi had been tasked during this period with preventing the country’s economic difficulties becoming a political problem, through suppression of the very worst problems the state faced, but it failed to do so.^[9]

Stasi officers reportedly had discussed rebranding East Germany as a democratic capitalist country to the West, but which would be in practice taken over by Stasi officers. The plan specified 2,587 OibE officers who would take over power (Offiziere im besonderen Einsatz, “officers on special assignment”) and it was registered as Top Secret Document 0008-6/86 of March 17, 1986.^[54][55] According to Ion Mihai Pacepa, the chief intelligence officer in communist Romania, other communist intelligence services had similar plans.^[55] On 12 March 1990 Der Spiegel reported that the Stasi was indeed attempting to implement 0008-6/86.^[54]Pacepa has noted that what happened in Russia and how KGB Colonel Vladimir Putin took over Russia resembles these plans.^[55] See Putinism.

On 7 November 1989, in response to the rapidly changing political and social situation in the GDR in late 1989, Erich Mielke resigned. On 17 November 1989, the Council of Ministers (Ministerrat der DDR) renamed the MfS as the “Office for National Security” (Amt für Nationale Sicherheit – AfNS), which was headed by Generalleutnant Wolfgang Schwanitz. On 8 December 1989, GDR Prime Minister Hans Modrow directed the dissolution of the AfNS, which was confirmed by a decision of the Ministerrat on 14 December 1989.

As part of this decision, the Ministerrat originally called for the evolution of the AfNS into two separate organizations: a new foreign intelligence service (Nachrichtendienst der DDR) and an “Office for the Protection of the Constitution of the GDR” (Verfassungsschutz der DDR), along the lines of the West German Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, however, the public reaction was extremely negative, and under pressure from the “Round Table” (Runder Tisch), the government dropped the creation of the Verfassungsschutz der DDR and directed the immediate dissolution of the AfNS on 13 January 1990. Certain functions of the AfNS reasonably related to law enforcement were handed over to the GDR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The same ministry also took guardianship of remaining AfNS facilities.

When the parliament of Germany investigated public funds that disappeared after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, it found out that East Germany had transferred large amounts of money to Martin Schlaff through accounts in Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, in return for goods “under Western embargo”. Moreover, high-ranking Stasi officers continued their post-DDR careers in management positions in Schlaff’s group of companies. For example, in 1990 Herbert Kohler, Stasi commander in Dresden, transferred 170 million marks to Schlaff for “harddisks” and months later went to work for him.^[34][56] The investigations concluded that “Schlaff’s empire of companies played a crucial role” in the Stasi attempts to secure the financial future of Stasi agents and keep the intelligence network alive.^[34] The Stern magazine noted that KGB officerVladimir Putin worked with his Stasi colleagues in Dresden in 1989.^[56]

In the Soviet Union, about 50 billion U.S. dollars was transferred out of the country (see FIMACO).

Recovery of the Stasi files

During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, MfS offices were overrun by enraged citizens, but not before the MfS destroyed a number of documents (approximately 5%).^[57]

Storming the Stasi headquarters

As the GDR began to fall, the Stasi did as well. They began to destroy the extensive files that they had kept, both by hand and with the use of shredders.

Citizens protesting and entering the Stasi building in Berlin; the sign accuses the Stasi and SED of being Nazistic dictators.

When these activities became known, protest erupted in front of the Stasi headquarters.^[58] In the evening of 15 January 1990, a large crowd of people formed outside the gates in order to stop the destruction of personal files. In their minds, this information should have been available to them and also have been used to punish those who had taken part in Stasi actions. The large group of protesters grew and grew until they were able to overcome the police and gain entry into the complex. The protestors became violent and destructive as they smashed doors and windows, threw furniture, and trampled portraits of Erich Honecker, leader of the GDR. Among the destructive public were officers working for the West German government, as well as former MfS collaborators seeking to destroy documents. One explanation postulated as to why the Stasi did not open fire was for fear of hitting their own colleagues. As the people continued their violence, these undercover men proceeded into the file room and acquired many files that would become of great importance to catching ex-Stasi members.

Controversy of the Stasi files

With the German Reunification on 3 October 1990 a new government agency was founded called the Office of the Federal Commissioner Preserving the Records of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR (BStU).^[59] There was a debate about what should happen to the files, whether they should be opened to the people or kept closed.

Those who opposed opening the files cited privacy as a reason. They felt that the information in the files would lead to negative feelings about former Stasi members, and, in turn, cause violence. Pastor Rainer Eppelmann, who became Minister of Defense and Disarmament after March 1990, felt that new political freedoms for former Stasi members would be jeopardized by acts of revenge. Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere even went so far as to predict murder. They also argued against the use of the files to capture former Stasi members and prosecute them, arguing that not all former members were criminals and should not be punished solely for being a member. There were also some who believed that everyone was guilty of something. Peter Michael Diestel, the Minister of Interior, opined that these files could not be used to determine innocence and guilt, claiming that “there were only two types of individuals who were truly innocent in this system, the newborn and the alcoholic.” Other opinions, such as the one of West German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, believed in putting the Stasi behind them and working on German reunification.

Others argued that everyone should have the right to see their own file, and that the files should be opened to investigate former Stasi members and prosecute them, as well as not allow them to hold office. Opening the files would also help clear up some of the rumors that were floating around. Some also believed that politicians involved with the Stasi should be investigated.

The fate of the files was finally decided under the Unification Treaty between the GDR and Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). This treaty took the Volkskammer law further and allowed more access and use of the files. Along with the decision to keep the files in a central location in the East, they also decided who could see and use the files, allowing people to see their own files.

In 1992, following a declassification ruling by the German government, the MfS files were opened, leading people to look for their files. Timothy Garton Ash, an English historian, after reading his file, wrote The File: A Personal History while completing his dissertation research in East Berlin.^[60]

Between 1991 and 2011, around 2.75 million individuals, mostly GDR citizens, requested to see their own files.^[61] The ruling also gave people the ability to make duplicates of their documents. Another big issue was how the media could use and benefit from the documents. It was decided that the media could obtain files as long as they were depersonalized and not regarding an individual under the age of 18 or a former Stasi member. This ruling not only gave the media access to the files, but also gave schools access.

Tracking down former Stasi informers with the files

Even though groups of this sort were active in the community, those who were tracking down ex-members were, as well. Many of these hunters succeeded in catching ex-Stasi; however, charges could not be made for merely being a member. The person in question would have had to participate in an illegal act, not just be a registered Stasi member. Among the high-profile individuals who were arrested and tried were Erich Mielke, Third Minister of State Security of the GDR, and Erich Honecker, head of state for the GDR. Mielke was given six years for the murder of two policemen in 1931. Honecker was charged with authorizing the killing of would-be escapees on the East-West frontier and the Berlin Wall. During his trial, he went through cancer treatment. Due to the fact that he was nearing death, Honecker was allowed to spend his final time in Chile. He died in May 1994.]Reassembling the destroyed files

Document shredding is described in Stasiland. Some of it is very easy due to the amount of archives and the failure of shredding machines (in some cases “shredding” meant tearing paper in two by hand and documents could be recovered easily). In 1995, the BStU began reassembling the shredded documents; 13 years later the three dozen archivists commissioned to the projects had only reassembled 327 bags; they are now using computer-assisted data recovery to reassemble the remaining 16,000 bags – estimated at 45 million pages. It is estimated that this task may be completed at a cost of 30 million dollars.^[62]

The CIA acquired some MfS records during the looting of the MfS archives. The Federal Republic of Germany has asked for their return and received some in April 2000.^[63] See also Rosenholz files.

Museum in the old headquarters

Statue of workers and Police officer in front of the Stasi archives, Mitte district, Berlin. The officer has been egged.

The Anti-Stalinist Action Normannenstraße (ASTAK), an association founded by former GDR Citizens’ Committees, has transformed the former headquarters of the MfS into a museum. It is divided into three floors:

• Ground floor

The ground floor has been kept as it used to be. The decor is original, with many statues and flags.

• Between the ground and first (upper) floor:
  • Surveillance technology and MfS symbols: Some of the tools that the MfS used to track down their opponents. During an interview the seats were covered with a cotton cloth to collect the perspiration of the victim. The cloth was placed in a glass jar, which was annotated with the victim’s name, and archived. Other common ways that the scents would be collected is through breaking into a home and taking parts of garments. The most common garment taken was underpants, because of how close the garment is to the skin. The MfS would then use trained dogs to track down the person using this scent. Other tools shown here include a tie-camera, cigarette box camera, and an AK-47 hidden in luggage.
  • Display gallery of Directorate VII. This part of the museum tells the history of the MfS, from the beginning of the GDR to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

• First (upper) floor
  • Mielke’s offices. The decor is 60s furniture. There is a reception room with a TV set in the cafeteria.
  • Office of Colonel Heinz Volpert
  • Lounge for drivers and bodyguards
  • Office of Major-General Hans Carlsohn, director of the secretariat
  • Secretariat
  • The Cafeteria
  • Kitchen
  • The Minister’s Workroom
  • The Conference Room with a giant map of Germany on a wall—one of the most impressive rooms.
  • The cloakroom

• Second (upper) floor
  • Repression—Rebellion—Self-Liberation from 1945 to 1989

Photo gallery:

• 

  Kitchen

• 

  Surveillance

• 

  Secretariat

• 

  Prison

Stasi officers after the reunification

Recruitment by Russian state-owned companies

Former Stasi agent Matthias Warnig (codename “Arthur”) is currently the CEO of Nord Stream.^[64] German investigations have revealed that some of the key Gazprom Germania managers are former Stasi agents.^[65][66]

Lobbying

Ex-MfS officers continue to be politically active via the Gesellschaft zur Rechtlichen und Humanitären Unterstützung e. V. (Society for Legal and Humanitarian Support) (GRH). Former high-ranking officers and employees of the MfS, including the last MfS director, Wolfgang Schwanitz, make up the majority of the organization’s members, and it receives support from the German Communist Party, among others.

Impetus for the establishment of the GRH was provided by the criminal charges filed against the Stasi in the early 1990s. The GRH, decrying the charges as “victor’s justice”, called for them to be dropped. Today the group provides an alternative if somewhat utopian voice in the public debate on the GDR legacy. It calls for the closure of the museum in Hohenschönhausen and can be a vocal presence at memorial services and public events. In March 2006 in Berlin, GRH members disrupted a museum event; a political scandal ensued when the Berlin Senator (Minister) of Culture refused to confront them.^[67]

Behind the scenes, the GRH also lobbies people and institutions promoting opposing viewpoints. For example, in March 2006, the Berlin Senator for Education received a letter from a GRH member and former Stasi officer attacking the Museum for promoting “falsehoods, anticommunist agitation and psychological terror against minors.”^[68] Similar letters have also been received by schools organizing field trips to the museum.^[69]

Alleged informants

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

In the arts

• Unknown featured a retired Stasi agent, Ernst Jürgen, played by Bruno Ganz.
• The 2006 German film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) involves the monitoring of the cultural scene of East Berlin by agents of the MfS.
• The Legend of Rita (Die Stille nach dem Schuß), a 2000 film directed by Volker Schlöndorff, dwells heavily on the relationship between the MfS and the general population of East Germany. The second-most prominent character is the MfS “control” for the title character.
• Stasiland is a 2004 best-selling book by Anna Funder. It was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2004.
• In the episode “Music to Die For” of the British crime series Lewis contemporary murders in Oxford are linked to Stasi informers in East Germany in the 1980s.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Only two articles let the German audience believe that the famous journalist and watchdog Heinz Gerlach died on natural courses by blood pollution. 

The first one, published only hours after the death of Mr Heinz Gerlach by the notorious “GoMoPa” (see article below) and a second 3 days later by a small German local newspaper, Weserbergland Nachrichten.

Many people including the hostile Gerlach website “Akte Heinz Gerlach” doubted that this man who had so many enemies and friends would die of natural causes without any previous warning. Rumours occured that Mr. Gerlach’s doctor doubted natural courses at all. After many critical voices discussed the issue a small website of a small German local newspaper – which never before had reported about Mr. Heinz Gerlach and which is not even in the region of Mr Gerlachs home – published that Mr Gerlach died of blood pollution. Weserbergland-Nachrichten published a long article about the deadly consequences of blood pollution and did not even name the source of such an important statement. It claimed only that somebody of Gerlachs inner circle had said this. It is a proven fact that after the collpase of the Eastern German Communist Regime many former Communist propaganda agents went to regional newspapers – often in Western Germany like Günther Schabowski did the man who opened the “Mauer”. 
The theatre stage was set: One day later the hostile Gerlach website “Akte Heinz Gerlach” took the agenda publishing that Mr Gerlach had died for natural causes without any further research at all.

This was done by a website which for months and months and months reported everything about Mr. Gerlach.
Furthermore a research proves that the technical details regarding the website hosting of this hostile website “Akte Heinz Gerlach” proves that there are common details with the hosting of “GoMoPa” and their affiliates as proven by the SJB-GoMoPa-victims (see http://www.sjb-fonds-opfer.com)
Insiders believe that the murderers of Mr. Heinz Gerlach are former members of the Eastern German Terror Organisation “Stasi” with dioxins. They also believe that “GoMoPa” was part of the plot. At “GoMoPa”’ a person named Siegfried Siewers was officialy responsible for the press but never appeared in public. “GoMoPa”-victims say that this name was a cameo for “GoMoPa” frontrunner Klaus Maurischat who is controlled by the Stasi Top Agent Ehrenfried Stelzner, Berlin.

Siegfried Sievers, a former Stasi member is responsible for the pollution of millions Germanys for many years with dioxins. This was unveiled at 5th of January 2011 by German prosecutors.
The victims say that Maurischat (probably also a Stasi cameo) and Sievers were in contact as Sievers acted as Stasi Agent and was in fact already a specialist in dioxins under the Communist Terror Regime in Eastern Germany.
Furthermore the Stasi Top Agent Ehrenfried Stelzer disguised as Professor for Criminal studies during the Communist Regime at the Eastern Berlin Humboldt University.

Background:
The man behind the Berlin lawyer Jochen Resch and his activities is Ehrenfried Stelzer, former Stasi Top officer in Berlin and “Professor for Criminal Studies” at the Eastern Berlin Humboldt University during the Communist regime, the SJB-GoMoPa-victims say (www.sjb-fonds-opfer.com) is responsable for the killing of German watchdog and journalist Heinz Gerlach.
These informations stem from various sources who were close to the criminal organization of GoMoPa in the last years. The SJB-GoMoPa say that the well-known German watchdog and journalist Heinz Gerlach was killed by former Stasi members with dioxins. Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDDs), or simply dioxins, are a group of organic polyhalogenated compounds that are significant because they act as environmental pollutants. They are commonly referred to as dioxins for simplicity in scientific publications because every PCDD molecule contains a dioxin skeletal structure. Typically, the p-dioxin skeleton is at the core of a PCDD molecule, giving the molecule a dibenzo-p-dioxin ring system. Members of the PCDD family have been shown to bioaccumulate in humans and wildlife due to their lipophilic properties, and are known teratogens, mutagens, and confirmed (avered) human carcinogens. They are organic compounds.
Dioxins build up primarily in fatty tissues over time (bioaccumulate), so even small exposures may eventually reach dangerous levels. In 1994, the US EPA reported that dioxins are a probable carcinogen, but noted that non-cancer effects (reproduction and sexual development, immune system) may pose an even greater threat to human health. TCDD, the most toxic of the dibenzodioxins, is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
In 2004, a notable individual case of dioxin poisoning, Ukrainian politician Viktor Yushchenko was exposed to the second-largest measured dose of dioxins, according to the reports of the physicians responsible for diagnosing him. This is the first known case of a single high dose of TCDD dioxin poisoning, and was diagnosed only after a toxicologist recognized the symptoms of chloracne while viewing television news coverage of his condition.
German dioxin scandal: In January 2011 about 4700 German farms were banned from making deliveries after tests at the Harles und Jentzsch plant in the state of Schleswig-Holstein showed high levels of dioxin. Again this incident appears to involve PCBs and not PCDDs at all. Dioxin were found in animal feed and eggs in many farms. The person who is responsible for this, Siegfried Sievert is also a former Stasi Agent. At “GoMoPa” the notorious Eastern-Berlin press agency (see article below) one of the henchmen acted under the name of “Siegfried Siewert”.
Further evidence for the killing of Mr.Heinz Gerlach is provided by the SJB-GoMoPa-victims by analyzing the dubious role of former Stasi-Top-agent Ehrenfried Stelzer, also a former “Professor for Crime Studies” under the Communist regime in Eastern Germany and the dubious role of “detective” Medard Fuchsgruber. Both are closely tied to the dubious “GoMoPa” and Berlin lawyer Jochen Resch.
According to the SJB-GoMoPa-victims is Berlin lawyer Jochen Resch the mastermind of the criminal organization “GoMoPa2. The victims state that they have a source inside “GoMoPa” who helped them discover  the shocking truth. The so-called “Deep Throat from Berlin” has information that Resch had the idea to found the criminal organization “GoMoPa” and use non-existing Jewish lawyers  named Goldman, Morgenstern & Partner as camouflage. Their “office” in Madison Avenue, New York, is a mailbox. This is witnessed by a German Ex-Patriot, a lawyer, whose father, Heinz Gerlach, died under strange circumstances.
Resch seems to use “GoMoPa” as an instrument to blackmail parts of the German Property and Investment.