1. Wilhelm Zaisser was a German communist politician and statesman who served as the founder and first Minister for State Security of the German Democratic Republic.
17 Facts About Wilhelm Zaisser
1. 2.
When World War I began a year later, Wilhelm Zaisser joined the Imperial German Army.
3.
From 1921 to 1922, Wilhelm Zaisser edited the Ruhr Echo and the Bergischen Voice of the People.
4.
In 1923, Wilhelm Zaisser was recruited into the KPD's intelligence wing and worked to covertly subvert the Third French Republic's occupation of the Ruhr.
5.
On behalf of the Soviets, Wilhelm Zaisser became a military advisor to the Spanish Republican Army, while secretly remaining a, GRU agent, and as the Chief of the Servicio de Investigacion Militar, the political police of the Second Spanish Republic.
6.
Wilhelm Zaisser quickly achieved the rank of brigadier general, and in 1937, he became leader of all the pro-Republican International Brigades operating in Spain.
7.
In 1947, Wilhelm Zaisser returned to Germany and joined the Socialist Unity Party.
8.
Wilhelm Zaisser's career took off rapidly soon afterwards, and by 1948 he was Minister of the Interior and Deputy Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt.
9.
From 1949 to 1954, Wilhelm Zaisser served as a representative in the Volkskammer and in 1950 worked on military and tactical issues at the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute, a facility to which very few non-Soviets had access.
10.
In 1950, Wilhelm Zaisser gained membership in East Germany's Politburo and the Central Committee of the SED, thus becoming one of the most powerful men in the country.
11.
Wilhelm Zaisser conferred with Wilhelm Zaisser and with Erich Mielke, his deputy, both of whom he had known since the early 1930s.
12.
Wilhelm Zaisser was sentenced to death and shot by Red Army Colonel-General Pavel Batitsky on 23 December 1953.
13.
Wilhelm Zaisser was forced to resign as Minister for State Security in July 1953.
14.
However, in 1953 Wilhelm Zaisser was decorated with the Order of Karl Marx.
15.
Wilhelm Zaisser was stripped of all his posts, expelled from the SED, and classified as an enemy of the people.
16.
Wilhelm Zaisser spent his final years working as a translator and at the Institute of Marxism and Leninism.
17.
Wilhelm Zaisser died in obscurity in East Berlin in 1958.