information on any “negative occurrences.” Concerned that enemy
agents were not only spreading illegal propaganda but also involved
in espionage, sabotage, even assassination, Mielke instructed the pro-
vincial information offices that their task was “to know everything
and to report everything worth knowing.” The role of the police thus
came to include the suppression of any real or potential opposition
to communist domination of the zone. Into each of the police units
he introduced a well trained Politkultur (political-cultural) officer,
whose task was to heighten awareness of the enemy and ensure con-
formity with party priorities.
With the founding of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in
November 1949, Mielke headed the Main Administration for the Pro-
tection of the People’s Economy, a division of the Interior Ministry
and the forerunner of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS),
which was established the following year. As a protégé of party chair
Walter Ulbricht, he appeared well positioned to assume leadership
of the new ministry, but Soviet authorities, pointing to the wartime
gap in his biography, preferred that he take a subsidiary position
under Zaisser. As a result of the MfS’s failed performance during the
Uprising of 17 June 1953, Zaisser was dismissed and the ministry
downgraded to the status of a secretariat within the Interior Minis-
try. Because Soviet suspicion of Mielke had not completely abated
and some financial irregularities on his part had come to light, he
remained second in command under the new head of state security,
Ernst Wollweber. When its ministerial status was restored in 1956,
Mielke regained his former position as state secretary. The next year,
Ulbricht succeeded in removing Wollweber and appointing Mielke
in his place.
As the new minister of state security, he showed much greater
compliance than his predecessors with the demands of the Sozi-
alistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), stressing how “the
decisions of the party are the benchmark of our Chekist work.” He
received the Order of Karl Marx in 1957, became a member of the
National Defense Council in 1960, and supported the building of the
Berlin Wall (Operation rose) the following year. Even so, Ulbricht
never sanctioned his participation in the deliberations of the Polit-
buro. Only after Erich Honecker came to power in 1971 was Mielke
granted admission to this body. The two men had a long-standing300 • MIELKE, ERICH