of its duties and areas of jurisdiction were specifically enumerated. It
was modeled on the Cheka, or Soviet secret police founded by Felix
Dzerzhinsky in 1917, as well as the illegal apparatus of the Kom-
munistische Partei Deutschlands active in the years prior to 1945.
Lying outside the control of GDR officials, the new ministry was
heavily coordinated by the large KGB staff stationed at Karlshorst.
Each head of a main MfS unit had a corresponding Soviet instructor.
Slowly the KGB presence receded, and the MfS began to establish its
own identity under its first director, Wilhelm Zaisser. The staff grew
rapidly—to 8,800 in 1952—and military titles replaced the earlier
police designations.
The MfS played a key role in large-scale purges in the GDR. Staff
turnover was high, and defections to the West were not uncommon.
The first severe setback for the MfS occurred in the context of the
Uprising of 17 June 1953. Although the ministry had been aware
of mounting discontent over the hardline policies of GDR leader
Walter Ulbricht, it stood helplessly by when popular protests erupted
in East Berlin and spread to other regions of the GDR. In numerous
towns such as Jena and Merseburg, even the local MfS offices were
occupied by protesters. In the end, Soviet troops had to extinguish
the uprising.
As a result, Zaisser was replaced by Ernst Wollweber, and the
ministry was downgraded to a state secretariat within the Ministry
of the Interior for the next two years. Unlike Zaisser, who had pre-
ferred a quiet, less conspicuous approach, Wollweber unleashed a
full-scale public relations campaign, especially after the arrest of
several hundred alleged agents in feuerwerk. Party discipline was
strengthened, and the subordination of state security to the Sozialis-
tische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) repeatedly affirmed. Ac-
cording to a 1954 decision of the Politburo’s Security Commission,
the SED apparatus could not be spied on by the MfS unless a request
had been made regarding a specific individual. Even so, the rela-
tionship between Wollweber and Ulbricht showed increasing signs
of deterioration, primarily because of their different approaches to
de-Stalinization following Nikita Khrushchev’s landmark speech in
- Branded a revisionist by Ulbricht, Wollweber lost his position
on 1 November 1957 and was replaced by his ambitious lieutenant,
Erich Mielke, who would remain in office until the fall of 1989.
MINISTERIUM FÜR STAATSSICHERHEIT • 303