Tenure As Stasi Head
Mielke headed the Stasi from 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. His network of 85,000 full-time domestic spies and 170,000 'voluntary' informers kept tabs on millions of people. So many people collaborated with the Stasi that when the records were opened, it was discovered that in every public building, at least one of its members kept the Stasi informed about everything that happened within it. On his orders, and with his full knowledge, Stasi officers also engaged in arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, brutal harassment of political dissidents, and the inhumane imprisonment of tens of thousands of citizens. On his personal responsibility the MfS launched the counter attacks by the Stasi against the dissident Rudolf Bahro and his book Die Alternative: Zur Kritik des 'real existierenden Sozialismus' and those who supported, discussed and published his work. Mielke was one of the most powerful – and most hated – men in East Germany, feared even by members of his own ministry.
According to John O. Koehler,
"Mielke was the longest serving secret police chief in the Eastern Bloc. He was on the most intimate of terms with eleven Soviet secret police chiefs, and he survived them all. Subservient to a fault while they were in power, Mielke switched loyalties without a beat when they were fired. His allegiance was not to a person but to the joint KGB/Stasi venture in the quest of maintaining and expanding the powers of communism."
Read more about this topic: Erich Mielke
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