| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
On 10 June 2000, a group of roughly 200 mourners assembled at the Zentralfriedhof Berlin-Friedrichsfelde, the traditional resting place for those belonging to Germany's Communist pantheon beginning with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The occasion was the burial of Erich Mielke, the longstanding head of East Germany's Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry of State Security; MfS or Stasi) who had died the previous month of natural causes at the age of 92. Willi Opitz, the last rector of the MfS Juristische Hochschule (School of Law), headed the delegation and delivered the main eulogy. In the course of Opitz's remarks, Mielke was praised for his "energetic preservation and assertion of socialist law not only in our ministry but in all areas of state and society." In addition to his desire that "people live and work in security and dignity," he himself "radiated optimism, strength, and zest for life." Even after 1989-confronted by "prejudices based in revenge and victors' justice, degrading penal conditions, [and] the revocation of his entitlement to a VVN (Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime) pension"-Mielke remained unbroken. A few words of consolation were also directed at his widow, his son Frank, his adopted daughter Inge, and his two grandchildren, all in attendance.
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