Mielke, Erich

1907 - Born on the 28th of December.

1928-1931 - Mielke became a member of the German Communist Party and worked as a reporter for a communist newspaper.

         - On the 9th of August, he and Erich Ziemer, at the urging of Walter Ulbricht, and directly supervised by Communist Members of Parliament Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger, ambushed two Berlin police officers, Captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck.

1932 - Mielke attended the Comintern's Military Political school and later the Lenin School.

1936-1939 - He was sent by Stalin to fight in the Spanish Civil War as a political officer assigned to the Republican side.

1945 - Mielke was returned to Germany by the Soviet authorities as a police inspector, with a mandate to build up a security force which would ensure the dominance of the Communist Party in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany.

1950 - He was a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany Central committee.

         - Mielke served as head of the Main Administration for the Protection of the People's Economy.

1953 - He was state secretary in the Stasi, later serving as full State Secretary.

1955-1957 - He was deputy minister of state security.

1957 - Mielke headed the Stasi.

1989 - Mielke was at the center of one of the most famous TV incidents in German history.

2000 - Died on the 21st of May at aged 92 in a Berlin nursing home.