Josef Kiefel
Josef Kiefel ( born October 2, 1909 in Gotzing (Upper Bavaria), † March 3, 1988 in Berlin) was a German communist and officer of the East German state security and as a colonel from 1953 to 1960 Head of the Main Department II of the Stasi.
Life
As workers child, he grew up in Upper Bavaria. From 1923 to 1926 he trained as a locksmith training and subsequently worked as a miner, machinist and road workers.
From 1927 he would be active in various organizations, such as the factory workers association and the Red Aid and in 1929 joined the Communist Party of Germany ( KPD). After the rise of the German Nazis in 1931, he emigrated to the Soviet Union. There he was drafted into the Red Army in 1942 and completed the special training of the NKVD. From 1944 he was employed as a partisan and agent of the group " Andreas Hofer ", together with Joseph Gieffer and the radio operator Rudolf Gyptner, in the hinterland of occupied Poland. Here he was wounded several times before he could join in Radom of the Red Army on 17 January 1945.
After the end of World War II he lived in Moscow and returned to Germany in July 1946. There he was in the Soviet Occupation Zone member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED ) and took over official purposes, including as an instructor of the SED state executive Saxony -Anhalt in Halle and seminary teacher at the State Party School of Wettin. In 1947 he began working for the German People's Police ( DVP ) and was appointed Deputy Head of the Department " Political Police " (K 5) in the State Office of Criminal Saxony -Anhalt in the former capital of Halle ( Saale), which he headed from 1949. The end of 1949, after the founding of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) on 7 October 1949, he became Deputy Head of the Main Administration for the Protection of the economy in the state of Brandenburg. The office of administration of these countries was in Potsdam.
From August 1950 he became head of the department VIa ( information gathering ) of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR. 1952 became head of the so-called Division II (West work) and took over on 23 November 1953, the Department II, which was responsible for counterintelligence. This department he headed until 13 February 1960 also drew the responsibility of recruitment of former SS officer and agent of the Organisation Gehlen (OG) Hans summer in the summer of 1954 as an informer, which the names of about 800 agents of the floor in the GDR betrayed. Another spectacular operation during his tenure was the flight of the Stasi Agent Hans Wax in the GDR.
In the violent riots at June 17, 1953, he was severely wounded in the head. This health condition helped that he was not fully considered in the late 1950s as fit for service and was therefore exempt from the important position of the head of counterintelligence 1960. Due to its numerous " achievements " could and Stasi boss Erich Mielke and the head of the parent Main Intelligence ( HVA ) Markus Wolf did not separate readily from him. In a unique process within the Stasi, the department has been specially designed Kiefel XXI with the task areas " combat agents of Western Central " and " homeland security " was formed, of which he was transferred. After he finally retired in 1970, this special section was re-dissolved and its responsibilities transferred to the office of the head of the Stasi.