EP98: Erich Mielke

Erich Mielke was the head of East Germany's Ministry of State Security- also known as The Stasi- from 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. <br/><br/>Given the Stasi has a reputation as perhaps the most meticulous secret police service in history, Mielke, hardened by the communist underworld of Weimar Germany, the Spanish Civil War and a Second World War labour camp, certainly has a lot to answer for. <br/><br/>Mielke, and the Stasi, were the product of the creation of an inorganic, unnatural unit in East Germany. A communist country unloved and unwanted by its international protector, the Soviet Union, East Germany was not a country anybody in it had envisaged before it emerged onto the World map in 1949. It is impossible to separate the Stasi's influence from this challenging origin story.<br/><br/>My guest for today’s episode is Katja Hoyer. Katja is a German historian, journalist and writer who was born in East Germany and was a young child when the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989. She is the author of two books: Blood and Iron, which examines the 1871-1918 German Empire, and, pertinent to this conversation, Beyond the Wall, which was released this year and sheds new light on life in East Germany.<br/><br/><br/>