Aged 91
Former Stasi Minister Schwanitz has died
2/2/2022, 6:28 p.m
“There is no reason to regret,” Schwanitz said in 2002 about the Ministry for State Security. As Erich Mielke’s successor, he headed it briefly from 1989. Now the former general died in his home in Berlin.
Former Stasi General Wolfgang Schwanitz has died at the age of 91. This was announced by his publisher Edition Ost. For decades, Schwanitz worked for the East German Ministry for State Security and was deputy for Stasi Minister Erich Mielke at the end of the 1980s. In 1989, the year of reunification, Schwanitz became head of the successor institution, the Office for National Security, and thus became Mielke’s successor.
Since German reunification, Schwanitz has written several books about the work of the State Security, which critics have classified as revisionist and trivializing. A scandal erupted in 2002 when the book “Security. The Defense of the MfS” was presented, which Schwanitz had written with other former Stasi employees. A Stasi victim who expressed criticism was thrown out of the room. Schwanitz said at the time that just as it was historically justified to try socialism, it was just as legitimate to protect this project with the Ministry for State Security. “There is no reason to regret,” Schwanitz said at the time.
The Office for National Security of the GDR (AfNS) as the successor institution to the Ministry for State Security (MfS) existed only briefly, from mid-November to mid-December 1989. After taking office, Schwanitz announced support for the “process of revolutionary renewal” and attempted a reform of the state security, as stated in information from the Stasi documents archive. “At the same time, the shredding of files continued during these weeks, and many unofficial employees were “switched off”,” writes the archive. With the decision of the GDR Council of Ministers on December 14, 1989, the office was dissolved again.
The statement from Edition Ost stated that the preliminary investigations against Schwanitz initiated in the 1990s had been discontinued without result. Schwanitz died on Tuesday (February 1) in his Berlin apartment.