By: Friedrich Seiltgen
The Berlin wall stood for 28 years, and when it was taken down, the East German security apparatus came down with it. Every dictatorship has their secret police, and the Ministry for State Security (German Ministerium Fur Staatssicherheit) or “Stasi” for short was the secret police of East Germany.
The number-two man at the Stasi was Spymaster Markus Wolf aka “Mischa.” Wolf’s career spanned 34 years of death and misery. After the reunification, Wolf was able to avoid prosecution multiple times and even secured a job with the fledgling Department of Homeland Security in 2003. Markus was known as “The Man Without a Face” due to his elusiveness.
The Stasi used weapons of all types to keep the masses in line. With its network of official and unofficial collaborators (spies), the Stasi controlled political opponents and dissidents with psychological operations that involved “Zersetzung,” which literally translates to “Decomposition.” Some of the techniques Stasi agents used were: conduct espionage, create rumors about the targets at their workplaces, poison the targets’ food enough to cause illness, and enter the targets’ apartment to simply move items around causing the targets to think they were losing their minds.
The Stasi also had plenty of conventional weapons. In addition to German-designed weapons left behind after WWII, the Stasi had access to various weapons provided by their Soviet masters.
The Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment was the paramilitary wing of the Stasi. While it was called a regiment, it was, in fact, a motorized Infantry Division. The regiment was deployed to suppress rebellion throughout the DDR. Dzerzhinsky was a Bolshevik revolutionary who led the first two Soviet state security organizations: the Cheka and the OGPU. The Dzerzhinsky regiment was privileged to be equipped with a vast array of weapons that consisted of:
Makarov – The Makarov pistol became the Soviet Union’s standard sidearm in 1951.
Walther PP – The Walther PP or Police Pistol came into service in 1929. The PP was manufactured in several calibers, with .32 ACP being the most common. A copy of the PP was manufactured in East Germany after WWII.
AK-47 – The venerable Kalashnikov was in great supply.
RPG-7 – The Russian RPG-7 is a rocket-propelled grenade that is still in use today. First delivered to the Soviet Army in 1961, the RPG-7 has seen war from Vietnam to the present. In 1993, an RPG-7 was used to take down two US Blackhawk helicopters in Mogadishu, Somalia. The RPG-7 was a replacement for the RPG-2, which was created using much of the technology of the German Wehrmacht Panzer Faust.
PM-63 RAK – Polish weapons designer Piotr Wilniewczyc commenced work on this 9mm machine pistol until his death from cancer in 1960. The RAK design team put the finishing details on the gun, and it went into production in 1964. The RAK was issued primarily to drivers and tank crews. It is equipped with a retractable stock and fold-down front vertical grip for use during full auto fire, which is 650 RPM.
The RAK has many features seen on the HK MP7. Altogether, though, the RAK was not a particularly good design. It had problems with the flimsy stock, the butt plate folded out, but did not lock in place, and it was equipped with a weak hinge on the fold down foregrip. The magazine release was redesigned a few times, and the early 25-round magazines prevented the gun from being holstered! The designers started producing 15-round magazines, which made entry and exit easier for tanker crews, but it was never perfect for all the different users. Still, the RAK was copied by the Chinese for its tanker crews. The RAK would later see service with terrorists like the Red Army Faction, and one was found by SAS troops after the storming of the Iranian embassy in London during Operation Nimrod.
The regiment also had a special weapons detachment equipped with the Russian recoilless SPG-9 and the Russian Strela MANPADS. The Airborne company, yes Airborne, was also equipped with the Czech Skorpion Pistol.
Today, the Stasi is an evil memory of a failed regime, but Patriots must stay vigilant. Many politicians have Stasi tendencies. They pass “mandates” that are unconstitutional. They pit citizen against citizen to distract the people from what they’re doing. The government wants you to report suspicious activities, but with the current COVID-19 hysteria, people are calling law enforcement because their neighbors aren’t wearing a mask or are having a party indoors at their residence.
The New York State Assembly is now debating Bill A416, which would allow the governor or his surrogates to remove or detain individuals who pose a threat to public health. The threat is undefined, of course, so politicians will determine what is a threat! If this bill passes, rest assured that being a conservative in New York will be considered a threat and grounds to detain you or remove your children from your home!
That’s all for now folks! Please keep sending in your questions, tips, and article Ideas. And as always – “Let’s be careful out there.”
Friedrich Seiltgen is a retired Master Police Officer with 20 years of service with the Orlando Police Department. He conducts training in Lone Wolf Terrorism, Firearms, First Aid, Active Shooter Response, and Law Enforcement Vehicle Operations in Florida. His writing has appeared in The Counter Terrorist Magazine, American Thinker, Homeland Security Today and The Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International. Contact him at [email protected].
Photo credit: By Rama – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76197855