1952: Johann Burianek, East German saboteur
August 2nd, 2017 Headsman
On this date in 1952, Johann Burianek became the first person executed by East Germany.
A machinist and a World War II Wehrmacht soldier, Burianek (English Wikipedia entry | German) caught a one-year sentence in the postwar Communist East Germany for having the misbegotten initiative in the dying days of the war to go out of his way to arrest a deserter who was nearly executed as a result.
From about 1950 he became affiliated with the western-backed anti-communist resistance network Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit (KgU) — Strike Force Against Inhumanity. Crossing liberally between East and West Berlin, which easy movement East German authorities were fretting, Burianek had a two-year stint irritating the German Democratic Republic with graffiti, subversive posters, and eventually, sabotage.
He was arrested in March 1952 shortly ahead of what would have been his derringest do, the bombing of a rail bridge; a judge named Hilde Benjamin, who in the course of 1950s show trials made her name synonymous with politically motivated severity,* hammered him with a demonstrative sentence** — the very first judicial execution meted out by the DDR, in fact. It was administered in Dresden by beheading with a fallbeil.
* Benjamin, who died on the eve of the Berlin Wall‘s fall, enjoys a poor reputation in the post-Cold War state with a variety of uncomplimentary sobriquets to prove it — such as the “Red Guillotine” and “Red Freisler“.
** She would also impose the death sentence against a fellow KgU operative, Wolfgang Kaiser, who went under the fallbeil five weeks after Burianek.
On this day..
- 1838: Remexido, Liberal Wars holdout - 2020
- 1941: Louis Berrier, messenger pigeoner - 2019
- 1872: Charles Marlow, brewer - 2018
- 1415: Thomas Grey, Southampton Plotter - 2016
- 1834: Eliza Joyce, confessed poisoner - 2015
- 2005: Steven Vincent, Iraq War journalist - 2014
- 1996: Sergey Golovkin, the last executed in Russia - 2013
- 1994: Not Arthur Judah Angel, death row artist - 2012
- Themed Set: Scary Escapes - 2012
- 2007: Majid and Hossein Kavousifar - 2011
- 1608: Jean Duval, for plotting against Champlain - 2010
- 1904: Heinrich, a Herero - 2009
- 1343: Olivier III de Clisson, husband of the Lioness of Brittany - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,East Germany,Execution,Germany,Guillotine,History,Martyrs,Milestones,Terrorists,Treason
Tags: 1950s, 1952, anti-communism, august 2, cold war, communism, dresden, hilde benjamin, johann burianek, wolfgang kaiser
