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. 

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. 

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.

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.