Walter Linse

Who was Walter Linse?

Walter Linse was a German human rights lawyer and Acting President of the Association of Free German Jurists an organization with links to the CIA.

During the Nazi reign he was responsible for Aryanization of Jewish property in the district of Chemnitz.

In the early 1950s he was actively involved in uncovering human rights violations in the Soviet occupation zone such as arbitrary arrests, secret trials, and detention in labor camps. On 8 July 1952, he was kidnapped by the East German Ministry for State Security Stasi held in Hohenschönhausen prison, then handed over to the KGB and eventually executed in the Butyrka prison in Moscow.

According to a Life Magazine article dated 28 July 1952 he was kidnapped from outside his home on Gerichtsstraße American occupation zone of Berlin where at around 7.30am he was assaulted and bundled into a car. A woman who witnessed the event cried out for help and a lorry driver gave chase. The kidnappers in the car fired shots at the lorry with a pistol and dropped caltrops to deter the chase and the car escaped into the Soviet occupation zone of Berlin with a vehicle barrier being raised to help speed the escape, note that the Berlin Wall was not constructed until 1961 so travel between the zones was still relatively unhindered at this time.