Werner Teske

Common card · No. 375873

Werner Teske (24 April 1942 – 26 June 1981) was an East German Hauptmann (Captain) of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi). Teske was a senior intelligence officer in the Stasi's economic espionage division when he was accused of plotting to defect to West Germany with sensitive information and embezzled money. In the one-day trial, Teske was found guilty of espionage and desertion. He was sentenced to death and subsequently executed in June 1981. Teske's sentence was posthumously overturned after German reunification when it was deemed unlawful by standards of East German law, and two jurists from his trial were prosecuted. The execution was the last time a death sentence was carried out in East Germany, before its abolition in 1987, making Teske the last person executed in Germany.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Werner Teske, Public domain