Johann Burianek

Johann Burianek (16 November 1913 – 2 August 1952) was a former Wehrmacht soldier and CIA-backed insurgent who planned and committed several attacks against the German Democratic Republic and a member of the anti-communist KGU. In a 1952 trial he was condemned to death in the country's Supreme Court for preparing attacks on railway bridges. He was the first person to receive a death sentence from the new country's justice system. Burianek was born in the Rheinland at Düsseldorf, the son of a master shoe maker. He underwent an apprenticeship as a machinist and in 1932 relocated to Czechoslovakia, taking Czechoslovak nationality in 1932/33. He served in the German airforce during the 1930s and in 1939 took back his German nationality. During the Second World War, Burianek served in the Wehrmacht. In the final days of the war, Burianek arrested Herbert Kloster, a deserter whom he then delivered to his military headquarters. Kloster was nearly executed as a result of Burianek's actions. In November 1949, an East German court found Burianek guilty of crimes against humanity for reporting the deserter and sentenced him to one year in prison. Burianek was released on probation in April 1950, having served nearly half his sentence. He found work as a truck driver with the Volkseigener Betrieb (publicly owned business) Secura-Mechanik. Between July 1950 and March 1951 he smuggled several thousand copies of the western newsheets Kleiner Telegraf and Tarantel into the Soviet sector of Berlin. In March 1951 he joined a militant insurgent group called "Struggle against Inhumanity" group (KgU / Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit) which was then being established by Rainer Hildebrandt with backing from the Americans. His attacks on the part of the KgU included numerous acts of sabotage and unsuccessful arson attacks on the 1951 World Festival of Youth and Students. His most ambitious project, planned for 21 February 1952, would have involved blowing up a civilian railway bridge at Erkner, on the south-eastern edge of Berlin, which would have de-railed the "Blue Express", the long-distance train running between Berlin and Moscow via Warsaw.