Werner Teske manner of death unnatural death
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 abolishment in 1987, making Teske the last person executed in Germany.Death
On 26 June 1981, shortly after his trial, Teske was executed in a secret part of Leipzig Prison on Alfred-Kästner-Straße, Leipzig, by executioner Hermann Lorenz. Teske was shot in the back of the head using a semi-automatic pistol, after which his body was cremated and buried at the Südfriedhof. His death certificate stated that he died of "heart failure". Knowledge of Teske's trial, execution, and funeral were all kept secret by East German authorities, and this information was withheld even from Teske's closest relatives, including his wife who did not know she was a widow until after German reunification in 1990. Until then, she had assumed her husband was being held somewhere in custody.
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