IN: Erich Mielke was born in a tenement in Berlin-Wedding, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire, on 28 December 1907. During the First World War, the neighborhood was known as "Red Wedding" due to many residents' Marxist militancy. In a handwritten biography written for the Soviet secret police, Mielke described his father as "a poor, uneducated woodworker," and said that his mother died in 1911. Both were, he said, members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

In February 1992, Mielke was put on trial for the first degree murders of Captains Anlauf and Lenck as well as the attempted murder of Senior Sergeant Willig. The evidence for Mielke's guilt was drawn from the original police files, the 1934 trial transcripts, and a handwritten memoir in which Mielke had admitted that, "the Bulowplatz Affair," had been his reason for fleeing Germany. All had been found in Mielke's house safe during a police search in 1990. Mielke was believed to have kept the files for purposes of "blackmailing Honecker and other East German leaders." Former Associated Press reporter and White House Press Secretary John Koehler also testified about how Mielke had boasted of his involvement in the Bulowplatz murders during a confrontation at Leipzig in 1965. During his trial, Mielke appeared increasingly senile, admitting his identity but otherwise remaining silent, taking naps, and showing little interest in the proceedings. In a widely publicized incident, Mielke appeared to mistake the presiding judge for a prison barber. When a journalist for Der Spiegel attempted to interview him in Plotzensee Prison, Mielke responded, "I want to go back to my bed" (German: "Ich mochte in mein Bett zuruck."). Opinion was divided whether Mielke was suffering from senile dementia or was pretending in order to evade prosecution. After twenty months of one-and-a-half hour daily sessions, Erich Mielke was convicted on two counts of murder and one of attempted murder. On 26 October 1993, a panel of three judges and two jurors sentenced him to six years' imprisonment. In pronouncing sentence, Judge Theodor Seidel, told Mielke that he "will go down in history as one of the most fearsome dictators and police ministers of the 20th century."

was there media coverage of the trial

OUT: a journalist for Der Spiegel attempted to interview him in Plotzensee Prison,

IN: Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 - September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, Camille, Mutiny on the Bounty, and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom," states biographer Roland Flamini.

In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah in 1929 was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment." By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari in 1931, which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel, later that same year. It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932. Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", notes biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.

Did any of his films win awards?

OUT:
Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.