Arnold Schölzel

Arnold Schölzel

Arnold Angelus Schölzel (born October 21, 1947) is the editor-in-chief of the far-left^[1] newspaper Junge Welt. Prior to 1989, he worked at East Berlin's Humboldt University and also was an informant for the East German domestic intelligence agency Stasi.^[2][3][4]

Life

Schölzel grew up in Bremen in West Germany. In 1967, he deserted from the German Army and emigrated to East Germany.

He was recruited as a Stasi informant under the code name "André Holzer". He infiltrated an opposition group at East Berlin's Humboldt University, and reported on the activities of Wolfgang Templin, among others.

Stefan Wolle of Forschungsverbund SED-Staat (Research Network on the Communist State) at the Free University of Berlin describes Schölzel as an informant "aus wirklicher Begeisterung, der mit größter Perfidie die Menschen, mit denen er befreundet war, permanent hinterging" (With real enthusiasm and great perfidity, he went behind the backs of the people with whom he was friends.).^[5]

Because of his activities as an informant, which had continued until 1989, Arnold Schölzel was suspended from his job at the Humboldt University in 1991 and dishonourably discharged in 1994.

Schölzel's activities as a Stasi informant was the subject of a documentary film shown by ARD in 2007, Verraten – sechs Freunde und ein Spitzel. In the film, Arnold Schölzel acknowledged having been an informant for the Stasi. When asked by film maker Inga Wolfram why he had betrayed his friends, he replied: "Well, you betrayed 17 million people" (the population of East Germany).^[6]

In 1997, Schölzel became the feuilleton editor of the Junge Welt. February 2000 he became editor-in-chief. The newspaper is under observation by the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, is categorized by the Bundesamt as leftist extremist^[1] and is described by Die Welt as dominated by Stasi veterans.^[5]

References

External links

• Arnold Schölzel in the German National Library catalogue