Prior to this, in October 1989, Mielke had ordered the Stasi to arrest and indefinitely detain eighty-six thousand East Germans in what he considered was a state of emergency. But local Stasi men refused to carry out his orders for fear of being lynched. Mielke resigned on the 7th November, 1989. He was arrested in December 1989 and went to trial in February 1992. Suffering from the effects of old age, he was released in 1995 on compassionate grounds and died in May 2000.
