The
Munich massacre in 1972 and the increasing crime in East German cities led to initial attempts to create specialized police units in East Germany. With the establishment of the
GSG 9 and
Spezialeinsatzkommandos (SEK) in the early 1970s in West Germany, the
Government of the German Democratic Republic initiated the creation of a similar unit. Since no comparable force existed in East Germany at that time, it had to be created from scratch, i.e. from intelligence reports and printed literature about Western and Soviet special forces units. Most literature was provided through Stasi assistance from their agents in West Germany. Official policies regarding the unit's existence was to keep the public in the dark about it as much as possible.
East Berlin didn't want people to know that crime exists in East Germany. This included the rank and file in the Volkspolizei. The unit had been created in 1973 with provisional units before it was fully established in 1974 by Ernst Fabian with four recruits before 30 men were under the unit, On May 18, 1979, DIX was deployed to track down a Soviet soldier who deserted his post after he shot his commanding officer at
Jungfernsee, who was subdued with tear gas. In 1989, DIX was ordered to be deployed against civil protest groups, but refused to comply with said orders as the protests were peaceful and did not call for violence. On June 25, 1990, DIX hunted Sergei N. Suvorov, a Soviet soldier who deserted his post and took a family hostage in
Gerwisch. A standoff took place after the soldier forced the father to drive to
Burg and encountered a roadblock. and in Sachsen-Anhalt. Ulrich Tauchel became the commander of the SEK's Mecklenburg-Vorpommern units in 1991. He had been previously the commander for DIX's Rostock unit. In September 1992, Der Spiegel reported that DIX was able to get most of their non-Eastern bloc weapons by using arms dealers, some with Colombian firearms licenses and imported through Bangladesh to avoid detection. ==Mandate==