Bruno Beater (5 February 1914 – 9 April 1982) was an East German intelligence officer and politician.

He served as First Deputy Minister of State Security in the administrations of Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker.

Born into a working family Berlin on 5 February 1914, Beater received vocational instruction in the 1920s and 1930s, taking part in the Young Communist League of Germany while growing up in the pre-Hitler era of Weimar German republic.

[1] He kept a low apolitical profile after Hitler's initiation of the Nazis' wide-scale persecution of German communists following his arrival at the helm of power in 1933.

Beater was awarded the Karl Marx Order, East Germany's highest decoration, in 1974.