Chapter 2
The Opposition's Players
By all accounts, East-Germany had a fantasticinternal intelligence operation. Not only was this organization responsible for internal security, it had also been able to thoroughly undermine the West-German government by placing moles in high level positions as well as coercing people who were deemed to be of interest because of the type of information they may have had access to. The following paragraphs highlight some of the people that were involved with our defection from the "opposing team". I did not find out how high up our case had gone in the STASI hierarchy until a West-German TV show produced a documentary about us a few years ago. Just to provide some perspective, the MfS (Stasi) had 102,000 officers--a bigger staff than the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency combined--for just 17 million East Germans.With 300,000 informants across the country, it is not hyperbole to suggest that the Stasi was probably present at every dinner party ever thrown in East Germany; when you add in informers, there was one Stasi member for every six citizens. Talk about "Big Brother is watching" !
General Erich Mielke - Minister of State Security
The man in charge of the Stasi. Next to the General Secretary (the head of the country) one of the most powerful men in East-Germany. Ultimately the man driving a large scale effort of finding my mother and myself. Biography (you may want to use Google to translate). An English language version of it with lost of pop up ads. And finally a lengthy English article in a site that of all things is dedicated to the type of regime Mielke used to represent.
In the 1970's an inside joke made the rounds in Berlin. It went something like this: Members of the Politburau, Army and Stasi held a meeting to determine who had the most power. The Army generals quickly convinced the Politburau that they were the most powerful group because, after all, they commanded the military might of the country. The argument was almost settled when Erich Mielke started to chuckle. Everyone turned to him. "Whats so funny?" The highest ranking general inquired. Mielke, barley able to contain himeself with laughter looked at the assembled military men and said " If I pulled all my secret Stasi personnel and informants out of the Army there would not be any armed forces left at all " !
Ironic but true. The Stasi was everywhere. After the uprising int he early 1950's, the East German leadership was scared and decided the best way to protect their position was by turning the entire country into an extension of the armed forces. Easy to control and command. My classmates and I took part in paramilitary exercises at the age of 16 and learned how to shoot Kalashnikov rifles.
Markus Wolf (aka Karla)
John
LeCarre, a world renowned author, depicted some aspects of the espionage
game in several books, mostly in relation to British or US intelligence
operations within Germany. He even modeled his main antagonist after the
real-life person of East
German Master Spy Marcus Wolf. In his books LeCarre gave his character
the codename "Karla". Wolf, much like "Karla" operated behind the scenes.
If I'm not mistaked there were no photographs available of Wolf until after
the German Reunification, which means neither the CIA nor British Intelligence
knew what this man looked like. Quite an accomplishment. If you want to
read up in detail about Marcus Wolf, I can recommend Leslie
Colitt's "Spymaster : The Real-Life 'Karla,' His Moles, and the East
German Secret Police" Of course if you are more visually inclined you could
also check out a movie
based on a LeCarre book called "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold", starring
Richard Burton. Finally, even Wolf himself decided to write
an autobiography, aptly named "Man without a Face". Interestingly, while
Wolf was certainly a very high ranking member of the Stasi, I always had
the feeling that on the basis of his requirement not to be known anywhere,
he purposefully stayed away from the lime light of "party advancement".
Lieutenant-General Gunther Kratsch
In as much as Wolf had been the stuff that legends were made of, Kratsch was the opposite. A party-aparatshnik (to use a Soviet term), Kratsch advanced all the way to become Mielke's right-hand man. And while he was not as glamorous a character as Wolf, Kratsch nonetheless represented a much greater immediate danger to us because he was in charge of the "Hauptabteilung 2" - the Espionage Defense group, which had 1400 active employees in its ranks. These were all active and trained personnel whose job it was to manage the defense of East-Germany against foreign agents. It was the job of this group to find us.
Lieutenant-General Kratsch was also instrumental in offering a the heretofore unheard of bounty of DM 1,000,000 for the assassination of -depening on sources - either all of us or the most damaging defector Werner Stiller. Never in its history had the country offered a bounty. And while this behavior is common place today, it was completely unthinkable in the late 70's. .
Major Hannes Schroeder
Moving down the organizational list we arrive at Major Schroeder, the top spy catcher in the employment of the "Hauptabteilung 2". Unfortunately I have next to no information on this person. I suppose that's no surprise considering secrecy was his job! Schroeder, together with his boss Kratsch, had gotten wind of our activities only 1-2 months into an operation that lasted a little over a year. Both spent the remaining 8-10 months searching for us.
A cast of hundreds
As time progressed and no arrests had been made in our case, more and more members of the "Hauptabteilung 2" were assigned to it. According to Kratsch, after a certain point in time Gen. Erich Mielke, whose position by my estimates was the equivalent to the National Security Advisor and Head of CIA combined, would specifically ask for progress reports on our case during each Monday morning status conference. According to Kratsch and others, by the time we actually escaped, almost the entire Espionage Defenese group was involved in our case at some level. Even if it was only to placate Gen. Mielke.