Markus Wolf said
the downfall of Willy Brandt was an "own goal" |
Obituary: Markus Wolf
Originally published
at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6132684.stm by |
The man who came to epitomise the
ruthless world of the East German spy machine during the Cold War, Markus
Wolf, has died at his home in Wolf was feared and admired by
Western intelligence officials and ran a network of 4,000 spies - many of
them working deep inside the West German establishment. The unmasking of one of his
moles, Gunter Guillaume, caused the downfall of Chancellor Willy Brandt. Tall and described as
strikingly handsome, Wolf was known as "the man with no face"
because for many years there were no photographs of him. He was rumoured
to have been the inspiration for John Le Carre's
Soviet spymaster "Karla" in the thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier,
Spy, though the writer has denied this. Born in His mother was also a staunch
communist, and when Hitler came to power in the 1930s, the family fled,
eventually settling in The young Wolf quickly embraced
his new homeland and came to the notice of Communist Party officials while
still at school. When the war ended he went back
to Taste for luxury The experience was to have a lasting
effect on him. In a BBC interview last year he revealed that a dislike of
fascism became one of the driving forces in his life, convincing him he had
to protect his country from any repetition of the Nazi regime. In the early 1950s, he was
chosen to lead the embryonic foreign intelligence arm of the Stasi -
It was the job
which made him a legend and which he held until his retirement in 1986. Those who met him said that
Wolf exuded charm and was the complete antithesis of the image of a communist
apparatchik. He understood the attractions of the West - and had a taste for
life's luxuries, as well as beautiful women. He took great care of his
staff, winning their steadfast loyalty. But he also used his warmth to
exploit and manipulate others. Sleeper agents Wolf took a long-term approach
to his job, introducing spies into Sometimes he waited years for
his sleeper agents to work their way into high office so that they could
begin supplying him with secrets.
One such agent
was Gunter Guillaume, who moved to In 1974, he was unmasked by
West German intelligence officials and the resulting scandal led to Brandt
resigning. Later Wolf said he had not
sought Brandt's downfall - and that the affair had been one of the biggest
mistakes of the Stasi. Guillaume received a 13-year
jail sentence and in 1981 was released in an exchange for Western spies
caught in the East. Magnetic reputation But Wolf also recruited West
Germans - his agents often seducing them with sex or money. He boasted in his memoirs that
if he went down in espionage history, it should be for perfecting the use of
sex in spying. Among his biggest triumphs was
the recruitment of Hans-Joachim Tiedge, a West
German responsible for turning East German spies into double agents. Tiedge was a big drinker and defected when his
debts got so large he could see no other way out. His deputy also joined Wolf
and worked for him as a mole, undetected, until the fall of the Berlin Wall
in 1989. The author, Leslie Colitt, who has written extensively on Wolf, believes
that some of his success was based on luck, but that his reputation also
acted as a magnet for defectors. Part of Wolf's mystique was
that for more than 20 years nobody in the West knew his identity. But a visit
to The Swedish authorities had
become suspicious about the distinguished-looking East German and his
attractive wife. An agent with a telephoto lens
was dispatched, caught him on film and his cover was blown. When the Berlin Wall came down,
Wolf fled to Many of his former colleagues
were said to be horrified by their hero's decision to leave the country. Later he was convicted of
treason, but the verdict was over-turned on appeal. The judges argued that he was
acting for the previously independent East German state and therefore could
not be tried for treason in a different country. His death, on the 17th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin
Wall, will be seen as the end of an era by many. |
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