Profile: 'But who do you say I betrayed?': Markus Wolf, East German spymaster on trial

Saturday 08 May 1993 00:02 BST
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WHEN Major General Markus Wolf turned 60 in January 1983, he was paid a glowing tribute by Erich Honecker, then leader of East Germany, who commended him for his 'decisive role in the development and strengthening of the ministry of state security', the country's hated Stasi secret police.

They were no empty words. For almost 30 years, Maj Gen Wolf had headed one of East Germany's few genuine success stories: its foreign espionage service. There was scarcely a ministry in Bonn that had not been infiltrated by Wolf's spies; hardly a Nato secret that had not landed on his desk. Indeed, by 1983, his operation had become so slick that Mr Honecker was reportedly handed the weekly reports compiled by West German intelligence before they reached his counterpart in Bonn, Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Within the world of espionage, Markus Wolf was a legend, responsible for a string of unparalleled coups, including placing a spy in the office of the Chancellor Willy Brandt - which, when discovered, prompted his resignation.

A ruthless exploiter of human weakness, some of his spies, known as 'Romeo' agents, were sent to woo lonely women (usually secretaries) in ministries in Bonn and Brussels. If espionage is usually considered a dirty business, Mr Wolf was held to be its most effective - and dirtiest - practitioner.

Wolf - now 70, retired and, once again, plain Mr - was forced to dwell on his various conquests this week in the stark surroundings of a basement courtroom in Dusseldorf, where he is on trial, charged with treason, bribery and espionage. Dressed in an elegant light-blue suit and surprisingly youthful-looking and mentally agile, despite the fact that he has hardly lived a stress-free life, he exuded contempt as state prosecutors reeled off a list of his top agents, the recruitment and deployment of whom is being presented as a criminal offence against the Federal German state.

'Which country am I supposed to have betrayed?' he asked indignantly, in an opening statement that is likely to be his only direct intervention in a trial likely to run for several months. He did not deny having been head of East Germany's external intelligence agency; he did not deny planting spies in key political, military and industrial institutions; he did not deny surreptitious meetings with his agents or the use of underhand and devious methods to attain his ends.

But as an East German citizen during the height of the Cold War, hadn't he been serving, rather than betraying, his country? And if he and his colleagues could now be made to stand trial, what about their West German counterparts, guilty of similar practices in the east?

Legally, Mr Wolf may well have a point. Many west Germans agree that there is something absurd about charging him with treason, espionage and bribery against the West German state when he was, at the time, a citizen of another state. Spies are nasty pieces of work in most countries, the argument goes; and there is something grossly unfair about putting him on trial simply because he worked for the losing side.

Germany's constitutional court, which takes precedence over the Dusseldorf court, is currently considering whether East German spies, in principle, can be tried under West German laws. The argument will probably rage for months. Morally, however, many Germans feel that, as a key player in the East German regime, Mr Wolf's guilt is beyond doubt. As the prosecutor in Dusseldorf protested, the Stasi, in which Mr Wolf was second only to Erich Mielke, was responsible for the monstrous repression of the entire population. Not only did Mr Wolf know about what was going on, he actively contributed to it.

Not true, counters Mr Wolf, who skilfully manages to convey an air of hurt innocence. Charging that he was being made a scapegoat for the failures of the regime, Mr Wolf described his trial as a classic example of 'victors' justice', part of a desperate 'final crusade against Communism'.

When Markus Wolf talks about crusades against Communism, he does so out of bitter experience. As an 11-year- old boy, born and brought up near Stuttgart, he was forced to flee Germany in 1933 when his father, Friedrich, a German-Jewish playwright and doctor, was expelled by the Nazis for his communist beliefs. Had the family not fled, his name would have ended up on a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, Mr Wolf told the Dusseldorf court.

After a year in Switzerland and France, the Wolf family moved, in 1934, to Moscow, where Markus changed his name to Mischa and became an enthusiastic member of the Stalin-worshipping Young Pioneers. Four years later, at 16, he became a Soviet citizen. Three years after that, he joined the Communist Party and was awarded a place in the Comintern school, where the children

of exiled German Communists were

prepared for positions of authority

in a Communist post-Hitler Germany.

Against the background of the obvious evils of the Nazi regime, Mischa Wolf was one of many ardent young Communists who disbelieved or overlooked the excesses of the Stalin regime. Blind loyalty was what he gave. And blind loyalty was what he demanded - and received - when he set up and led the East German spy network.

That was to come later, however. Although he had toyed with the idea of becoming an aeroplane engineer, the party had other plans. On his return to the rubble of the German capital in 1945, his first assignment was with the Soviet- controlled Berlin Radio, reporting on the Nuremberg trials and the early days of the city's four-power status.

With the proclamation of the German Democratic Republic in 1949, Mr Wolf was ordered back to Moscow to take up a senior post at the new East German embassy. To qualify, he again had to change his nationality, becoming an East German citizen.

In the early Fifties he was recalled to East Berlin, this time to work in the Institute of Economic Research, a cover for the country's incipient foreign intelligence agency. In 1953, at the age of 30, Markus Wolf became East Germany's spymaster - a position he was to hold for 33 years until he voluntarily stepped down in 1986.

According to some who worked with Mr Wolf, his warm concern for the welfare of his 4,000 employees contrasted sharply with an arrogant manner that alienated him from some fellow senior leaders. Certainly his intellectual background - he was said to be equally at ease talking with his spies about art and literature as about military secrets - set him apart from the stereotypical Communist functionary.

'Wolf is well read, witty and charming,' recalled Heribert Hellenbroich, one of the Major General's counterparts in the West German intelligence agency. 'He was an absolute professional, serving his state totally. He developed sophisticated methods . . . One could only respect such an adversary.'

Mr Wolf also had sophisticated tastes. Along with tailor-made suits, he had a penchant for modern Western furniture, even, according to Mr Hellenbroich, ordering some of his spies to arrange shipments to East Berlin. Married three times, most recently to Andrea, 46, who accompanied him at the Dusseldorf court, Mr Wolf is also rumoured to have had countless affairs.

For most of his career Mr Wolf was known in Western espionage circles as 'the man with no face', because all they had to identify him was a snapshot taken in the Fifties. But in 1979, during a meeting in Stockholm with a West German agent, Mr Wolf was photographed by a Swedish agent and his cover was blown. After that, although he continued to get his hands on an astonishing range of classified material, he was never quite the bogey figure of old. 'It was bad news,' said Mr Wolf, recalling the day his picture was splashed on the cover of Der Spiegel magazine.

By the time his 60th birthday arrived, Mr Wolf had signalled his desire to retire, a request not granted for a further three years.

Enter Markus Wolf, would-be reformer. In 1989, shortly before the collapse of the Communist regime, his autobiographical novel Troika was published. Focusing on his years in Moscow, Troika also distinctly distanced itself from the hardline positions taken by Mr Honecker and his ailing cronies, coming out in favour of the then more liberal Gorbachev line.

It was radical stuff. And in the heady days of the East German revolution, Mr Wolf, bizarrely, found himself among the speakers addressing the crowd of nearly one million in East Berlin's Alexanderplatz on 4 November 1989. If he harboured political ambitions, they were dispelled on that cold afternoon, when a chorus of boos and catcalls greeted his denunciation of the way in which former Stasi officers who had acted in 'good faith' were being unfairly persecuted.

He remains convinced, however, that the hounding of those such as himself, who honestly served a system in which they believed, is unjust. Still a Communist, he admits that the collapse of the regime in East Germany and the former Soviet Union has been a bitter blow. Yes, he acknowledges the injustices of the regime and questions his role within it. But no, he does not think he should have to account for his deeds in court.

In the end, he may not have to. Germany's constitutional court may well decide that the laws under which many of the West German spies he recruited have been tried and convicted cannot be applied to him. Like Honecker, whose trial in Berlin was broken off after

doctors declared him unfit to attend court, Mr Wolf may walk free. East Germans seeking some sort of revenge on their past tormentors will once again be disappointed.

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