Jack Barsky: The KGB spy who lived the American dream

[pieter]

www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38846022

[karl]

Pieter

Interesting story of Jack Barsky/Albrecht Dittrich with his trials with adaption into American culture. Yes, what is taught of American culture is some what faulted in some manners. For the reason the culture changes ever so slightly with time, and although pre-training is good, it is not good enough with out the direct experience with interaction in to the actual living experience, as Mr. Barsky/Dittrich learnt from his experience. But, as his example was to be shown, he over came those insuffiencies and turned his experience in to a success as exampled by his experience and with the FBI he was to come in to contact with.

The latter part of his story though, is almost too good in consideration of the serious nature of his being in the USA. With this to be forgiven for his sins being as a KGB spy and caught. But then, it is not good to be suspicious of every thing, is there?

Karl

[pieter]

Dear friends,

Sometimes I wonder if Jack Barsi and other KGB examples were the only ones? In Germany you had a similar case with Günter Guillaume (1 February 1927 – 10 April 1995), an intelligence agent for East Germany's secret service, the Stasi, in West Germany. Guillaume became West German chancellor Willy Brandt's secretary and caused his downfall. You had maoists and maoist political parties in the West. Were there also Chinese infiltrators. I mean Western looking (European/American) spies who infiltrated in the American societies or in Western-European countries too. Another famous case is the Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) case. Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) is a former intelligence analyst for the United States government. In 1987, as part of a plea agreement, Pollard pleaded guilty to spying for and providing top-secret classified information to Israel. He was sentenced to life in prison for violations of the Espionage Act.


Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt with his close aide, Günter Guillaume (with Ssubnglasses), on a election campaign meeting in Braunschweiger Kohlebergwerk on April 8th 1974

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Guillaume

The Stasi sent agents to the West as sleeper agents. For instance, sleeper agent Günter Guillaume became a senior aide to social democratic chancellor Willy Brandt, and reported about his politics and private life.


Murder of Benno Ohnesorg – A Stasi informant in the West Berlin police, Karl-Heinz Kurras, fatally shot an unarmed demonstrator, which stirred a whole movement of Marxist radicalism, protest, and terrorist violence. The Economist describes it as "the gunshot that hoaxed a generation". The surviving Stasi Records contain no evidence that Kurras was acting under their orders when he shot Ohnesorg.



Ohnesorg's death served as a rallying point for the left wing, and the Movement 2 June group was named after the day of his death. After student activist Rudi Dutschke called for direct action in response for the killing, German writer and Social-Democrat Jürgen Habermas famously invoked the term "left fascism" against radical leftwing elements within the student movement. The left-wing student movement of the late 1960s that swelled and partly radicalised itself after Ohnesorg's death influenced a large number of German politicians who were in their teens and twenties at the time.

A monument next to the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which was designed by Austrian sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka, serves as a memorial for the killing. In December 2008, municipal authorities inaugurated an official memorial panel on the sidewalk in front of the house where Ohnesorg was shot. The panel is in German and English (see external links below).

In Ohnesorg's hometown of Hanover, a bridge over the Ihme river is named after him.

Stasi activities and other developments

In 1975, the Stasi recorded a conversation between senior West German CDU politicians Helmut Kohl and Kurt Biedenkopf. It was then "leaked" to the Stern magazine as a transcript recorded by American intelligence. The magazine then claimed that Americans were wiretapping West Germans and the public believed the story.

Ofcourse most of the operations, actions, infiltrations and cover up operations during the Cold War and in the first post-cold war years were and are secret. Probably Wikileaks of Julian Assange revealed a great deal, but probably a lot of information of the Cold War are in paper files and not electronic and therefor not noticeable for outsiders today. But I am not an expert in intelligence and thus secret services and intelligence agencies work and history.

It is likely that the CIA, MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service of the UK), our own Dutch BVD (AIVD today), the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the French DGSE, the Italian SISMI, and the Israeli Mossad had also infiltrators in friendly and hostile nations. Intelligence agencies are like a state in a state, they operate in anonimity, secrecy and have their own codes of conducts, rules, standards, measures and policies.

Sometimes I wonder what happened with all these East-German Stasi agents after the reunification of Germany, and the Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB) -Polish communist- intelligence agency agents after the transformation of Poland from a Communist to a democratic state. Would some of them work for the Russian KGB and later FSB? Were they hired by the new democratic masters of the BND and Polish Urząd Ochrony Państwa (UOP), or did they gain other positions in the new Germany and New Poland?

How do we know if our nations face Political penetration, financial- and economical penetration by foreign nations? In the past the Communist Party of the Netherlands ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Netherlands ) received financial and political backing of the SovjetUnion and therefor was closely monitored by the Dutch intelligence agency BVD, which infiltrated, monitored, wire tapped phones of communists and other leftists with connections with communist countries like the DDR (East-Germany), the Polish Peoples Republic, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Cuba, the SovjetUnion and China. The BVD also monitored the Maoist Communist Unity Movement of the Netherlands (Marxist–Leninist), which was supported and funded by Peking. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Unity_Movement_of_the_Netherlands_(Marxist%E2%80%93Leninist) )

Today I know for sure that the Turkish and Moroccan intelligence agencies are active in the Netherlands. And I know for sure that the Russian FSB, the American CIA and FBI, the English MI6, the German BND, the French DGSE, the Mossad and probably the Polish Agencja Wywiadu ( www.aw.gov.pl/eng/agencja/status-agencji.html ) are also active in the Netherlands for several reasons. First of all the Netherlands as an international financial-economical center with a lot of headquarters of Multi-Nationals, Banks, international financial institutions, an international court in The Hague (a diplomatic center next to Geneva, Paris and New York), and the international trade, commercial and cultural centers of Amsterdam and Rotterdam with their large harbours and airports. In the Netherlands Arab, Turkish, Iranian (Persian), Russian (Gas, Petrol, soccer marketing, trade interests, geopolitics), Israeli (Amsterdam, the center of Dutch Judaism and also a city with Israeli business interests, and the El Al connection with the Amsterdam Schiphol airport -with public air transport, commercial flights and military cargo, and the Israeli expats in Amsterdam -students, mixed marriages of Dutch jews with Israeli partners, Israeli business people, and rather a lot of Israeli artists -painters, drawers, dancers, theatre actors, musicians, writers and poets -Berlin is the favority city of Israeli's, Amsterdam is maybe the second favorite place of Israeli's due to it's jewish heritage and the international, cosmopolitan climate there.) and other nations have their specific interests. The Israeli's will be here for security reasons (I know that the Mossad has special protection units for the Jewish Diaspora communities in the world and Israeli expats and immigrants abroad, which is quite logical, since the Jewish communities are vulnerable today in Western-Europe). The same counts for Belgium with the international cities Brussels, Antwerp and Liège (Luik, Lüttich; Walloon: Lidje), Denmark with it's Copenhagen, Luxemburg with it's Luxemburg city, Austria's Vienna, Switzelands Zürich, Bern and Geneva and ofcourse Paris and other large French cities in France. Stockholm, Malmö and Oslo also face troubles with migration and no-go area's and therefor will be monitored too. Sweden reintroduced conscription, due to the external and internal security threads.

Due to the presence of a lot of Muslim migrants and some Palestinians the Israeli's and other Western intelligence agencies will be interested in the Netherlands, and other Western-European countries like Denmark and Belgium with large Muslim minorities and a radical, extremist minority within that minority with Salafist/Wahabist leanings, and probable Al Qaida, ISIS (Daesh), Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban, Fatah al-Islam ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah_al-Islam ), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade of Martyrs (Islamist Chechen terrorism inside Russia), the Sunni Kurd Hezbollah in Turkey, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_Islamic_Combatant_Group ), and groups or cells like the Hofstad Network ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstad_Network ) al over Western-Europe.

Next to that the European, Western and Russian agencies are monitoring international organised crime groups who do business with terrorists (for instance in trading arms, ammunition, explosives and other material), far right terror groups or organisations, religious sects, contrabande, human trafficking, drugs related crimes and monitoring the activities of the other agencies (international competition, espionage and counter operations of the intelligence agencies). Next to competition there are ofcourse also cooperations and joined operations of two or several intelligence agencies (for instance in the case of the threats of international terrorism).

To be honest in Western-Europe today both Arab, Berber, Turkish, Kurd, Afghan, Pakistani, Indian and Native European (convert) muslims face discrimination, xenofobia, racism and islamophobia and jews face anti-semitism in Islamist anti-semitic, far left anti-semitism (Marxist anti-semitism) and Neo-Nazi far right anti-semitism. Inbetween the islamophobia, anti-semitism and racism against brown and black people there is also an anti-Eastern-European and anti-Central-European sentiment, in the sense that the Slavic people, the Hungarian and Romanian people, the Roma Gypsies are seen as alien and non-Western-European. There is an increased ethnocentrism, peoples nationalism, new rightwing populism and a development of the center right which moved to the right -influenced by the far right and populist right-. For instance the Dutch Christian-Democrats, the CDA, has a Patriotic conservative tone, a moderate Nationalist course, and emphasizes the Dutch national anthem (all children should learn the anthem. In contrast with other nations few Dutch people know the Dutch anthem), and national Dutch roots, like the Judeo-Christian heritage (when asked the Chrisitan democratic leader Sybrand van Haersma Buma (1965) said that in his view the Islam of the newcommers -migrants- does not belong to the Dutch heritage. When I looked at the list of candidates of the CDA for the Dutch elections in March 15th I saw 50 white European Dutch men and women. Zero black, colored, Muslim or Hundi candidates. That means that the rightwing populism, nationalism and ethnocentrism of the rightwing Populists like the late Pim Fortuyn, and the present Geert Wilders (PVV), Filip Dewinter ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filip_Dewinter ), Frank Franz (NPD), Frauke Petry and Jörg Meuthen ( Alternative für Deutschland ), Heinz-Christian Strache and Norbert Hofer (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs), Marine Le Pen and Nicolas Bay (Front National), Umberto Bossi and Matteo Salvini (Lega Nord) have reached center right political parties like the Dutch CDA and the German CSU of Bavaria. The Duch conservative-liberal VVD party of Prime Minister Mark Rutte also has a nearly entirely white list of candidates with only on nr. 19. Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius a Turkish-Dutch VVD politician from Amsterdam. So the conservative social Christian democratic CDA (center right), the conservative liberal VVD (center right government party) and the rightwing Populist PVV (Geert Wilders far right nationalist party) compete on the right in Nationalist, Patriotic and Dutch national statements. Ofcourse Geert Wilders is the most extreme and he can surpass the CDA and VVD easily with his extreme or radical statements. Even the center left Labour (PvdA), the leftwing SP (Socialist Party) and the Christian political parties SGP and ChristianUnion compete with their versions of Dutch Patriotism and thus trying to attract the Dutch voter. Due to that climate the migrant Populist party Think (Denk) attracts Dutch Turkish, Dutch Moroccan, Dutch Surinamese, Dutch Antillian and other non-Western or minority (migrant) votes. Think (Denk) talks about exclusion, discrimination, xenofobia, islamophobia, racism and even anti-semitism all the time. Due to the ethnocentric Peoples Nationalist climate in which the native (white European) Dutch long for a Netherlands like the fifties, sixties, twenties and the 19th and 18th centuries without migrants, refugees, foreigners and other non-Westerners the party Think (Denk) will attract a lot of Muslim migrant votes, votes of colored and black Duch people and people of other non-Western and maybe even Eastern- and Central-European votes. Think (Denk) will attract votes of every person who feels excluded by a so called white, Eurocentric, Dutch society which is dominated by white men. I can't judge if that is the case.
Fact is that a lot of Dutch people of the native, white European, majority feel alienated by the multi-cultural society and long for a monocultural society in which Dutch traditions, customs and culture counts, while some migrants and people from former colonies (Suriname, the Dutch Antilles and Indonesia) feel alienated, because they don't recognise themselves in the white dominant culture. It is true that still a lot of Dutch advertisements look like Nordic Scandinavian advertisements with a lot of tall, white, blue eyed and blond hair women, men and children. We were a West-Germanic country after all.

Cheers,
Pieter

politoccult.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/what-is-sayanim-and-why-was-it-deleted-from-wikipedia/

[karl]

Pieter

Very interesting your analysis of the past and present situation delving in to the workings if these various organizations. It is perhaps very well known upon the break up of the former DDR and their STASI organization, was then the open market for those related former employees of the STASI. These people are/were very well trained with only the need of refreshing training and indoctrination of their new requirements and duties. A virtual paradise for new emplyees.

Of course this was noticed by other states as it was an open market. There was of course, the need of retraining from their former work habits of no expenses for work completed, with this, the use of advanced {for that time} use of electronic record keeping and information obtaining.

In the manner of the structure of record keeping and related record search, was done by an army of employees funded by the state. Their manner of record keeping and record search was such as common in the old manner of library hand search. This was once a document was obtained and cleared, it was then given a classification title and number. This then was recorded on a file card with information of person/thing or what and the officer responsible for the report/record filed and what office and authority responsible for clearing for filing of record. With this, a log of dates/time of each person record{s} was viewed and for what purpose.

What was made much easy for the STASI officer was the DDR was a closed system with few leaving and fewer arriving in to the country. With this, a good solid career for an intelligence officer to stay true to their profession and obtain results in the nature of their assignments. Until, the house of cards fell and them with it..But then, as history teaches: Disaster creates opportunities for those so inclined.

Karl

[pieter]

Western-Europeans see the European continent, the Middle-east, Africa and Asia as the playground of the Russians and Americans. They see the Chinese as the Third mayor player in the field of intelligence. Next to that the Europeans see a significant inlfuence and infiltration of the Turkish, Moroccan, Pakistani, Saoudi, Qatari authorities and organisations in Europe in particular and the West in general. West-European authorities and intelligence agencies are concerned about the increasing influence of Saoudi, Qatari and United Arab Emirate Salafist/Wahabist Ultra-Orthodox, Fundamentalist Sheikh's, Imams, Religious leaders, clan leaders and princes and kings. That influence radicalizes European mosques of Turkish, Moroccan, Algerian, Tunesian, Indonesian, Pakistani or other ethnic Muslim minorities. Even Dutch Muslim migrants are worried about it themselves. And tensions between the old traditional mosques and radical newcommers who try to infiltrate the old mosques and try to make them Salafist (following the strict Wahabist Saoudi doctrine of the Sunni Islam) are very visible in Western-Europe. Often it is a generation conflict between the old generation who follow the rather moderate Moroccan and Turkish form of Islam and newcommers who try to impose the Saoudi, Qatari or Emirati version of Islam, also practiced by the Fundamentalist Sunni-Muslim Islamists in Syria (Al Nusra Front and Daesh [ISIS] ), Iraq [ISIS], Lebanon (Fatah al Islam), Egypt (Islamist terrorists in the Sinai desert and Cairo, who target the Egyptian authorities and tourists), Libiya (Daesh/ISIS in North-Africa), Algeria ( al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb ), Tunesia (Ansar al-Sharia and the Tunisian Combatant Group), Morocco ( the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group and Salafia Jihadia ) and Turkey (where Daesh/Islamic State carried out several attacks).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_Islamic_Combatant_Group
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafia_Jihadia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Sharia_(Tunisia)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_Combatant_Group

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

Mar 5, 2017 9:48:49 GMT -7 karl said:

Pieter

Very interesting your analysis of the past and present situation delving in to the workings if these various organizations. It is perhaps very well known upon the break up of the former DDR and their STASI organization, was then the open market for those related former employees of the STASI. These people are/were very well trained with only the need of refreshing training and indoctrination of their new requirements and duties. A virtual paradise for new emplyees.

Of course this was noticed by other states as it was an open market. There was of course, the need of retraining from their former work habits of no expenses for work completed, with this, the use of advanced {for that time} use of electronic record keeping and information obtaining.

In the manner of the structure of record keeping and related record search, was done by an army of employees funded by the state. Their manner of record keeping and record search was such as common in the old manner of library hand search. This was once a document was obtained and cleared, it was then given a classification title and number. This then was recorded on a file card with information of person/thing or what and the officer responsible for the report/record filed and what office and authority responsible for clearing for filing of record. With this, a log of dates/time of each person record{s} was viewed and for what purpose.

What was made much easy for the STASI officer was the DDR was a closed system with few leaving and fewer arriving in to the country. With this, a good solid career for an intelligence officer to stay true to their profession and obtain results in the nature of their assignments. Until, the house of cards fell and them with it..But then, as history teaches: Disaster creates opportunities for those so inclined.

Karl

Dear Karl,

I agree with you that there were lot's of opportunities of creative, flexible and innovative Stasi officers who were willing to transform themselves for new employers, new countries with other systems, rules, legislations and intelligence agencies. I know that after the fall of the wall the CIA was very interested in their former opponent Markus Johannes "Mischa" Wolf (19 January 1923 – 9 November 2006), the head of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung), the foreign intelligence division of East Germany's Ministry for State Security (MfS, commonly known as the Stasi). He was the MfS's number two for 34 years, which spanned most of the Cold War. He is often regarded as one of the greatest spymasters of all time.

Relationship with the KGB

Although Erich Mielke's Stasi was superficially granted independence in 1957, until 1990 the KGB continued to maintain liaison officers in all eight main Stasi directorates, each with his own office inside the Stasi's Berlin compound, and in each of the fifteen Stasi district headquarters around East Germany. Collaboration was so close that the KGB invited the Stasi to establish operational bases in Moscow and Leningrad to monitor visiting East German tourists and Mielke referred to the Stasi officers as "Chekists of the Soviet Union". In 1978, Mielke formally granted KGB officers in East Germany the same rights and powers that they enjoyed in the Soviet Union.

Examples of International operations

- Stasi experts helped to build the secret police of Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia.


East German leader Erich Honecker meets the Ethiopian communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam

- Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba was particularly interested in receiving training from the Stasi. Stasi instructors worked in Cuba and Cuban communists received training in East Germany.[36] The Stasi chief Markus Wolf described how he set up the Cuban system on the pattern of the East German system.



- Stasi officers helped in initial training and indoctrination of Egyptian State Security organizations under the Nasser regime from 1957–58 onwards. This was discontinued by Anwar Sadat in 1976.
- The Stasi's experts worked with building secret police systems in the People's Republic of Angola, the People's Republic of Mozambique, and the People's Republic of Yemen (South Yemen).
- The Stasi organized and extensively trained Syrian intelligence services under the Assad regime and Baath Party from 1966 onwards and especially from 1973.
- Stasi experts helped to set up Idi Amin's secret police.


Idi Amin with wife Kay Adroa Idi Amin of Uganda with Kay Adroa Amin on visit in East-Berlin

- Stasi experts helped the President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, to set up his secret police. When Nkrumah was ousted by a military coup, Stasi Major Jürgen Rogalla was imprisoned.

- The Stasi sent agents to the West as sleeper agents. For instance, sleeper agent Günter Guillaume became a senior aide to social democratic chancellor Willy Brandt, and reported about his politics and private life.

- The Stasi operated at least one brothel. Agents were used against both men and women working in Western governments. "Entrapment" was used against married men and homosexuals.

- Martin Schlaff – According to the German parliament's investigations, the Austrian billionaire's Stasi codename was "Landgraf" and registration number "3886-86". He made money by supplying embargoed goods to East Germany.

- Sokratis Kokkalis – Stasi documents suggest that the Greek businessman was a Stasi agent, whose operations included delivering Western technological secrets and bribing Greek officials to buy outdated East German telecom equipment.

- Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group)—A terrorist organization which killed dozens of West Germans and others.

- The Stasi ordered a campaign in which cemeteries and other Jewish sites in West Germany were smeared with swastikas and other Nazi symbols. Funds were channelled to a small West German group for it to defend Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.
- The Stasi channelled large amounts of money to Neo-Nazi groups in West, with the purpose of discrediting the West.
- The Stasi worked in a campaign to create extensive material and propaganda against Israel. (All communist Eastblock countries, members of the Warsaw pact and Commecon, supported the Arab countries against Israel)
- Operation Infektion—The Stasi helped the KGB to spread HIV/AIDS disinformation that the United States had created the disease. Millions of people around the world still believe in these claims.
- Sandoz chemical spill (agrochemical storehouse in the Schweizerhalle industrial complex, Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland, on 1 November 1986) —The KGB reportedly ordered the Stasi to sabotage the chemical factory to distract attention from the Chernobyl disaster six months earlier in Ukraine.
- Investigators have found evidence of a death squad that carried out a number of assassinations (including assassination of Swedish journalist Cats Falck) on orders from the East German government from 1976 to 1987. Attempts to prosecute members failed.
- The Stasi attempted to assassinate Wolfgang Welsch, a famous critic of the regime. Stasi collaborator Peter Haack (Stasi codename "Alfons") befriended Welsch and then fed him hamburgers poisoned with thallium. It took weeks for doctors to find out why Welsch had suddenly lost his hair.
- Documents in the Stasi archives state that the KGB ordered Bulgarian agents to assassinate Pope John Paul II, who was known for his criticism of human rights in the Communist bloc, and the Stasi was asked to help with covering up traces.
- A special unit of the Stasi assisted the Romanian secret police agency Securitate in kidnapping Romanian dissident Oliviu Beldeanu from West Germany.

Therefor Stasi agents could have found work in the Russian Federation, Arab or African nations with old ties with the DDR SED regime and Stasi agents, but Stasi agents also could be very well used by the Chinese, North-Korea, Vietnam, Japan, the West-German or German BND (the BND could use the KGB, and Central-and Eastern-European knowledge of the Stasi and as well the East-German information of the Stasi, since East-Germany merged with West-Germany into one Germany). Stasi agents could be useful for Syria, Egypt, Colonel Khadaffi's Libiya, Algeria, Iraq under Sadam Hussein, some South-American countries with military dictatorships or leftwing dictatorships like Nicaragua or Venezuela. I really believe that the KGB and later FSB will have used and maybe still uses former communist ideological, pragmatic and geopolitical allies from the former communist intelligence agencies of the Central- and Eastern-European countries and also former communist state officials and peoples army functionaries.

I have no idea if former Stasi agents reached positions in the Bundesrepublik in public functions, companies or political parties like the PDS (the Party of Democratic Socialism) or die Linke?

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

[pieter]

Stasi: East Germany - The Darkest Recesses of the Totalitarian Mind (1997)



The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (IPA: [ˈʃtɑːziː]) (abbreviation German: Staatssicherheit, literally State Security), was the official state security service of the German Democratic Republic or GDR, colloquially known as East Germany. It has been described as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies to ever have existed. The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller facilities throughout the city. The Stasi motto was "Schild und Schwert der Partei" (Shield and Sword of the Party), that is the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).

One of its main tasks was spying on the population, mainly through a vast network of citizens turned informants, and fighting any opposition by overt and covert measures including hidden psychological destruction of dissidents (Zersetzung, literally meaning decomposition). It also worked as an intelligence agency abroad, the respective division Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung was responsible for both espionage and for conducting covert operations in foreign countries. Under its long-time head Markus Wolf it gained a reputation as one of the most effective intelligence agencies of the Cold War. Numerous Stasi officials were prosecuted for their crimes after 1990. After German reunification, the surveillance files that the Stasi had maintained for millions of East Germans were laid open, so that any citizen could inspect their personal file on request; these files are now maintained by the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records.


Markus Wolf in East-German DDR uniform

The Stasi perfected the technique of psychological harassment of perceived enemies known as Zersetzung (pronounced [ʦɛɐ̯ˈzɛʦʊŋ]) -- a term borrowed from chemistry which literally means "decomposition".

By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that methods of overt persecution which had been employed up to that time, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious. It was realised that psychological harassment was far less likely to be recognised for what it was, so its victims, and their supporters, were less likely to be provoked into active resistance, given that they would often not be aware of the source of their problems, or even its exact nature. Zersetzung was designed to side-track and "switch off" perceived enemies so that they would lose the will to continue any "inappropriate" activities.

Tactics employed under Zersetzung generally involved the disruption of the victim's private or family life. This often included psychological attacks such as breaking into homes and messing with the contents -- moving furniture, altering the timing of an alarm, removing pictures from walls or replacing one variety of tea with another. Other practices included property damage, sabotage of cars, purposely incorrect medical treatment, smear campaigns including sending falsified compromising photos or documents to the victim's family, denunciation, provocation, psychological warfare, psychological subversion, wiretapping, bugging, mysterious phone calls or unnecessary deliveries, even including sending a vibrator to a target's wife. Usually victims had no idea the Stasi were responsible. Many thought they were losing their minds, and mental breakdowns and suicide could result.

One great advantage of the harassment perpetrated under Zersetzung was that its subtle nature meant that it was able to be plausibly denied. That was important given that the GDR (DDR, East-Germany) was trying to improve its international standing during the 1970s and 80s, especially in conjunction with the Ostpolitik of West-German chancellor Willy Brandt massively improving relations between the two German states.

Zersetzung techniques have since been adopted by other security agencies, particularly the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).


Wiesler as a ruthless and efficient Stasi operator and uses recording of interrogation of suspect to form Stasi trainees

[pieter]

Markus Wolf



Markus Wolf (75), a retired general, the legendary head of the GDR intelligence service, was only known to his western counterparts as "the man without a face". Markus Wolf lead a life of a successfull author and pensioner who continued to be a figure of great interest in the public media around the world until his death in November 2006. In this documentary Markus Wolf, who has been sentenced to two years on probation in 1997, looks back upon his life. Does this man have several faces one from the past and one of today? Wolf comments on different attitudes of the past and today with surprising frankness. This documentary reflects upon the biography of the head of espionage, on his bourgoiscommunistic upbringing in Swabia, his emigration years in Stalin´s Moscow, his quick career within the headquarters of the eastern intelligence service situated in East Berlin, his defeats and victories, his farewell to the service, the changes in Eastern Europe, his escape, his trials and convictions. The film also introduces Markus Wolf as an author and his publications. "Man without a Face" presents his companions who have taken another road like Wolfgang Leonhard. Prominent political advisers such as Valentin Falin and Egon Bahr comment on Wolf´s way, topspies such as Klaus Kuron and Gabriele Gast deliver a critical assessment. Film, sound, and textmaterial which have not been published yet give a new insight into a german-german past which has been shaped by cold war and concrete, errors and utopia, front lines and deserters.

[karl]

Pieter

Excellent informational research, very through and accurate. Yes, the Stasi people were very good at their craft with the good ones very unnoticeable. How would a person recognize an enemy agent? For they come in all sizes and every one has a face.

The nice lovely secretary you may see at lunch time, or the polite young man you have asked for directions?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2380936/Stasi-style-How-East-Germanys-secret-police-dressed-agents-ensure-infiltrate-lives-suspects.html


Karl

[Jaga]

Karl, Pieter, the story got my attention since it reminded me about the time of secret police in Poland and about a time of political upheaval in Germany.
By the way, I have a friend with a name Jacek Barski.... but he is a great guy. Interesting how completely different characters can carry similar names: Obama-Osama, Donald Trump, Donald Tusk.