NATO's 'Most Damaging' Spy

[kaima]

Betrayer and Betrayed
New Documents Reveal Truth on NATO's 'Most Damaging' Spy

By Fidelius Schmid and Andreas Ulrich

Photo Gallery: 8 Photos
Sicherheitspolizei Estland

For years, from his senior position in Estonia's Defense Ministry, Herman Simm leaked highly sensitive NATO intelligence and the names of Western spies to Russia's foreign intelligence service. In a classified damage analysis, NATO concludes that the former KGB colonel was one of the "most damaging" spies in the history of the alliance.

Everyone thought Hermann Simm deserved to be honored. It was Monday, Feb. 6, 2006, and he was dressed in his best suit to attend the day's event. He had been invited to Estonia's presidential palace to accept the "Order of the White Star" for his "service to the Estonian nation." It was an ironic choice.

It wasn't the only medal Simm received for his services that year. The other honor was one that he could only see on his computer screen, supposedly so as to not jeopardize his cover. Sergey Jakovlev, his handler with the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence service, appeared on the screen to show him his medal. Jakovlev was also the one who informed Simm that he had been promoted to the rank of major general for having supplied Moscow with the names of all suspected and known Russians working as spies for NATO. Then-President Vladimir Putin was very impressed, Jakovlev told his best spy.

Four years on, Simm has now reached the late phase of his career. Indeed, in his field -- spying -- it is not uncommon to spend one's old age in a small prison cell. Simms is incarcerated in a functional, post-Soviet building made of reinforced concrete in the Estonian city of Tartu, where he wears a plain prison uniform and seeks comfort in the Bible. Photos depict him as an older, gray-haired man with a sad look in his eyes.

This is the same man whom NATO, in a classified 141-page report, has recognized as the spy who was "most damaging in Alliance history." The report alleges that Simm, as the former head of security at the Estonian Defense Ministry, had access to most of the classified NATO documents his country received after joining the alliance in the spring of 2004. Until his arrest, in September 2008, he is believed to have secretly handed over thousands of those documents to the Russians. Some of these contained highly sensitive information about NATO's secret defense policies, "including installation, maintenance, procurement and use of cryptographic systems."

28 NATO Countries Sharing Secrets

According to the classified NATO report, the master spy also "compromised a wide range of NATO intelligence reports and analyses," including ones related to fighting terrorism, secret military plans and counterespionage. Never before, the NATO analysis concludes, has a spy betrayed such a large volume of military secrets for such a long time.

Of course, Simm was not the only spy in NATO's past. For years, Rainer Rupp, a West German who went by the codename of "Topaz," supplied classified information to the Stasi, the secret police of the former East Germany. French officer Pierre-Henri Bunel supplied Yugoslavia with NATO bombing plans during the Kosovo crisis. And Daniel James, who was working as a British general's personal interpreter, relayed sensitive details of his country's military operations in Afghanistan to Iran.

Still, the Simm case reveals just how much of a risk the alliance was taking when it gradually expanded eastward after the end of the Cold War. Each of its current 28 member states now enjoys access to almost all the classified information within the alliance. For experts, this is already unsettling enough. But even more worrisome is the fact that members of the old elite -- whose loyalties once lay with a completely different political system -- now work in the security apparatus of some of the new member states. In other words, people like Herman Simm.

A Swift Rise to Power

Simm was born out of wedlock in May 1947 in the small Estonian city of Suure-Jaani. When he was two years old, his mother barely escaped Stalin's ethnic-cleansing operations and deportation to Siberia. Soon thereafter, she married and left the boy to live with his grandmother and aunt. In school, he was considered ambitious, hardworking and well-adapted.

In 1966, when Simm was studying chemistry in Tallinn, he witnessed a brawl between a gang of youths and the police in front of a cinema on the city's outskirts. He intervened and, with his help, the police managed to overpower the gang. The officers were surprised that a student, of all people, had come to their aid. So, they offered him a job. "It was the beginning of his career with the Soviet intelligence service, the KGB," says journalist Mihkel Kärnas, who filmed "The Spy Inside," a documentary on the Simm case for Estonian television.

Simm kept his new job a secret from his family. The aunt, who had been persecuted under Stalin, was appalled when she found out. A short time later, her nephew was confirmed at the church in Suuri-Jaani, which he also kept from his family.

Simm quickly carved out a career for himself with the police. In 1975, he graduated with honors from the Soviet Union's Interior Ministry Academy. Likewise, he joined the Communist Party -- a necessary step, given the fact that his job involved accompanying delegations abroad and that such jobs were reserved for those considered politically reliable. His daughter was born in 1974, the result of an affair with a flight attendant. Today, she works as a computer specialist with Europol, the European police authority.

Continues in 3 more sections at
www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,691817,00.html

[Eric]

I can understand his frustrations and his decision to become a spy. Life is VERY difficult for people with a pro-Soviet attitude in Estonia today. Arnold Meri ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Meri ), the last Hero of the Soviet Union living in Estonia, was persecuted and prosecuted for supposed "crimes against the Estonian people" until his death. The post-Soviet Estonian government didn't give him a moment's rest simply because he chose in his younger days to serve his country, the Soviet Union. They made up some ridiculous charges that they knew would be impossible to defend against. But he tried - right up until he died.

I think NATO was so happy to finally get former socialist countries under its wing that its leaders decided to overlook the facts that former enemies would now be holding positions of power within NATO with access to sensitive information.

[karl]

Kai

Quite interesting and rather expectant post, I must say..Some times, for as wonder of the publications of Der Spiegel, but then it is the freedom of information as guaranteed by the Basic Law.

The Stasi {Minisiterium für Staatssicherheit}was not only very inclusively effective, but as recognized in recent time of date, very damaging for not just the time of discovery, but to the residual effect of recent. For time is not of our favour. For the effects of these people are hidden in inscription code of our data base.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

What is not brought forward by common consumption, is some very difference between the information producing efficiency of the Stasi, is the manner of numbers. For of the population at the time of this report, there were the raw number ratio of common population versus Stasi of 1 information officer to 66 citizen of the GDR.

The Stasi organization, was very proficient in field operations, and very loused in record keeping and storage. For it was an entirely composed of manual record recording and retrieve by hand. What this equates to is: Each record brought in for entry, must then with their system, be typed upon an entry card entry for each individual investigator. This then, would indicate the following information:

Cover name of information gathering person
Title of information
date and time of event so covered
agency responsible for person of provision
Place and time relating to event covering

Log in-log out of information chain

Cross file of indicated report copies {one yellow, one white as original, last copier for person of responsibility to event covered as field operation for their review. {these people or similar, are responsible to the funding of individual operational budget as projected.

Whilst as similar, ours was of computer two step process for electronic filing and retrieval.

The difference between theirs and of ours system, is time and accuracy as joined efficiency.

Many of these people of informational gathering were not wasted with the downfall of the Soviet System. But, were recycled on the open market vacuum to those of the most high bidders.

In-as-so upon end of war, many of the then former government managers both military and civilian, were retained through under-ground marketing to operate our new Germany of time of 1945 to of several years after. For these are formerly trained people and it is not conductive of efficiency to wast for nothing.

The Americans knew in as much as the Soviet {Russian Federation} knew, but for some reason, the French and Englanders were in the dark, but, that is their problem. For us, live moves in the direction of forward.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_German_border
Karl

[karl]

Kai

Perhaps this would better provide description of that I have to present.



OSA / Guide / RIP / 1956 / RFE/RL Background Reports : Subjects | Browse | Search

The text below might contain errors as it was reproduced by OCR software from the digitized originals,
also available as Scanned original in PDF.

BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 101-2-62
TITLE: East German Espionage in the FRG: The Background
BY: Matthew Bovse
DATE: 1985-9-9
COUNTRY: (n/a)
ORIGINAL SUBJECT: RAD Background Report/103

--- Begin ---

FRE-RL

FREE EUROPE Research

RAD Background Report/103
(East-West Relations)
9 September 1985

EAST GERMAN ESPIONAGE IN THE FRG: THE BACKGROUND

by Matthew Boyse

Summary: The recent disappearance of four West
German citizens, the arrest of another, and the
suspicion that all were involved in espionage
for the GDR have provided the makings for what
many West German publications have called the
most serious spy scandal in the country's
history. These events are the most recent in a
series of East German espionage cases that go
back to the early 1950s.

* * *

Evidence is accumulating that the five West Germans who
disappeared or were arrested in recent weeks may have been
agents for the East German intelligence service
(Hauptverwaltung Aufklaerung, HVA) of the Ministry for State
Security. More incidents are expected as other agents flee or
are arrested.

A 60-year-old woman known as Sonja Lueneburg, a long-time
secretary to the current Economics Minister and leader of the
Free Democratic Party (FDP) Martin Bangemann, was last seen on
August 2. In the meantime it has been established that she had
lived for about 20 years in the West under a false identity. In
her Bonn apartment police reportedly found equipment of the type
often used to photograph documents. Her role remains unclear,
although she was well situated to provide information about
internal FDP affairs and the personalities of many political
figures. Before joining Bangemann's staff, she worked for
William Borm, a Deputy in the Bundestag and a member of the
committees dealing with foreign policy and inter-German
relations.

A 52-year-old woman known as Ursula Richter was last seen
on August 16. She had been a secretary and bookkeeper in the
the Federation of Expellees, a lobbying organization that
represents refugees driven from Eastern Europe after World War

This material was prepared for the use of the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

[page 2]

RAD BR/103

II. For more than 20 years she had lived in the FRG under a
false identity. The authorities reportedly found in her
apartment a container with a secret compartment as well as the
East Berlin telephone number of the Ministry for State Security.
Although her role also remains unclear, it has been alleged that
she controlled a network of agents.

The third person to disappear was a 53-year-old messenger
for the Armed Forces Administration Agency in Bonn, a man
identified as Lorenz Betzing and a friend of the woman known as
Richter. In the 1960s he installed air-conditioning equipment
in a top-secret government bunker that would serve as a command
center in times of war or crisis. This would have given him
broad knowledge of the layout of the command center. He also
worked as a maintenance engineer in several government
buildings, including the offices of members of parliament.

These cases, however, are dwarfed by the defection to East
Berlin of Hans-Joachim Tiedge, an intelligence official at the
Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the
German equivalent of the FBI. The East German news agency ADN
announced on August 23 that Tiedge had asked for political
asylum in the GDR. The 48-year-old Tiedge had spent 19 years in
sensitive posts and was for the last several years the head of
the so-called Section IV, the department in charge of
counterintelligence against the GDR. Western experts estimate
that 80% of espionage in the FRG is carried out by the GDR, [1]
which made Tiedge one of the agency's most important officials.
He is reported to have supervised as many as 100 people. [2] It
is not known whether Tiedge had been working for the East
Germans for many years, that is, had been a "mole," or whether
he simply fled from recent personal problems (his wife died
three years ago under circumstances that are now beginning to be
considered suspicious, he was an estimated DM 230,000 in debt,
and he drank heavily). Some reports suggested that he may have
been working with East Berlin for only about two years, [3] but
there is no definite information to substantiate either surmise.

There was also speculation that Tiedge might have been
partly responsible for the arrest of a number of West Germans in
the GDR during the last few years and the fact that relatively
few East German agents were exposed in the West during that
time. [4] On the other hand, it would have been highly unusual
for the East Germans to tolerate the attention Tiedge had been
drawing to himself, for his personal problems were known within
the BfV. In any case, Tiedge is now in a position to compromise
what some Western press accounts estimate as 200 West Germans in
the FRG who are working for Bonn and some Western agents
operating in Eastern Europe. [5] Internal Affairs Minister
Friedrich Zimmermann has appealed for "a new concept for
combating East bloc espionage, in particular against the
activities of East German services," to limit the damage wrought
by Tiedge's apparent betrayal. [6]

[page 3]

RAD BR/103

The scandal widened on August 25 with the arrest on
suspicion of espionage of a fifth person, 50-year-old Margarete
Hoeke, a secretary who was employed in President Richard von
Weiszacker's office. She had worked in the Office of the
Federal President for 21 years, most recently for the Chief of
Department II for Foreign Affairs, Protocol, and the Press,
which includes foreign and defense affairs. Although Hoeke did
not work for Weiszaecker directly, she reportedly had access to
classified material such as communications from German embassies
and transcripts of Weiszaecker's conversations with foreign
leaders. The authorities are treating this case seriously,
although her role also remains unclear. She appears to have
been recruited by an East German agent who reportedly became her
lover. Another potential case has surfaced at the Army Weapons
Procurement Center in Koblenz, although no arrest has been made.

Recruiting Secretaries and Stealing Technology. These
events take place against the background of a large number of
similar cases that go back to the early 1950s. One of the areas
in which the HVA has been most successful is in recruiting
secretaries (who are often seduced by East German agents) or
planting agents in offices under false identities who then pass
on sensitive information to East Berlin. More than 20
secretaries have been exposed in the last 25 years. Among them
are [7] Erika Schneider, once a secretary to former Defense
Minister Franz Josef Strauss (29 June 1958); Rosalie Kunze, a
secretary in the Defense Ministry (October 1960); Liselotte
Krolopp, a secretary in the Foreign Ministry (22 March 1962);
Irene Schulz, the secretary to Science Minister Hans Leussingk
(26 February 1970); Helge Berger, the secretary to State
Secretary in the Foreign Ministry Sigismund von Braun (14 May
1976); Renate Lutze, a secretary in the Defense Ministry (1 June
1976); Ingrid Garbe, a secretary at the German Mission to NATO;
Ursel Lorenzen, a secretary at NATO headquarters; Helga
Roediger, secretary to Manfred Lahnstein, State Secretary in the
Finance Ministry in Bonn; Ursula Hoefs, secretary at the CDU's
headquarters; Christel Broszey, secretary to CDU politician Kurt
Biedenkopf; and Inge Goliath, secretary to CDU foreign policy
specialist Werner Marx (all in 1979).

Other noteworthy cases have involved senior government
officials. In July 1954 the first President of the BfV, Otto
Jahn, surfaced in East Berlin and declared that he had requested
political asylum, only to reappear in the West two years later
and claim that he had been kidnapped. In late 1961 the head of
the section dealing with intelligence in the USSR in the West
German Federal Intelligence Office (BND), Heinz Felfe, was
revealed to have been working for the KGB since 1951. There has
also been recurring press speculation that two high-ranking
military officers, Major General Horst Wendtland (who worked at
the BND) and Admiral Hermann Luedke, both of whom committed
suicide at about the same time in 1968, had passed secrets to
Czechoslovak intelligence.

[page 4]

RAD BR/103

The most spectacular case prior to the Tiedge affair
occurred in 1974, when Guenther Guillaume, a close aide to
former Chancellor Willy Brandt was discovered to be an East
German spy. Like so many other East German agents, Guillaume
had originally claimed to be a refugee when he arrived in the
West in 1956, but he was, in fact, an agent trained by the East
German Ministry for State Security with orders to penetrate the
SPD. He quickly established himself on the right wing of the
party and acquired a reputation as a good organizer. He rose
quickly in the Frankfurt party organization and in 1970, after
Brandt's election, was transferred to the Chancellery, where
after a few years he became a key aide to Brandt. In his 15
months with Brandt he had access to a great deal of secret
information. Guillaume's exposure as an East German agent
contributed to Brandt's resignation shortly thereafter.

In one sense, the Tiedge case could prove more damaging
than the Guillaume affair. For while Guillaume may have
provided information to East Berlin on high-level discussions
within the West German government, especially during the
negotiation of the Eastern Treaties, Tiedge is in a position to
compromise the intelligence sources and methods that Bonn uses
to combat the massive East German espionage activities in the
FRG.

In recent years Soviet bloc intelligence efforts have
reportedly been increasingly focused on high technology and
industrial espionage. [8] The latest wave of cases, however,
indicates that the political arena continues to be a key target.
Nevertheless, East Berlin is still quietly gathering vast
amounts of industrial, technical, and economic information. The
exposures during the last several years of Soviet bloc agents at
Siemens, IBM Deutschland, BASF, Messerschmidt, Boelkow, Blohm,
AEG, Hoechst, Degussa AG, and the Atomic Research Center in
Karlsruhe are reportedly only the tip of the iceberg.

A senior East German intelligence official who defected to
the FRG on 19 January 1979, Lieutenant Colonel Werner Stiller,
reported that East Berlin had sent at least 400 to 500 agents to
work in 300 West German enterprises, of which at least 100 to
150 are now said to be working in West Germany's high technology
state, Baden Wuerttemberg. Publicly available sources suggest
that half of all East German espionage activity in the FRG is
in the technological sector and that this saves East Berlin
about DM 300 million in research and development expenses. The
fruit of this sort of espionage could be worth as much as DM
3,000,000,000 a year to East Berlin. [9] Prime targets are high
technology industries, including microelectronics, data
processing, microprocessor and robot technology, energy, and
chemicals. Technology with military applications is especially
coveted. The GDR, however, engages in espionage in practically
all sectors of industry.

[page 5]

RAD BR/103

Intelligence Target: the FRG. As the most important NATO
and EEC country in Europe and as an open, democratic country on
the border between East and West, the FRG has become one of the
two or three most important Soviet bloc espionage targets,
particularly for East German intelligence. Planting East German
agents in the FRG is made easier by a common language and
heritage and Bonn's policy of welcoming all refugees from the
GDR with open arms and a West German passport. In addition,
close family ties between those in East and West Germany offer
East Berlin many opportunities to collect information about West
Germans, or to pressure or blackmail them or their relatives
into working for East German intelligence.

Whether or not one believes East Berlin's boast that its
intelligence services are "always in the picture" about West
German operations in the GDR, it is clear that East Berlin has
been engaging in massive, long-term, systematic and increasing
espionage activites in the FRG. The exact number of East German
spies in the FRG is, of course, unknown. [10] An estimated 80% of
the activities of the estimated 20,000 direct employees of the
MfS, however, are thought to be targeted in some way or another
against the FRG. [11] As these most recent cases indicate, East
Berlin is, indeed, acting in accordance with the official
intelligence guidance revealed by an East German defector.
"Everything that happens in an opponent's country must be
investigated," whether it be microchips or Economic Minister
Bangemann's preferences in beer. [12]

Whether these events will have any long-term impact on
inter-German relations appears doubtful, although they will
probably have some short-term effects. Chancellor Kohl said
recently that the scale of East German espionage activities
placed a burden on inter-German relations. He also noted that
they raised questions about the SED's true intentions toward the
FRG. Kohl said that those who were interested in good relations
(like the GDR) must also ask "what effect it has on us when
espionage is undertaken in our ministries, within [political)
parties, economic organizations, unions, and everywhere else
where relatively important decisions are made," [13] since this
sowed distrust.

* * *

1 Friedrich-Wilhelm Schlomann, Operationsgebiet Bundesrepublik, (Munich:
Universitas Verlag, 1984), p. 21.

2 Reuter, 25 August 1985, quoting Die Welt am Sonntag of 25 August 1985.

3 The Washington Post, 26 August 1985.

[page 6]

RAD BR/103

4 Officials at the West German Ministry of Internal Affairs, however, point
out that 125 people were arrested on charges of espionage between 1980 and
1984, or from 27 to 40 a year (Dpa, 26 August 1985).

5 Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 26 August 1985; and The Washington Post, 26
August 1985.

6 The Washington Post, 26 August 1985.

7 The information on espionage refers to the following reports: dpa, 19, 22,
and 23 August; Die Zeit, 22 August 1985; and Stuttgarter Zeitung, 21
August 1985.

8 See, for example, the interview with Heribert Hellenbroich, in Der
Spiegel, 29/1985, pp. 20 ff. He is quoted as having said: "The agent no
longer sits in the front room," a reference to secretaries and assistants
in government offices. Although Hellenbroich probably did not mean to
suggest that there was no longer a danger of penetrating sensitive agencies
or that the focus of Soviet bloc activity had moved to the high technology
sector, the tendency to focus on such activity remains widespread.

9 Hellenbroich interview, Der Spiegel, pp. 22-23; Stuttgarter Zeitung, 4
December 1984;and Die Zeit, 19 November 1982, and 30 August 1985.

10 Official estimates refer to a figure of 2,000 to 2,500 out of a total of an
estimated 8,000 Soviet bloc spies in the FRG. This, however, seems to
conflict with estimates that 80% of Soviet bloc espionage activity is
carried out by the GDR and underscores the difficulty in trying to come up
with precise figures. See, for example, dpa, 26 August 1985 and the
interview given by the West German expert Karl Wilhelm Fricke in
Abendzeitung, 27 August 1985.

11 Sueddeutsche Zeitung 26 August 1985.

12 Quoted in Schlomann, op. cit., p. 13.

13 Dpa, 22 August 1985.

- end -

Karl