Markus Wolf
Encyclopedia
Markus Johannes "Mischa" Wolf (19 January 1923 – 9 November 2006) was head of the General Intelligence Administration
(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
. Many intelligence experts regard him as one of the greatest spy masters of all time.
, Province of Hohenzollern
(now Baden-Württemberg
), Wolf was the son of the writer and physician Friedrich Wolf and brother of film director Konrad Wolf
. His father was a member of the Communist Party of Germany
, and after Adolf Hitler
gained power, they emigrated via Switzerland
and France
to Moscow
because of their Communist
conviction and because Markus's father was Jewish.
During his exile, he first attended the German Karl Liebknecht Schule and later a Russian school. Afterwards, he entered the Moscow Institute of Airplane Engineering (Moscow Aviation Institute
), which was evacuated to Alma Ata after Germany's attack on the Soviet Union
. There he was told to join the Comintern
, where he among others was prepared for undercover work behind enemy lines.
After the end of the war
, he was sent to Berlin with the Ulbricht Group
, led by Walter Ulbricht
to work as a journalist
for a radio station in the Soviet Zone of occupation. He was among those journalists who observed the entire Nuremberg Trials
against the principal Nazi
leaders.
In 1953, at the age of 30, he was among the founding members of the foreign intelligence service within the ministry of state security. As intelligence chief, Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political and business circles of West Germany with spies. The most influential case was that of Günter Guillaume
that led to the fall of chancellor Willy Brandt
. For most of his career, he was known as "the man without a face" due to his elusiveness. It was reported that Western agencies did not know what the East German spy chief looked like until 1978, when he was photographed by Säpo
, Sweden's National Security Service, during a visit to Sweden. An East German defector, Werner Stiller, then identified Wolf to West German counterintelligence as the man in the picture. A counterclaim states, however, that elements within the CIA had identified him by 1959 from photographs of attendees at the Nuremberg trials.
He retired in 1986 in order to continue the work of his late brother Konrad in writing the story of their upbringing in Moscow in the 1930s. The book Troika came out on the same day in East and West Germany. His successor as head of intelligence was Werner Großmann
.
Shortly before German reunification he fled the country, and sought political asylum in Russia
and Austria
. When denied, he returned to Germany where he was arrested by German police. Wolf claimed to have refused an offer of "seven figures", a new identity and a home in California from the Central Intelligence Agency
to defect to the United States. In 1993 he was convicted of treason
by Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf
and sentenced to six years imprisonment. This was later quashed by the German supreme court, because Wolf was acting from the territory of the then-independent GDR. In 1997 he was convicted of unlawful detention, coercion, and bodily harm, and was given a suspended sentence of two years imprisonment. He was additionally sentenced to three days' imprisonment for refusing to testify against Paul Gerhard Flämig when the former West German (SPD) politician was accused in 1993 of atomic espionage. Wolf said that Flämig was not the agent that he had mentioned in his memoirs: Flämig had unwittingly been probed by intelligence agents during authorised discussions in the GDR.
Markus Wolf died in his sleep at his Berlin home on 9 November 2006.
John le Carré
's fictional spymaster Karla
, a Russian, who appears in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
, The Honourable Schoolboy
and Smiley's People
was believed by some readers to be modeled on Wolf.
However, the writer has repeatedly denied this, and did so once again when interviewed on the occasion of Wolf's death.
Another le Carré character, who in fact comes even closer than Karla, is Fiedler in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
. He is depicted as a German Jew who spent World War II in exile and came back to gain a senior position in East Germany's Intelligence Service.
Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (GDR)
The Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung ' of the former German Democratic Republic was the foreign intelligence service of the GDR and was an integral part of the GDR Ministry of State Security ...
(Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung), the foreign intelligence
Intelligence agency
An intelligence agency is a governmental agency that is devoted to information gathering for purposes of national security and defence. Means of information gathering may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public...
division of East Germany's Ministry for State Security
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
(MfS, commonly known as the Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
). He was the MfS's number two for 34 years, which spanned most of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. Many intelligence experts regard him as one of the greatest spy masters of all time.
Biography
Born in HechingenHechingen
Hechingen is a town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated about south of the state capital of Stuttgart and north of Lake Constance and the Swiss border.- City districts :...
, Province of Hohenzollern
Province of Hohenzollern
Hohenzollern was a de facto province of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was created in 1850 by joining the principalities of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Hohenzollern-Hechingen after both formerly independently ruling Catholic princely lines of the House of Hohenzollern had handed over their...
(now Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
), Wolf was the son of the writer and physician Friedrich Wolf and brother of film director Konrad Wolf
Konrad Wolf
Konrad Wolf was an East German film director, son of Friedrich Wolf, brother of Markus Wolf....
. His father was a member of the Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
, and after Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
gained power, they emigrated via Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
because of their Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
conviction and because Markus's father was Jewish.
During his exile, he first attended the German Karl Liebknecht Schule and later a Russian school. Afterwards, he entered the Moscow Institute of Airplane Engineering (Moscow Aviation Institute
Moscow Aviation Institute
Moscow Aviation Institute is one of several major engineering higher education establishments in Moscow .Although the school is currently offering a wide range of majors and research...
), which was evacuated to Alma Ata after Germany's attack on the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. There he was told to join the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
, where he among others was prepared for undercover work behind enemy lines.
After the end of the war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
, he was sent to Berlin with the Ulbricht Group
Ulbricht group
The Ulbricht Group, led by Walter Ulbricht, was a group of exiled German communists who flew from the Soviet Union back to Germany on April 30, 1945...
, led by Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
to work as a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
for a radio station in the Soviet Zone of occupation. He was among those journalists who observed the entire Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
against the principal Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
leaders.
In 1953, at the age of 30, he was among the founding members of the foreign intelligence service within the ministry of state security. As intelligence chief, Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political and business circles of West Germany with spies. The most influential case was that of Günter Guillaume
Günter Guillaume
Günter Guillaume , was an intelligence agent of East Germany's secret service, the Stasi.Guillame was born in Berlin. During the Hitler era, he was a member of the Nazi party NSDAP. In 1956, he and his wife Christel emigrated to West Germany on Stasi orders to penetrate and spy on West Germany's...
that led to the fall of chancellor Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm , was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany 1964–1987....
. For most of his career, he was known as "the man without a face" due to his elusiveness. It was reported that Western agencies did not know what the East German spy chief looked like until 1978, when he was photographed by Säpo
Swedish Security Service
The Swedish Security Service , former name Rikspolisstyrelsens säkerhetsavdelning , is the security service of Sweden, belonging to the Swedish National Police Board....
, Sweden's National Security Service, during a visit to Sweden. An East German defector, Werner Stiller, then identified Wolf to West German counterintelligence as the man in the picture. A counterclaim states, however, that elements within the CIA had identified him by 1959 from photographs of attendees at the Nuremberg trials.
He retired in 1986 in order to continue the work of his late brother Konrad in writing the story of their upbringing in Moscow in the 1930s. The book Troika came out on the same day in East and West Germany. His successor as head of intelligence was Werner Großmann
Werner Grossmann
Werner Großmann is an East German former deputy leader of the Ministry for State Security .Born in Ober-Ebenheit, Grossman started his career as a bricklayer, but in 1952 he joined the Ministry for State Security where he studied political and military espionage...
.
Shortly before German reunification he fled the country, and sought political asylum in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. When denied, he returned to Germany where he was arrested by German police. Wolf claimed to have refused an offer of "seven figures", a new identity and a home in California from the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
to defect to the United States. In 1993 he was convicted of treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
by Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
and sentenced to six years imprisonment. This was later quashed by the German supreme court, because Wolf was acting from the territory of the then-independent GDR. In 1997 he was convicted of unlawful detention, coercion, and bodily harm, and was given a suspended sentence of two years imprisonment. He was additionally sentenced to three days' imprisonment for refusing to testify against Paul Gerhard Flämig when the former West German (SPD) politician was accused in 1993 of atomic espionage. Wolf said that Flämig was not the agent that he had mentioned in his memoirs: Flämig had unwittingly been probed by intelligence agents during authorised discussions in the GDR.
Markus Wolf died in his sleep at his Berlin home on 9 November 2006.
Cultural impact
John le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
's fictional spymaster Karla
Karla (fictional character)
Karla is a fictional character in several novels by John le Carré. A Soviet Intelligence officer, he most often appears as a distant antagonist of George Smiley...
, a Russian, who appears in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a 1974 British spy novel by John le Carré, featuring George Smiley. Smiley is a middle-aged, taciturn, perspicacious intelligence expert in forced retirement. He is recalled to hunt down a Soviet mole in the "Circus", the highest echelon of the Secret Intelligence...
, The Honourable Schoolboy
The Honourable Schoolboy
The Honourable Schoolboy is a spy novel by John le Carré. George Smiley tries to reconstruct an intelligence service and to run a successful offensive espionage operation to save the service from falling to the "war hawks" in government...
and Smiley's People
Smiley's People
Smiley's People is a spy novel by John le Carré, published in 1979. Featuring British master-spy George Smiley, it is the third and final novel of the "Karla Trilogy", following Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Honourable Schoolboy...
was believed by some readers to be modeled on Wolf.
However, the writer has repeatedly denied this, and did so once again when interviewed on the occasion of Wolf's death.
Another le Carré character, who in fact comes even closer than Karla, is Fiedler in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold , by John le Carré, is a British Cold War spy novel that became famous for its portrayal of Western espionage methods as being morally inconsistent with Western democracy and values. The novel received critical acclaim at the time of its publication and became an...
. He is depicted as a German Jew who spent World War II in exile and came back to gain a senior position in East Germany's Intelligence Service.