KGB EXPLOITATION OF HEINZ FELFE

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 02606326
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 129
• Document Creation Date: March 8, 2023
• Document Release Date: March 1, 2019
• Case Number: F-2016-02521

,ftiummome
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KGB EXPLOITATION OF HEINZ FELFE
Successful TB Penetration
of 4 Western Intelligence Service
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction and Summary
II. Soviet Operations Against Gehlen Organization
In the Early Post-War Years 15
a. Background Information on Felfe 17
b. Background Information on Clemens 20
c. Soviet Recruitment of Felfe and Clemens 21
d. Alternate Versions of Recruitment by KGB
and Hiring by Gehlen Organization 26
e. Early Stages of KGB Operation -- the BALTHASAR
Deception
III. Operations of the Early 1950's 32
a. Efforts to Discredit the Gehlen Organization
b. Felfe Settles In -- the LENA Deception
IV. KGB Work in West Germany as a Sovereign Country: 1956-61
Targeting of CIA, Provocation, Tactical Deception
tr.*IA4 �A
pport of Soviet Policy and Political Deception
ethods of Communication
dr, New Directions?
V. Investigation and Arrest 80
VI. The Aftermath 89
MIXES
A. The HACKE Story 92
B. LILLI MARLEN Case 96
C. The Sokolov Case 101
D. ZUVERSICHT Case 112
E. MERKATOR Case 115
F. Glossary of German Words and Abbreviations 117
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OV
� at happens e IGB4F has able:a level penetration of
a Western enc service Haw does the IGB exploit the
voluminous tuZorstLon received on eoemy operations while at the
same time protecting the security of its source? More importantly,
does the= handling of such an agent leave tell.tale slIgus
which wOUld permit an alert and knowledgeable Western counter
intelligence officer to surmise the existence of such a penetration?
It would he presumptuous to generalize on the basis of one case,
but study of the IOU handling of Heinz Felfe maybe* provide
'emmerialieothese questions.
Of Penetrations of Western intelligence
and security services, Heinz Yelfe was certainly one of the most
Felfe was an officer of the West German greiga
Intelligence igerviee (BED)** for ten years, six of them as deputy
thief of the section responsible among other things for countering
Soviet espionage. He was a dedicated Soviet agent throughout this
period, antiemained loyal to the Soviets even after his arrest
in November 1961. He was detected as a result of a lead provided
by a CIA-run penetration of the Poliah Intelligence Service ('UB).
Te3!e was more than a simple penetration agent; he became, in
consultant to the XUB on many of its operations in West
many. Through Felts, the Soviets pursued three objectives:
t"'40,-A4r
Cgrotect the security of Soviet instsllatio
sonnel
texelf.CW will be used throaghoat this
of the period covered the proper
for the State Security Service Was *B or MYD.
P om 2947 to 106, when it 44-14 no Oga statuct this was
known 41 the Olga= Org04441,140/3.Zn 1956, after West Germany
had r444400. savOret004_it Pao*, thil BP, which is the
aerama abbreviation Tor 44;teraj,ptal,,ttgenpe Service. For con-
vent.; and simplicity it is frequently referred to as the BND
even the earlier period is meant.
SSONSt
NO immix MSS=
44
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in West Germany and in Bast Germanys and to detect Western
operat ns inside the Soviet Union. To this end, the 1101
ran deception operations deeigned to expend Pelt es access
to informmtion not only from his own service, but also from
other WOO German and Allied services including C/A.
b. To confuse, disorient and discredit the West German
foreign intelligence service. The aim was not only to
penetz'at. the service, but to benipulate it to serve Soviet
�
e. To collect political intelligence on West Germany.
This gos3, and the equaLly important objective of political
ttsinfoxation, assumed increasing importance as the case
programed and new have ultimmtely� become the most important
In Soviet eyes, as a support to Soviet foreign policy
objectives.
The reader will not find here a
ease; that mould require a mudh larger vo
of the story are here, and one dhapter in
primarily to background information, presenting the dramatis
-7-4:a744,1ZA,-
plitlonte describes how the= recruited first Hans Clemens,
and then, thru Clemens, Pelf*. They had been eolleagues in
Masi intelligence during the war, motivated after the rile by
revenge against the Americans, money, and &desire to be on What
they considered the most powerful side. But thde IS essent4ally
a selective and interpretive account, for the purpose of illustrating
WAS methods of hencl3ing and supporting a well-plaes4staff pertration of
a Western service. The lessons to be learned lie in the
deception and diversionary operations run by theEnto build up
Yelfes reputation in the BUD, expand his access., protect his secuiity,
A
sad create an Illusion that the German service was effectively fulfiliing
it* CS miesion while the Soviets were generally ineffective.
There are many ways by which Pelfe might have been unmaUked
earlier than he wee. Sven &thorough mooches:lc might have done
the trick. He could also have been caught earlier if mo
of
Pelts
�
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of suppo
evidence Vhieh clearly Indicated something
her than waiting to be spurred to action by a report
ensitive penetration source. Indications of Soviet
the BKD were to be found in the deception and
rations run by the no for the express purpose
or protecting Yelfe. Although 'smart and protection
agent* in *stern aervices is not the only reason
run deception and diversianeri operations, it
Xe
against one service, thee
principal reasons for such operations. Study
suggests that *hen a number of Soviet deeoption
operations are concentrated in one aree% or
be carefully anal,ysed
to detezmine*bather they Soviet peutition in that area
or that $4021/inet# ilany exemples of deceptiondiversionary
operations are discussed in detail in this study; the most important
are summarised in the following peragraphs.
The first WO deception operation in suort of Felts was the
MAISMWSWAr case. As far IS Up W Ixnew at the time, BALTBANAB was
en* of its better positive intelligenee operations, producing infor-
mation on Soviet mining of uraelam in lest GormenKand its Shipment
to the R. The agent BALTNASAI vas a wertime friend of Clemens
the had re-initiated =teat with him and then allowed himself
to be recruited by Clemens for the D. Actually, a GB agent
fram the beginning. lite= initiated the operation to
filfehm co-conspirator, Clemene, with an official maw for repeated trips
to West Berlin (to meet RAPTROW), from where he could easily
Mee to' last Berlin to meet with his and Yelfefs MD case officer.
Another deception operation, the eo-called "Mr cue vs
most important single contribution to Kelfets career as a, West
intelligence officer, and probstaly also to his career as a
Soviet agent. It gave him statue and stature within the BID, and
veribility as a Soviet agent. It was the vehicle for many
pubits to broaden hates accese to collect information, especially
th-
0; V4! 40
,.... nth,
and sometimes to disseminate disinformation.
the
doe
an-ans c
onnd
�
;3
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LENA was the BUD cryptonym for an East German political
functionary and publisher. He travelled frequently to West Germany,
where he was well received in certain West German socialist circles
as an apparently independent, outspoken East German. His role as
a BNB agent, doubled by the KGB, goes back to the early fifties.
But in January 1954, shortly after Felfe's assignment to the BMO
Headquarters CE Group, LENA suddenly turned from what had been
(from the German point of view) a positive intelligence operation into
a CE case. LENA reported to the f3ND that he had been introductd to
a KGB officer, and that after a flurry of meetings he had been
formally recruited by the Soviets and immediately assigned the
task of creating a net of agents to produce information on the
West German Foreign Office and the Chancellor's Office. The Soviet
plan, as related by LENA, was highly ambitious. LENA was to be the
"German net director," to recruit two principal agents a political
advisor and spotter, several support agents, and to provide names of
potential penetration agents. As a developing CF case, handling of
LENA was then transferred to the CE Group, where the newly arrived
Felfe became the Headquarters case officer. His assignment to
this case was probably not accidental; Felfe's immediate superior
A.., /a& �
at the time ises.444imeyteeeeetailatv another KGB penetration of the ONO.
With KGB assistance, LENA developed rapidly into the BNO's most
important CE case, and it made Felfe's reputation as an authority on
Soviet counterespionage.
LENA's talkative KrT case officers revealed information on
other Soviet operations in West Germany, compromising several
bona fide Soviet and East Cermet-, agents in the process. LENA
was "such an intelligent clan' that his KGB case officers
ostensibly enjoyed talking politics with him, and these long
conversations revealed occasional glimpses of the "true" Soviet
policy on Germany. On the surface, LENA's operation to penetrate
the KGB
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EU
ar more successful thalt- the Soviet
penetrate the Bonn Oceirmsent. Although
lel recruits to the Sap the only real
ru1ted was an ailing and beromportent
ffic., 1630 contented himself with the
some vaterial. To some observers
it seemed incredible at the time that the IOU ahead go through so
notions just far this. There was created an impression of
1nampot4nce, mad IMB failure to attain important InOmmeetion
tram *mat Sermon government offieest At the some time, IAN, was
pessisg the Br/ detailed end comprehensive information on personnel
Ions at the NOBs rest Sertem Itemiquerters in
that this infOrmation could continue, Pelf*
decided it was necessary to prtrolds the NOB with buildwmp
material tokeep MA's faltering Meet German net alive. For
this purpose, Folfe pioneered procedures within the West German
government for the clearance of buildArp notarial. Ile obtained
from the libiteral Attorney Generolastatement that any material
already demonstrably known to the opposition was autonstieally
no longer secret. By extension, thmt Which was no longer secret
could, be passed to the opposition as build-up notarial. Thus
mben a. NOB case officer told or any other doable agent
reporting to the BSD, that certain areas of information were
already covered by the e= Felts could argne the virtue of
providize this information to LIMA as build-up, to satisfy pre
emend NOB cross-checking, or to smoke out the presumal Soviet
source in this ray, Felfe was able to ameeuver avid* variety
of information lapilli' into Soviet hands. Discussion within
the West German government ofcchat could and could not be cleared
for passage in response to Soviet requirements greatly.broadened
thaltale *mess to positive intelligence otherwise inaccessible
to him; infammation which could not be cleared for passage as
build material was passel clamimAinelyterrelfe.
a
provided Nate and the NOB -- with
for invostigating Vest Darman personal
of target interest to KGB. The NOB case officer would instruct
Unto try to obtain certain information concerning a. Vest .
Alt al t11,4
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German official. LENA reported this to the BNB, and the reported
Soviet interest then provided Felfe with cover for namechecking the
official in West German and Allied files. The results went to the KGB
directly, through Felfe's own clandestine communications channels, and
at a later meeting LENA would report that his KGB case officer was no
longer interested. To make this exercise more thorough, Felfe eventually
arranged permission not just to eamecheck the West German targets of
interest to LENA's KGB handler, but to conduct his own detailed investi-
gation of them. Felfe argued that if the KGB was interested in certain
West German officials and was seeking vulnerability data on them, then it
was necessary in order to protect West German security for the BNB to
conduct its own investigation of these persons to determine if they were
in fact vulnerable to Soviet recruitment. This was done, with the results
of investigation passed by Felfe to the KGB.
The LENA operation also helped Felfe break ground for liaison between
the BND and CIA Berlin Base concerning operations against Soviet instal-
lations in East Berlin. BND information on these installations had been
checked in Berlin Base files since 1954, but in 1956 Folfe began a
concerted campaign to collect detailed information from CIA on its
operational program to penetrate KGB Headquarters in Varlshorst. The
urgency of KGB attention to Berlin Base as a CI target was heightened by
the arrest in late 1958 of a CIA penetration of Soviet military intelli-
gence in East Germany (Lt. Col. Popov) run-ai;kkiiiii�a from Berlin Base.
Two years earlier, CIA's Berlin tunnel operation had been detected, as
well as an apparently successful CIA attempt to recruit a member of an
RU intelligence point in Cast Berlin. It was clear to the KGB
that CIA's Berlin Base represented a major threat to its security.
LENA provided the BND with sizeable amounts of information on KGB offices,
*An RU is a Soviet tactical military intelligence unit. In this case,
it was the RU subordinate to the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG).
The RUs are distinct from the ORU, which is on the � General Staff level
and so concentrates on strategic intelligence.
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safe houses, and license and telvhone numbers in the Karlshorst
Headquarters compound. This information was then checked against
Information available to CIA Berlin Base, with the results going back
to Felfe -- and to the KGB. LENA also met a number of KGB officers
under their full true name, and these too were nametraced by Felfe
with friendly services, providing the KGB with a mechanism for name-
tracing some of their personnel in CIA files. In addition to LENA,
the KGB created other operations producing information on Karlshorst
Headquarters, and arranged for these operations to fall under Felfe's
jurisdiction. Through manipulation of these operations, and his personal
role in engineering a number of crises in CIA-BND relationships/ Felfe
was able to force a reluctant Berlin Base to give him a general briefing
on the status of CIA operations against Karlshorst. Over a period of
several years, Felfe, with the assistance of KGB operations, was able to
achieve ever-closer BND-CIA cooparation in operations against Karlshorst.
In one case when he - or the KGB - suspected CIA had an agent in an
East Berlin housing office, Felfe, with KGB assistance, boldly provoked
confirmation of this fact by trying to recruit one of our agent's colleagues.
He placed an ad in a West Berlin newspaper designed to attract secretarial
help from the East Sector. Our agent's secretary answered the ad t Ku
behest), and Felfe informed us that he intended to recruit her as a
source. We then told him that we already employed her chief and asked
him to stop his approach since it might endanger our agent. As a result
of such activity by Felfe and the KGB, the hitherto unilateral Berlin
�-e.eear4
Base program against Karlshorst wasAcompromised.
There mm were also other cases of provocation to identify CIA agents.
One involved am a West German businessman, recruited by Berlin Base to
report on Soviet trade contacts, then approached by the KGB and targeted
against the West German and U.S. Embassies in Moscow. He was suspected
by the KCB of Western intelligence contacts. Therefore. the KGB closed
out all the agent's KGB requirerents except one, namely to spot, recruit
and maneuver into place a West German girl suitable to be a German Embassy
secretary. By introducing a CE factor urgently affecting German security,
the KGB succeeded not only in forcing revelation of the case to the MD,
but an actual turnover of the case to the BNB,
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BEC"Tosvi
VO FORBIO %So
,t,died>",4 .6:e4e4,,z
behavior while in Mbscow. Subsequently, she became the object of4so-
it6e "e-s144-
SOD/11dang1e" operation a Soviet lover
maisainesit potentially recruitable,
with Felfe
OM
MID Heel
Sr
ease, a Went German woman run by CIA lfe provoked revelation of our
interest by sending us reports accusing her of seriously insecure
Another ittegral pert of the Felfe case in then= NARCJIr
operation, which occurred in 19540 4nd the related COSO of Ludwig
Albert the following year. LILLI MUM is the German eryptonym
for &Soviet operation which ineolved the intentional COMTOM1Se
blithe MS of the fact that it had a eource in the BO field base
for CI operations.* To carry out this operation, the= prepared
comprehensive report on the personnel, orgenisation and some of
the operations of the Brip field boa*. in June 195k, a= agent
was sent to place this report in a deaddrep in Most Germany.
A second= agent vas *lib sent to confirm that the drop vas in
place, then go to the local police and recite a. pre-arranged story
of observing a man hide something at this spot. (This agent was
sdbsequently arrested and eonftesed his role in the deception.)
wa4 on a Else=
Three days later, e third OS cont
to srecomee the drop, with the intention that he unwittintil
walk into a police stakeout and, be arrested. The= judged
(correctly) that this particular *gent would quickly oonfess to
being dispatched by the ICSB, thus confirming= control of the
penetration." Through astikte police work, the operation was
unmasked as a Soviet deception, but the fact remained that the
Soviets did have a complete and accurate rundown on the activitiles
:of this field base and mast therefore have sainially had a penetration
reporting this information. SUbsequent investigation, in Which
YeIfe played an importaut role, centered on identification of this
agent. The report itself provided several clue!,anikSGB provocation crAd-Z7-e5,,t,
ted a week after the report was found may have been designed to
'provide additional clues pointing to Ludwig Albert, a senior officer
this base, A year later,
confessed Seat GOMM agent rixteered Albert, among others, as an
The German designation
Approved for
for this base was Grip
,
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-r-cc,7.-4.1:41d ext. Ke-d).
enti It cannot be proven that this "con-
fession was Soviet inspired, but circumstential evidence suggests
this was the case. Albert was arrested and later committed suicide;
� 4t42.4,4"..
evidence found in his home confirmed
Although there arcgaps In OUX'
enee
is lacking, the SZB purpose in the T17/1' MARL= and Albert cases
appears to have been three-fold!! First initial impetus for
LILLI MARLEN ssothave come from the defection of KGB officer Petr
Deryaln. Deryabin had served .1n the German CS branch in IGB
isadquarters and was partially Imawledgetible of KGB operations
ageinst the BOA The TIT3.1 Mg= operation, Which came just
four months after Deryabin's defection, may well have been designed
to divert Western investigation of his information. By creating
circumstances and feeding information *doh eventually led to the
arrest of Albert, the SUB apparently hoped to Shield a more
important or more reliable agent, Pelf., from investigation. A
144-t 4-
second purpose ems-771,..--� elinination f Albert vhc!Jalthough
an actuaS�aantj apparently become dispensable..laftener.
MIL (There are several possible explanations for this. One of
than relates to the fact that Albert had become a bitter enemy
of /elf* and had accused Yelfe of being a Soviet agent) piaimmer
And
third object vei o further thellEnt, overallAprogram of i,I,Pv
and discredi
eL�a121 er,i'vt.4-4g-
t in the EIND who bad been deliberately
se.
e years passed,
wklab-461090mollerdiett-Horneeep the deception operations became
increasingly complex. The BALWASAR operation was followed by
the increasingly complicated =A and LILLI eaaes, dis-
cussed Above. The f4 n] deception was the BUSCH ciase, *bleb
aborted in mid-plot as a result of Folfeis arrest! in 1961.
for
This IlliigiebAconvolutd-triple-think, a plot within a plot, Iihich is
far too complicated to eammari3e here. It is discussed in detail
Seryabin knew the 1COMI Gryptonyme ("Petee and "Poul") for both
Pelts and his co-conspirator, Clemena,lbut belies unable to
provide details shiCh would help �Stall& their identities.
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in Chapter IV. Its purpose may have been
FLiye a-f-e-4 Act 4- eee< ee�. 8ND,ae
or to ;eceive th
ug,.Agr
ibdimtimbs own securitA ebUt� fl-nce the opera i n endeA prematurely the
KGB rationale and specific objectives are by no means clear. Felfe
exposed himself to many risks to get the operation started so it
must have been destined for an important role.
BALTHASAR, LENA, LILLI MARLEN and BUSCH are all cases run on Soviet
initiative for the purpose of improving communications, increasing the
access of Felfeiamiikmalifietie�refsertmaVroi� or otherwise deceiving the
BNDe There is also an entirely different category of cases which merits
study. These are apparently clean operations, primarily double anent
operations, initiated by some West German servicetiich took curious
turns after their compromise by Felfe. Two of these, NVERSICHT and
ee
MERKATOR are described in annexes to this paper. , UVERSICHT was an
ete
.2( -
RU GSFG operation and MERKATOR an East German foreign intelligence
(1fS/HVA) operation, both initially doubled by the BfV.* They are
selected from among many such cases because in these two instances we have
confirmation from Lt. Col. Popov and an East German MfS/HVA defector
(Max Heim) that the KGB informed the handling services that their agents
had been doubled by the West Germans. The KGB 5peeffireet+lp asked the
RU and HVA to neither drop nor re-double these agents, but to continue
running them for source protection or deception purposes. We know the
date this happened and can trace the change in handling which occurred
after this date. In the case of 7UVERSICHT, the RU continued runnino
the case for four more years, bet devoted minimum effort to carrying
out the KGB instruction to keep the case alive. Because of this minimum
effort, RU communications with WVERSICHT became more and more "insecure,
from the agent's point of view. Felfe used this case to help create the
e-e-yee-eeee� .../etieeez4alib -e6Lx
*BfV is the German abbreviation for the Office for the rotection
of the Constitution, the principal West German internal security service.
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..40111m.
The casgAillustrates/limaginative use
of an
agent known to be controlled by the opposition. At-the
smrite=6-44me.!V-'ftwomicex�,lt also illustrates how inaccurate
reporting or faulty interpretation of information can
frustrate Soviet Bloc exploitation of such an agnt.
When the KGB advised the HVA that Merkato was a double
agent, responsibility for the case within the MfS/HVA
Headquarters was transferred to a CI componenet which ap-
parently also handled other cases known to be controlled
by Western services. Subsequent East German handling,
presumably under KGB supervision, indicated that the
aim was to cause the BND to distrust its immediate
supervisor, the State Secretary in the Chancellor's
office, by making him appear to be a suspect HVA agent,
and also to aggravate further the already existing distrust
on the part of the BND toward the BfV by providing the
former with evidence that the latter was penetrated by
the HVA. This attempt failed, however, becatw the
HVA assumed that the case was controlled by the BND when
in fact it was controlled by the BfV. As a result.,
most of the presumed intended impact of the HVA manipulation
was lost.
An interesting example of KGB exploitation of such an opposition-contraled
double agent is the Sokolov case, also desdribed in detail in an annex to this paper.
This case involved extensive coordination -- with Felfe in the middle of it --
between the BND, BfV and CIA in a joint operation to investigake the operations
of an RU officer named Sokolov in East Germany and 6.1"mrimir to induce Sokolov's defection
at the time his agents were rolled up. The defection of Sokolov never materialized,
but the West Germans did arrest five RU agents and identified about 200 additional
security suspects. The ease appeared to be a Western success, yet the KGB gave
Felfe a rare bonus for his contribution to the KGB side of the operation. The KGB
aTTemals to have 3thterla sacrificed willingly the RU agents in return for extensive
information on the inter-agency coordination procedures and evidence leading to the
arrest of Sokolov, who may well have been genuinely vulnerable to recruitment or
defection.
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sternpoint Of view, the case eventually came to involve
sev al interrelated double agent operation' which resulted in
invesOoation of roughly 200 seourity suspects ,a seem 4ply excellent
operatio lead to an RI Major (Sokolov) in East Geemany, and the
participatioA4', f nearly every German and American'intelligenceand
security serviceAn West Germany. By insertintl into MD
channels an agent wg claimed to be Sokolov's mistress as
s his
agent, and who hinted at he might be retruitable, the KG maneuvered the
0N[) (and, Felfe) into a con;rolling posttien in the operation. The BNO
inspired an interservice tas'keforceeto work on this case : a CIA liaison
A
officer worked full time, for si*:months, exclusively on this case.
CIA provided traces, guidance d Information o, RIS modus operandi and
organization.
Felfe's behavior on the task force
the case was pursued he direction h
incharacteristically passive �
d the KGB) desired w thoiit his
customary railing atkheincompetence pf his 1 eagues, althoug during
'
4,
, . 7
one period he did try to persuade th6 task forcto try to recruit Sokolov
4e ,. , ,
In place rather han defect'him.e-But most of the a , Felfe simply sat,
backandalloWedhimselftohetriefed by all partic
action phase of the operatidi proceeded smoothly: RU agents
many mor suspects identified, copsiderable esptonage eluipment,
Sovi /I sets captured, The West ,an serVices were
-roof that
ective and
eceived
one of th newest
very' pleasq with
close operational
amicable. But,
ants. The executive.%
arrested,
including
their "success.' .CIA wes impressed by
ljaison with the Gepan services could
KGB was also very pleased, and Felfeev-
....
a rare cash bor for his work. ,.The KGB achieved
Sokolov and .d a wealth/of informatten on, the operational
liaison p7tedures of esi6n services. Onl$ the RU was left ou
cold. F�&s co-cons ator, Clemens, whe was slower and less
sophi ticated than F fe,Lwas shocked that the KGR,deliberately allo
anagent from
dreste Felfe
-
probable arrest of
n the
t Germany to walk into a West Ge*Jan trap and be
Thity
Summary, the Soviets achieved through their various deception operations
a far broader exploitation of Felfe than would normally be considered possible.
By rigging an operation especially for Felfe, the KGB could answers from
&meet:maw elementiof the West German government in the guise of build-up
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By having double agents report Soviet interest in certain individuals,
Felts was provided with a cover for namedhecking themwith other
West German and Allied agencies. By creating various op
situations and complexities, the NCB could help relfe in
bureaucratic manipulations,
AnsalationsrByt
factor into anyEND case anylibers, the 1113B c
the case to be transferred to the protective custody of Pelf�.
By introducing a, Soviet Cl factor urgettly affecting German security
into the operation of any other agency, German or foreign, the
XGB could hope to bring ther case under !bites scrutiny.
When this valuable and versatile source vas endaftered by the
defection of a EGB officer able to report on SIB penetration Of
Oliglig the BRD, the 133B iroteetrYelfe's security by mounting
a deception operation which confirmed the existence of penetration
and *bleb vas icalbglity intended to divert the investigation to
a scapegoat selected by the 1013.
tional
There are certain common lenominetors which run through all
the major deception operations discussed in this stuay. These
areal follows;
a. To pursuit of larvalaire,ob.lectives, the XOB was
willing to sacrifice agents (their own as veil as mu, BU
and Zest German agents), ease officer time, money, good
information, and apparently new equipment and procedures
I.
b. The NB had a veil-placed penetration, Felts,
in a positeon to monitor the target service's reaction to
and handl4ng of each deception. frequently, this penetration
benefited from the deception.
The operations were aggressive
at times grandiose in their conception and planning, but
their execution was frequently inept by comparison. They
worked only because of the naiveaof many BO officers
ts
and sne rigid compartmentation within the BED, which in this
ease was a. disadvantage 44 it prevented pieces of the puzzle
from coming together in one place. Quite a few CIA officers
in liaison with the BBD felt at the time that these operations
tive and
were0 .114m-A IMis gni niiariiiChffieer responsible for
pir
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M. POUT Gr
BED security during part of the period in question frrink3y
thought they *smelled" and vere indicative of penetration.
Particularly in the light of (xereet knowledge of NOB :soft*
operandi (including this study of the relfe case), it is
quite possible for an alert CI officer to detect such deception
knd diversionary operations.
The source material for this per and varied.
Zven though relfe never confessed to anything more than could be
demonstrably proved against his, some of his statements have been
helpful. Re was supported throagOut his agent carewrbytso
other agents Oho have been more frank and whose testimony has been
found generally reliable. These agents were less important
and less knoWledgeable than Yalta, but their information has been
useful in reconstructing the case. CIA had intimate 14erison vith
the END and BIT cone erting the operations discuseed in this paper
and was directly involved in several of them. Additional insight
into BAD bovoling of these cases was received unofficially through
close personal contacts with several of the END officers. This
includes information on disagreements within the BND coicerning
the interpretation and handling of these operations, and the exact
role played by Pare in the intra-service maneuvering. In Several
instances we know the facts frwl defectors or from 0Mo-controlled
penetration source. CIA was also intimately involved inthe
investigation of Waite both before ehd after his arrest. Th
'while there are same gaps in our information, our knowledge of
this period of intelligence history in Germany is probably hleost
as complete as it ever could be without a fall confession by
Waite or a first-hand account from his case officer.
j-iziN W
Yk6 C-- 10A)
fkcl E
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rt-yry,T113
assume the responsibility for the organize:U.5mnd th
trusteeship which was tc last for seven years. (et'4Ii;A-4-64-e/trt)
L-t
Kr:\ LIkrief- hife
The history of the Felfe penetration has its beginning
in the early post-war years. The spotting of people like Heinz
Fere by the Soviet intelligence services was not accidental
but the result of a well-targoted* well-developed recruitment
campaign directed against tomer police and intelligence officers
of the Maxi Balch. Ther4113=Ywas simple: old intelligence bends
will flock together* will seek; to return to the volt they know
best. Some o
ese people might be susceptible to &Soviet
epproach because of their general sympathies. Others* such as
(5D)
former Elite Guard (SO)! and Security Service ($) members, many
of *haw. wereinov war criminals able to maks their way nn3y by
hiding apast which had once put thew among the elite, vould
be vulnerable to Werirmoill. The Soviet spotters were to be found
slmost everywhere in ZUxope - last and West - in the POW camps*
in the war crimes screening commissions* in the courtrooms. The
future West German intelligence and security services covlA be
penetrated almott emesibefi they were created.
Npin 604
the closing days of the
len
of the Fremde Haere Oat (1210)** had brought the remnants of his
files and personnel to 0-2* U.S. Amor, for Shoe hMesented a
0
vain:111e and relatively unique source of information on Soviet
order-of-battle. Under 0-2's Agin his group burgeoned until
by 1949 it bad become recognized as the primary Western agency
for the collection of Soviet OS and hventually of CI informstion
in the Soviet occupied zone of Germany. It was a loosely knit
orgnization made up predominantly of former military intelligence
(hbvehr) and PO officers who were held together by the officer's
� code of honor and individual bonds of friendship. From an institutional
-point of view* however, the problems of control* responsibility
and security were serious. 1G-2 asked CIA to
IOW
Annex 7 for a glossary of German terms used inthis paper.
General Staff section dealing with infOrmation concern
as of countries to the Zest of Germany'
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To the outsider and to its enemies, the Gehlen Organization looked much
more like an American puppet than it actually was.
many ach4ev
ilettreanye
Inst-
rn
defecte Berl 1 n: and ,011,,,t-47*--bita.s_of
were-ableetteeeep o- 4ntensify
JOS
Ey rid-1952;m* work against various of Gehlen's
field bases had been successful, but an agent working on Soviet operations
inside the headquarters organization in Pullach was reportedly still
lacking.* Particularly successful had been the KGB work against Gehlen's
field base for CE and CI operatiens whic was located in Karlsruhe.
Arai
Within the Gehlen Organization this4ase was designated as GV"L"," and it
will be referred to by that designation throughout this paper. GV 1" was
especially attractive to the KGB. The major part of its work involved tee
recruitment and handling of informants in other German agencies for the
ostensible purpose of protecting the security of these agencies. The
same base was also responsible for running double agent operations
against the Soviets, a function which brought its personnel into direct
contact with Soviet controlled aoents. It Was especially vulnerable
because it was heavily staffed by former SO and SS personnel who in
order to maintain their jobs were obliged at least prooma to conceal
their background, and who still suffered to some extent from old social
and professional caste rivalries which kept the former Abwehr and FHO
officers in ascendency. In reaction to this situation there had gradually
Oil
*Primary 'source of informationAearly KGB work in Germany is Petr Deryabin.
who was assigned to the State. Security headquarters desk responsible for CE
work in Germany from May 1952 to September 1953. He read the Headquarters file
on the Gehlen Organization in July 1952 and has stated that as of that date
there were Soviet agents in the field bases but no evidence of a Soviet agent
in the Gehlen headquarters; however, we cannot rule out the possibility tha
there may have existed restricted files to which he had no access. Ernst )
a Gehlen Headquarters officer working on Czech operations, came under veey-e,
strong suspicion of being an agent for some Eastern service in the/Fall of 1952.
**The GV stands for General veAmIl6g -- General . _�7 _
is an arbitrary designation.
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developed within GV"L" a sort
of mutual aid society of ex-SS and SD
personnel for self-protection and professional advancement. This
group was particularly susceptible both to simple blackmail and to the
somewhat more complicated appeals of revenge or vindication.* It was
,t4L/7,D- vree4X--,
through this base, GV"L", that teNS4uralor-
c*Sigelagoemetre etleetes--ofee,litelpgtskteg was launched.
a. Backvound Information on Felfe
---->
Heinz Felfe was born in Dresden in 1918, the son of a criminal
police inspector. He started his own police career at the age of 13 as a
volunteer in a border unit. In 1938 he was inducted into an SS reserve
unit, and from then on his schooling, legal training, and subsequent assign-
ment to a job in the Criminal Police was guided and fostered by the SS.
In 1943 he went into the foreign intelligence section of the Reich
Central Security Office (RSHA), where he worked first in the Swiss section
at headquarters, then in Holland - for a while under Schreieder of "Nordpol"
fame. He finished the war as a 1st Lt. (Obersturmfuehrer) in the
militarized branch of the Nazi Elite Guard (Waffen SS) and as a prisoner
of the British. He was an average looking individual with no distinguishing
physical characteristics. Of the many recorded impressions of him from
various stages of his career, certain personality traits dominate: a
highly intelligent man with very little personal warmth; a person with
a high regard for efficiency, and for authority, but susceptible to
flattery; venal; and capable of almost childish displays of vindictiveness.
Naturally a devious person, he enjoyed the techniques of engineering a
. *A variety of formal and informal secret Nazi r izations have existed
since the end of the Second World War. The KGB haha ch success in
penetrating and controlling these groups from their inception, and using them
as recruitment pools and as propaganda weapons. One of the most interesting
reports on this subject was provided by the senior Polish Intelligence (UR)
officer Michel Goleniewski, and concerns an origanization which he called
HAM. Information on HACKE is in Annex A. It shows how early and how
thoroughly the KGB penetrated and manipulated hard-core Nazi groups, especially
the former intelligence and security officers. These operations were the logical
outgrowth of the KGB's wartime operations and began even before the war was
over. They still have ramifications in mei, areas of the world where former
Naztehave settled.
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good deception in his profession. He was brilliant as an elicitor of
information, an excellent listener and an operations officer of such
generally recognized capability that from time to time he was given
special "vest-pocket" operations to manage for the chief of his
German service. Infinitely cool and brazen in the face of danger,
thoroughly aware at all times of what he was doing,
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WI ?Qpp DFILirm,
Felts was the "ice-coldcalculator" as he once 1miringly described
his favorite agent, The only Mealy emotions detectable in him
are hisAftehadieseem* enjoymont of the game and his disdain for
his fellow man. Thesis, together with his greet admiration for
Soviet 'power and efficiency, seem to home sustained him throughout
his career and imprisonment His attachment to his wife and two
Children seems to have been .:.elatively perfUnctory As for his
colleague in espionage for ton year* and friend in adversity
of even longer standing, Hens Clemens -Pelf. found his in the end
merely a convenient scapegoat.
AS a British POW, Felts was interned at B
interrogation center near Utrecht, which spec
in the
interrogation of former German intelligence pereonnel. It is
possible that his name nal* to Soviet attention through an agent
among the Dutch interrogators. One of Felfess fellow- risoners
a former SD officer named Helmut Proebsting, reported to Dutch
authorities in 1946 that he and Pelf* had been approached by
MMX WeeSeTf the interrogators, to work for the Soviets. But
Felts denied that any such incident bad occurred, When confronted
with this information after his errest, This is one of a number
of suspicious points in Felfe's background 'which could have been
uncovered by an aggressive Investigation long before his arrest.
Felts returned from the var in November 1946 with the
deter-
sinatiori to settle in the Western zone of Gereany, although his home
bed onaistently been in Dresden, whasaM the Soviet oc
Ni. wife and Child joined him at the end of the year. S
difficult months followed until he finally found work es en agent
for a British military intelligence unit (Sixth Area Intelligence
Office, BAOR). His task:was to develop information on Communist
student groups at the University of Bonn. Under British instruction
he settled himself in the Bonn erlie, registered in the F*culty of Lew
and joined the Communist Faly(KPD). In the course of his work
he msde several trips to East Berlin and to East Germany to
observe student rillies from Which he took off on his own
initiative to visit his mother in Dresden. Here again the
possibility of Soviet targeting estate. Felts says that on
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one of these trips, in 1948, his Fiother warned him that someone in the
town had recognized him and reported him as a former SS officer. On
another occasion, he says, he was arrested by tttpolice. but quickly
released at the intervention of his host an official of the East
German Ministry of Public Education.
The British finally dropped Felfe in April 1950 for serious
operational and personal securit!, reasons, none of whiclunfortunate Y,
came to the attention of the Gehlen Organization in any very detailed
or forceful form until long after Felfe was entrenched in it. British
files on Felfe were received by the BO in 1961 and by CIA in 1962.
These revealed that early complaints against Felfe included attempts
to sell information collected for the British to several other
intelligence agencies, two West German news services and to the East
German Socialist Unity (i.e., Communist) Party (SED). They also
contained an account of Felfe's attempt to involve thP British in a
double agent operation with the Soviets, as well as various agent reports
showing that he had blown himself as a British agent to all and sundry,
including the West German Communist Party he was supposed to be
penetrating, and that he was guilty in general of "sharp practice' and
"varnishing of the truth." As specific grounds for dismissal, the
British told Felfe that his refusal to give up undesirable contacts
with former SS personnel could no longer be tolerated. Specifically,
they named Helmut Proebsting and Hans Clemens. Clemens was an old
Dresden friend and former colleague from the foreign intelligence
arm of the RSHA. ,
After leaving the British, Felfe continued to work against the
Vest German Communist Party for the Land security office (LfV) in
Nordrhein-Westfallen, to which ha had already been reporting on the
side while a British military intelligence agent. He incurred the
wrath of this organization on at least two serious counts: for
having sent a teport on it to a contact in East Germany and for
having tried to peddle the plans for the BfV charter, which he had
somehow acquired from someone in the Finance Ministry, to a West
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German newsman. From the LfV Felfe went to the ministry for All-German
Affairs,* where he worked as an interrogator specializing in refugees
knowledgeable on the East German People's Police (V0P0). He remained
at this job, eventually writing a study of the VOPO for the Ministry)
until his recruitment into the nehlen Organization in 1951.
b. Background Information on Clemens
Anyone who has tried to understand Germany knows that bonds of common
local origin are often far strorger than the larger national concept. The
fellowship of former Dresdeners is a thread which runs very heavily
throughout this story. Both Hans Clemens and Felfe were from Dresden,
and their recruitment by Soviet intelligence was directed by the KGB
office in Dresden.
Clemens had been chief of en SD field office in Dresden in the late
thirties, when he had worked against the German Communist Party (KP0).
Later he was posted to RSHA Amt VI (foreign intelligence), where he
learned to know Felfe well, and subsequently he went to the SD command
In Rome. At the end of the war he was captured by Italian partisans
and interned in various British and U.S. POW camps. In 1948 he was
Indicted, and acquitted, during the well-publicized trial of his chief,
the Nazi Police Attache Herbert Kappler, notorious for the murder of Italian
hostages in the Ardeatine Caves. At some point during his captivity he
learned that his wife Gerda, in gresden, with whom he had been
corresponding, had been sleepily) with Soviet officers. He claimed that
this knowledge severed his already weakened affections for her And decided him
In favor of resettling in West rather than Cast Germany after his release
from POW camp. He settled in Vest Germany in October 1949, but continued
to remain in loose correspondence with his wife, through whom he had
learned the whereabouts of some of his old friends. One of these was
*At the time, this organization was known as the Kaiser Ministerium.
It became the Ministry for All-lerman Affairs when Germany regained its
sovereignty in 1955. The latter name is used here for simplicity and
clarity.
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Erwin Tiebel, a fellow-Dresdener then practising law quietly in
a small town in the Rhineland. Tiebel had at one time been a
confidential informant for Clemens in the Dresden SD. Later, he
.had been assigned to the Swiss ;iesk of RSHA. VI, where he had also
known Felfe. He was to become 6 support agent for Clemens and
Felfe in their work for the Soviets.
Felfe had already looked up Tiebel in 1947. Clemens wrote
to him from
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killing
verses
She reported to a KOMI Colonel called "Max" in an office in the
Soviet Command, Dresden, which according to Clemens, wee concerned with
tracking down farmer police aii intelligence officers fraa the Dresden
area who were liable for war crimes.
later told
angled to reet him utter his relsais. A le
1949, addressed to the Rolfe family and
ends were knotted very soon after the
. Tiebel was on a list of war cem4rials
ana there is some suggestion that
Garda Clemona was working as A Soviet agent
probably bid been since the end of the
itiah case officer. ger cover name was
Clemens bed been bit as much
be declared bimeelf sore frank
of versals coarse and probdhly brut
were more real and meaningful than Pelf*
Ar a It i as Pelfe with the LUff
entially a less complicated
Clemens' human attachments
Where one has the iapressian
tioni eg
that Pelf, never mode armors without a reazon or reccaVenee, one cOM tmegoveo
Clemens asking a gratuitous or spamteneoss gesture of loyalty or frieneVh1114
11412f0 considered Clams= his cultural ard intellectual inferior Which is
correct in a certain eenee. But after tis arrest, berimetended that the
older man Clemens is 16 years Pelfe's senior - had exercised a dominating
and pernicious influence over hint by drawing him into the Soviet service
end making him stay there. Througheut their BaD careers, however, they remained good.
friends, and Clemons labia post-arrest statement claimed that there had
never been any friction or rivalry between thme in their Soviet work.
Within a remarkably Short
about two months - Max vent Garda Clemens to Vest
to
with a
t..
meat proposal for her husband. This oceurred just at the end oti99 or
possibly in early AnwerY 1950. Clamart claims that the situation was
perfectly clear to him comply or face rbm. gas. Mbreover, he had no
steady job, he needed mammy, and be vez also intrigued by the idea of
a secret contact. MO discussed the situation with both Ftlfe and Tiabel.
While none of the three seems to have opposed outright the idea of accepting
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SD D'ISSEU
a
tertain 4.1he notion of try1ni to offer
Clemens even ta3lced to an official
toly, the latter u?uabed hint off
Felfe may have offered Clams
Alibis British case officer in
hte had. already tried unsuccess
to sell his to the Britith
as an 586nt. (] also tried to persuade thus to recruit Tiebel.) This
*ftcat hati merely earned. his the admonition to stay away from his old
ine for someone supposed to penetrate the
1950 Pelfailvied again, this time offering
Clemens as a itSoviet double 'agent. A letter dated 25 ammery 3.950
from Tiebel to Felfe states that Clemens had already agreed in principle
to cooperate vitt' the Soviets in Dresden. The British files contain a
memo of a visit by Pielte to his case offtcer on 29 Jhnuary 1950, during
which he reported that Garda ClOCOMB had. arrived two days earlier and
vas planning to rata= Shortly to Dreedea with her bPstAnA in order to put
biz in touch with the XD26 The Mritish lingered apply briefly over the
decision of whether to play Clemens as a double agent* Shortly after
Pelfe's proposal, evidence of his double-dealing with the IfV became
evident, sal be confessed to having sent a report on that orgenization
to an, Shot Gerson Communist Phrty contact in East Berlin. Vhen Prim
Clime= appeared in Germany again in early Aprill and ftlfe tried once more to
persuade his employers to undertake an o_peration, the Dritish case officers
came to the declaim that they ahould drlp Poire and list Clemensas
� security risk" By this time, of course, Clemens was no longer .ust a
scurir risk; be had already gout to Dresden and becomeaSoviet agent.
In ribrunrY 1950 Clemens vent to Dresden, where be vas led by
bis wife to meet Colonel Mix in the Soviet "Valdsehloesschen" Compound.
Ore, Max debriefed Clemmeis on his life history and present contacts
lectured him on his cuipdbility as an SD cr4m4m1, probed his feelings
of contusion and resentment, listened. cceetructively 'while Clemens deliver
ed himself of a long pent-up statement of his hatred for the Americans.
(They had been tvide the cause of German defeat, etc., had smadhed his
home town and caused the death of at least five of his relatives.) Mix
at this point took Clemens on a tour of bombed-out Dresden end, at the
tide of Clemens' emotional reaction, offered Milan opportunity of
revenge against the Americans. The proposal vas clear cut and precise:
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as a Soviet agent Clemens was to return to the Western zones, seek out
old police and SD contacts and through them try to penetrate the Gehlen
Organization. The Gehlen Organization was an "Amiladen" (an American
shop), and any blow aimed at it was a blow at the Americans. Clemens
agreed: for money, for a personal cause, and to be on the side of
power, but not, he insisted, because of any special sympathy toward the
Russians. (Here, as in many other cases, are strains of the old Nazi
theme of German superiority to Russians.) He signed himself on as a
Soviet agent with the cover name Peter:" later he used German girls'
names. At this first meeting Clemens provided Max with a list of
potential recruits in which he included the names of both Felfe and
Tiebel. Clemens says he was very impressed by Max and by his
psychological adroitness: Max was civil, sober, authoritative,
knowledgeable, but most importart - as both Clemens and Felfe have
stressed many times - he never pushed or threatened directly. His
watchwords were to proceed slowly and naturally.
When Clemens returned to West Germany he told Tiebel and Felfe
the whole story and was able without much difficulty to recruit them,
in turn, for Max. (Clemens states it was perfectly clear to his
friends that Max's target was the Gehlen Orqanizaticn. Felfe claims
that he did not understand that this was the case until much later.)
When Tiebel paid his first visit to Dresden some months later, he
received much the same treatment as had Clemens, with perhaps
greater emphasis on the threat of war crimes indictment. He
received the cover name "Erich," which he kept throughout his agent
career. Felfe, who by this time was working as a refugee interrogator
in the Ministry for All-German Affairs, resisted making the trip east
for another year. He did, however, submit reports to Clemens. Tiebel
was later to be used as a courier.
Clemens was able to carry out his assirenment for Max with amazinn
rapidity. In March 1950 he came across an old acquaintance from the
Dresden police named Wilhelm Krichbaum who was then employed in a
sub-unit of GV"L" in Bavaria. Through him Clemens was able to join
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the Gehlen Organization in June of 1950 as a registry clerk and
courier for the same unit. (Clemens' Gehlen Organization alias
was "Cramer.') Krichbaum himself was later to become highly
KC. 13/
suspect as an early.MM/Dresden penetration of the Gehlen
Organization, but it is not known whether or not he wittingly
maneuvered Clemens or Felfe in the organization for the Soviets.
Clemens remained in Krichbaum's unit for two years, during which
time he reported on the organization and personnel of both the
Bavarian unit and its parent base, GV"L , and on anything else
that came his way. His reports were typed on thin paper and hidden
in cans of powdered milk which he sent periodically to his wife in
Dresden. He collected reports from Felfe whenever they had the
opportunity to meet and sent them on in the same way. (Since Felfe is
reported, in British files, as having made a trip to Southern Germany
within a few days of trying to sell the plans for the BfV charter to a
news service, it is a good guess that these documents might also have
found their way into one of Clerens milk cans.) There was relatively
little communication from Max; what there was was handled by Gerda
Clemens, who served as courier and mail drop.
When Felfe's work for the finistry for All-German Affairs drew to
a close in September 1951, he agreed to make his first visit to Max in Dresden.
At about the same time Clemens recommended him to Krichbaum as a reliable and
experienced intelligence officer and Krichbaum arranged for his employment
by the Gehlen Organization. Although Felfe will not admit it, it seems
likely that there was a definite cause and effect relationship between the
timing of his availability for work in the Gehlen Organization and his trip to
Dresden. Max was primarily interested in the Gehlen Organization as a target,
and presumably it was at the point when Felfe was actually able to penetrate
his target that Felfe became of importance. There is some suggestion in our
records - no evidence - that Felfe might really have been recruited earlier,
but even if this is so his serious Soviet work probably did not begin until
o.
he was properly accredited Vest German intelligence officer.
A
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Around the first of September 1951 Felfe flew to West Berlin, where
he was met by Gerda Clemens, who c nducted him to Max in the East Sektor,
Max drove him to the Soviet Compound in Karlshorst, where he questioned
Felfe on his background - Felfe said he appeared to be very
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veil informd about him already - and gave hin the general lectLre on
guilt. Pelf* admits that he 'wrote a declaration of willingness "to
work for ac4 but claims he did not sign a pledge to wort for Sovillet
intelligence as such. He received the cover name "Ileuir Me tells us
very little about this first visit) be says be was veil vined and dined
in tni Karlshoret safehouse where he spent the night and that Ilex mede
a great effort to establish a friendly, sociable atmosphere. He says
Mix gave him no iestructions at this meeting. %ether this is true
or not, subsequent events played themselves out exactly to Max's wishes. IR
111111111111116
Onthe 26th of October Felts wee -ailed to
interview
as an assistant to the arxr chief for Soviet Cl opera
bief of GV"Ir. He made a good
/Wile
and requested to begin work on 15 Novesiber. (Plelfe's Gehl= Organization alias
vasPriesen) Felt. and CaMMOnn celebrated the event that night with
a good dinner. Sometime shortly after this and before he actually began
work, Fere Void his second visit to Mex. This time Mem vent more- dearly
into questions of motivation and access. Se took POMO on the tour of
Dresden and discussed at some length the need for ISloviet-Vest German
understanding. He stressed the theme of crInisisitty of SS membership
and the fact that Pelts vould need Soviet protection to keep hisIgivrY
job and to keep his record hidden. Havinel=p4-41-"IZ into the
organisation, Max was now concermed to maneuver his to the noat desirable
spot. Sigrificantly, be anked !elf. to try to get himself poetSd to the
GablenIieadvarters. Again, he stressed the need ?safe would have for
Soviet Orctection, yarning his that even if his SS nomirk3erinap were
not discovered he vtuld alms run tilt, risk of losing his job in the
intelligence service because of some flap which might not even be his
fault. These 'words were someWhat more than prophetic, for even then
vire brewing in various parts or the lehlen Organisation, and particularly
in GV"L" and its sub-units the first in a series of scandalous "defecti id-
mappings" and oecurity "incidents" 'which were ensdneemudvholly or in
part by the Soviets as part of a campaign to discredit and disorient
the drganization. Mile several Athose scandals vere to erupt in Pelf's's
vicinity, noes was to endanger him during the period he was in GV"IP.
741fe remaimed at GV"I" for the next 21 months,�Novenber 3.951 to
6 k; G
17-0 le!
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August 1953
transfer to
Belle became very impressed with the youngnan's energy and ability.; and
he himself moved to th tdcjuartrs CE Group to lock on Soviet
trgsta be opened the door for elfe's future career as a Soviet CZ
expert.t)
again, a
is much conjecture
on the Soviet side.
�1
t0 4rro. 1422! Ver6
assistant to Belle and, later, after Billable
s in July 1952, as the main Soviet CE referent.
the case of Krichbavm, stands a question mark; there
considerable evid*niv that Thsile, too was working
Hiring Cleth,10zi
in the story we have more or less accepted Clemons
statements concerning their recruitment by the B. But
there is a t deal in their own adm!_asions concerning their early
post-war years which suggests that Felfe might have been recruited by
the MB in list Germany in the O's rather than the 1950's. The detailed
resealing behind this speculation is peripheral to the main story and
is not Inc 3e here, but it is interesting to mote that When the defector
Miche1-%
l Golenieviki read Felfels testimouy be immediately same to the
IMMO conclusion. Goleniewski is the **filar Polish intellignnes (n)
officer who provided the lead which eventually led to Filfe's arrest. Be
sold he thought Felts had probably been recruited while marking for the
British and traveling to the Kest. Our best guess is that this vauld
have been in 1948, when he was allegedly arreeted by the lest German Felice
mad released after intercession by a besefactor in the Education Ministry.*
But Pelf* could well have been recruited area earlier than this. 4nieveki
him in
Berbeinheuerkae. Theuerkauf's boss in the
Rudolf Boehm, yea a notorious KGB spotter in last
when 1ENA ostensIbly became a Ciehleu Organisation
the KGB, he reported that it was Boehm who had put
KGB.
e
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surmised.that it waleklenseuggleof Felfe who spotted Clemens to the KGB,
which then assigned the "recruiteent" of Felfe id to Clemens as a
t es t Clemons tv.ioNimf4ra44.,�iaimw the wiser. Golenlewski thought
the Soviets did not employ this technique of "concealed recruitment'
(the writer's terminology) very often, but claimed to have seen it
often enough to be completely familiar with the method.* Certainly
Clemens' account of his recruitment of Felfe makes it appear that
Felfe had been waiting for it with open arms.
There are also alternate explanations, of the circumstances
ceeqeefeefic 'S
surrounding the Gehlen Orgainzation's hiring. of Clemens and Felfe,
circumstances which were probably unknown to Clemens and perhaps
also to Felfe. Wilhelm Krichbeum, who was responsible for both of
them being hired by the Gehlen Organization, was himself a highly
suspect individual. Although it cannot he proven, there is a
distinct possibility that the hiring was manipula
Krichbaem was a formeeAbseeiweete
witness at the Nuremberg trials hem from 1947 to 1948 and then
entered the Gehlen Organization in early 1950. There is a report
that he had some sort of contact with the KGB in Dresden as early
as 1946. In April 1952 he was relieved of his Job in the Gehlen
Organization as a result of investigations which followed the
arrest of KGB agents Pongee and Verber in Vienna. Fenger had
been using Krichbaum as a source of information on the Gehlee
ed by the KGB.
/4e:0:eel A:zee)
who served as a
-*An example of "concealed recruitment which occurs in the LENA case
is perhaps significant because the LENA case was in so many respects a
sort of overt shadow play of Felfe's secret KGB career. LENA reported in
early 1954 that he had spotted a close business colleague of his for the
KGB. He said his KGB case officer told him he himself would recruit LENA's
colleague and then instruct him- to recruit LENA in turn as a subsource.
LENA should pretend to accept the approach without admitting that he
already was a Soviet agent and responsible for the other man's recruitment
in the first place. In this way the KGB would have an excellent double
check on the new agent and LENA himself would enjoy a slightly greater
degree of security since he and the other man were very close professional
colleagues. (Readers familiar with the LENA case will recognize here an
episode involving Dr. Scurla of the "Verlag der Nation.")
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Organization and had also/been Irvine through him to arrange for the
oND�
hiring of yet another suspect K14. aggntp After his arrest, Ponger
1-
request from Alfred. In the end Pell* had beccee much mo lust
leer scientist prebiblY in respernse to a specific
a siwpme servant of the KGB. (It's doubtful if he ever thought of himself
as such.) Evidence from intercepted CA171, broadcasts sell, of course,
as Pelfe's own statement* - shoes that Alfred often asked Felts for advice
about the Soviet banning of certain operations. This included advice on
the Soviet handling of BED-KGB double agents and the tieing and tenor
of KGB propaganda operations. Pelf. htd become in many vays something
f a consultant to the KGB, as veil as an agent.
In spite of the fact that in many vays Pelfe
position, there is evidence that in 1960 be vas
move on to a aew job. This we the post of secur
KM almost ideti
tea by the KGB to
ricer for the EIND
Communications Oat. At this time, discussions were underlay for the
(comiNT)
establishment of the IND as the Oermen communications intelligencep!uthor-
ity. Pelf, knew that the poet of communications security chief was shortly
to b ecome vacant, through the retirement of ita ineusibent, and he probably
1411 e-vs,
4041,00 that the job would assume greater importance once the COMINT agree-
ment vas signed. 1St submitted his application for the post early and
worked bard to Ian himself as the next candidate. 10 many respects,
however, this is .job Vhith might not have interested him as muCh as
his old one, and it is curious that he tried so herd to get it. /n
his post-arrest etatementsjhe vent to great pains to claim that the KGB
was definitely against having him transfer, but there is sufficient evidence
(including intercepted telephone ccesents between Pelf* and Clemens) to
suggest that the opposite is true. If so, then the obvious
Wepli
lags outt Abe KGB aceebteetweemosimmitie have asked an agent who vas
facto chief of the BED Soviet CR Section to give up this job unless
had a replacement with equal or better *mese
the-diffiult inoblen
ough Peli*1 to
balm f' by various i
recruianother
/
in 0C3eetrat4I's opinion,/
have vtrkild for the Soviets f
source in the BED to them
idea of
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For almost ever,
of Felfe's stover xistence
of &wog-
story information vas entered in the files of same Western agency. Wort-
unatelyi no one agency, much less tbe BED, had it all until shortly
before his arrest. Both Clemens and Pelf* have praised Soviet security
practices as greatly superior to those of the INID, and their account of
the KGB handling shows a continuing concern irith operational eecurity.
The veakness Of the Soviet operation cannot be laid so much at Alfred's
) (-
door as at Felfe's and Clemens �. The weakness, of course, was built: in:
the c3',nl abmasa and susceptibility of the ex-SD off iceri which drew
them to KGB attention in the first place5also bore the seeds of an eventual
breakdown. Felfe and Clemens refused the discipline of maintaining contact
via an insisted on keeping up their lateral communications and
their trips East to Meet the KGB officers. One can at least understand vhat
psychology sight have motivated the two agents in their refusal of the
impersonal and rechanical:conanunications system) but their stubborts
vas disastrous and as time passed their operational practices became more
and more lax. Mat saved them for so long ims the fact - over which they
had little or no control - that no thorough investigation was ever made
of either Pelf* or Clemens by any one agency. The END, hamstrung between
the requirements of "respectability" and the need for experienced personnel,
did not (at the time Aare and Clemens vere recruited) perform background
checks on new employees and did not routinely trace them with other agenctibs.
Instead it tried to rely on rigid internal compartmentation as its primary
security technique.
Al early as April 1959 )British files contained sufficient derogatory
information on. Fere to make anyone vary at the very least. Aside from
information an such general and COMM= post-mar sins as the falsIfication
of personal history statements, "insecure" talk, and information peddling to
several agencies at once, the British file contained: (a) Felfe's report
on Gorda Clemens' attempt to recruit her husband for the KGB in Dresden,
an indication that Clemens night have accepted recruitment, and Felfe's
offer of Clemens to the British as a &VOA agent; (b) Felfe's admision
that he had sent a report on a unit of the LfV Nordrhein-Nostfallen to
a contact in the SED in East Berlin; (c) a report that Felfe had attempted
to peddle to at leant two Nest German nem agencies the charter of the
proposed Bflf Which was about to be presented to the Ministry of Finsnce for
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approval. The history ofwith Nix
albett end Helmut Prciebsting 1 as well
es indications of untrustworthi s possf.ble theft an.general "varn
iShing of the truth". Some of this intonation vas aMa available in
gement." terms to the END in Jenuary 1958/when the BOD requested traces
on Felts in the course of their 1946-57 investigation of bin.
Cie had a certain amount of derogatory information on Pelt, by the f*U
of 1954, mostly from indwig Albert, who had become aware of the existence
of black Jerks ealinst Polfe in the WV and the Federal Crimine, Office
through his own early Clitoris. Cle els� had the report of Nee Wessel's allebed
tow **waft* to Felfe.
By 3.956 CIA had what Cie bad, a hough in condensed tor*, without
source description. It also boa Deryibin's information in early
which 4141.1cated the aistence of two EGE agents ilk the Malmo Organisation
with the cover mames"leter" *ad "Paul" (Clemens' ad Filfe's cover mama
at the ius), but umfortuately Deryabia wm9ale to provide details to
help identify the agents.* After 1957, when CIA officers began to work
more closely with Felts, the file of suspicious, or at least puzzling:
it about bin grew. For example, in February 1957 a CIA officer from the
liaison base in NIumicb/Pullach occompanied Fere on a trip to Berlin. The
purpose of the trip as a special meeting 'with LENA, at Which, Pelf* said,
be hoped to obtain additional detail' comeerming an earlier LENA report that the
En vas targeting a hessosecual officer of the U.S. Department of Stets stet
load in Berlin.** After ?WO and his C/A liaison officer had already
arrived in Derlikaad separated, Berlin Base received a cable indicating
that Gin. Gables as concerned *bout Felfess safety and bed requested that
he be usder CIA's 0 bour-a-der protectios. Wes this one of Geblen
flashes of intuition, and could Ise have trAwpected the truth even them?
This possibility cannot be rejected out of band.) After this cable see
received, the CIA liaison officer reabboriag remerk Pelf. had Ode
earlier in the day that be intended to to a movie it 1133Cite
Etryabin
lee of
it At thtlt point ia
irvestigation into the beCkgrounds of
derogatory intonation awl possille :.ndicaticae of
pert eta number of END employee*.
** IhiefiXe typical diversictzr tto. CIA's Berlin Base and the
State Depertment security office a considerable effort to investi
LEKA's report. The investigation over a jeer, until it vas
With no conclusive result.
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hotel at 2030 hours. Pelfe was not there, nor had he returh4,4 by four in
the morning when our sleepy officer decided to abandon his vigil.
Located in his hotel at 0800 the next morning, Felfe invited our
liaison officer to breakfast. Without being asked to account for his
time, Felfe volunteered that he had gone to the movie at 1830, had
had something to eat and a drink, and had then gone to another movie
at 2230. Again without being asked or dhallengedl he exhibited two
movie tickets. This voluntary display of props to support a story
struck the liaison officer as quite unusual. Equally unusual was the
fact that the stub was torn off only one of the tiekets, and that even
if Felfe had in fact attended the second movie it would not have lasted
Until some time after four o'clock in the morning. The liason officer
did not reveal his suspicions to Fate, but he did prepare a apeatiar
-e
-e-Aidagaik report on this disapppearing actire.,4-ee,
/' uftl&d7
The BND had Ludwig Albert's denunciations of Felts as early as
1953, but these went unheeded. Albert made a practice of denouncing
many of his colleagues who transferred from GV"L" to thelfieadquarters
CE units and, furthermore, was not entirely above suspicion himself.
The first concerted investigation of Felfe of which we have record was
begun by the BND 1956 on the official grounds of 'Suspected SD and
Eastern Connection
When the BND traced tile British in the course
of this investigation, they received a memo on 21 January 1958 generally
outiining Felfe's insecure and deceptive practices as a British agent and
specifically pointing out suspicious contact with Helmut Proebsting
and "the EIS attempt to recruit ClemenR!) The memo did not contain an
account of- Felfe's having offered Clemens to them as a double agent. In
addition, the British pointed out that as late as August 1957:. Felfe had
attempted to establish an unofficial connection to a British intel3jigence
officer in Duesseldorf. None of this seems to have stirred the BND part-
icularly. Felfe was called in and asked, in a vaftscHkalforma manner,
about his SD connections. Fate, equally pro forma, denied having been
an SD officer. The "investigation" seems to have petered out at this
point, despite the fact that the falsity of Felfe's statement could have
been proven very easily.
In the meantime, during 1956 or 1957, the CIA security liaison
atteer to the Mfb had been making a reviewOf the horrendous OV"IP flaps of
the early 1950's. Be reasoned quite sivly and accurately that if the
*4t V40 later conflrmeel ..4 -444, A., =.2_04� Be1
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KGB had deliberately sacrificed a number of agents in the Grin bases,
it did not do so without leaving some penetrations in place to report on
the subsequent CE and CI organization and operations of the BNO. To find
the remaining penetrations, one should look primarily in thefieadquarters
CE section and in the Frankfurt-Cologne field base, which had absorbed
a number of the old GV"L� officers after the dissolution of that base.
In a memo dated in early 1957, this officer suggested several candidates
for investigation, among whom were Felfe, Relic, Clemens and Schuetz.
His conclusions were given to the FIND security section, where they
were added to the general suspicions of Felfe and his coterie, but again,
unfortunately, did not succeed in sparking any sort of investigative
action which might have tested out the logical analysis:"
The security situation continued to fester quietly in this way
until early 1959, when finally a report from a high-level penetration
source shot us into action. In larch 1959, Michel Goleniewski, a senior
officer in the Polish Intelligence Service reported to us that the KGB
had had two agents in the 5ND group which visited the U.S. in September l95F.
The KGB also had an agent, Goleniewski reported, who was in position to
obtain information on a joint American-PND office running operations
against the Soviet Embassy in Bonn and against the Soviets traveling in
the West. The KGB had guidance papers used by this office and prepared
by the Americans in 1956. The original source of this information was
the highest level of the KGB: Cen. Gribanov, the Chief of the Internal
Counterintelligence Directorate, who revealed this information in a briefing
of the assembled satellite intelligence chiefs in 1958?On the basis of
Information and several other leads from-Goleniewski, and despite some
questions concerning Goleniewski s bona fides, CIA began a quiet, closer
Investigation of suspect KGB agents in the BNB. This investigation centered
on Felfe. As a first step, file information was pulled together on Felfe
and on the stranger of his oper--
44*Revelation of such infornation even to the chiefs of the satellite
services was a major KGB mistake.
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ational activities,� the LEA and Busch cases. He was placed under uni-
lateral CIA surveillance on several of his trips out of town, and a
unilateral phone tap was put on his Milnich telephone. The BND
was not immediately informed because of the extreme sensitivity of the
source, Goleniewski, who was still in place.
By ear 196i the cireumstantial evidence against Felfe, the
positive evaluation of Goleriewaki's information in general, and especially
the fact that Goleniewski had by then safely defected to the West,
'cc-y-4k
brought CIA to the point where it felt it ease inform the BND. When
General Gehlen was told in Februery 1961 of the specific report about
two KGB agents in the rolip which visited the U.S. in 1956, he immediately
agreed that his heretofore favorite case officer - Felfe- was the major suspect!
He set up a small special task force to investigate Goleniewski's leads to penetration of
AA the BND. Now, with the impetus of information from the horse's
mouth," their investigation of Felfe picked up rapidly where it had
left off six years previously. The BND noted that Felfe had a weekend
house built, suspiciously it seemed, right on the Austrian border,
and in mid-March a tap was put on the telephone on this house. This
was difficult to achieve because he house was located in an area
with virtually no other residents, but as soon as this tap began prod-
ucing, the KGB's operation "Kurt" unraveled rapidly. The first lead
came from a remark by Clemens, who complained to Felfe about the high
cost of his phone calls to Felfe: if these had been official calls
there would have been no need to complain. The BND then began to look
at Clemens more closely and discovered that he was in correspondence
with his daughter in Dresden via a third person (Tiebel), even
though he went to great pains to give the public impression that he
had no connection with his East German family. The BND security team
also discovered that Felfe had been falsifying his expense accoucang,
and they noticed his relatively high standard of living. In the summer
of 1961 Felfe began dropping remarks about having received a large bequest
from a recently deceased aunt in the U.S. CIA checked and found the
aunt very much alive and that there was no record of hero/ having made
any foreign money transaction. Indeed, a few weeks later Ipe applied
for a passport to make a trip to Germany
visit Felfe, and Felfe then
^11 Valfol. vxcasarcanti
began mentioning a loan instead of a bequest.
During the course of the spring and slarirwr of 1961, telephone coverage
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clandestine contact with each other on matters which coUld not be identified
with official Gehlen operations.*
04
They spokke quite openly - very "insecurely" - about Gehlen affairs on
e.
the telephone, but double-talked certain other matters. It wao also
evident that they were corresponling with each other on operational
mattera of some kind although they had no official BND reason to do so.
Mail coverage was placed on Felfe. By piecinqogether various sc4p_
A
and shavings from the tpps and from close observation of Felfe, the.
BND security officer was able to establish a significant pattern of
action on Felfe 's part. It became clear that Felfe was always curious and
aggressive just after his bi-monthly trips to Cologne. (The investigator
drew up an impressive analysis showing how Felfe pushed for information
on a subject not normally of direct concern to him - namely the whereabouts
of an engine recovered by the BND from wreckage of a Czech owned IL-18 whtch
had crashed in Bavaria - at a time when normal interest in the air
crash had died down, but just after one of Felfe a trips to Cologne.
relfe later admitted that the whereabouts of the IL-18 engine had been
an urgent EEI from.Abfred.) The investigators reached the conclusion
that Felfe was receiving his EEI in Cologne via Clemens, who served
as a communicatioas link to the East. In August three very damning
telephone intercepts revealed that Clemens had been "called" and asked
to find out from Felfe what had happened in the Fripoltsev affair. Felfe
told Clemens that he had written something about it the previous day,
which would be "over there the following day. By early October it
was clear to monitors that Clemens was receiving OWVL, and they were
able to establish his frequencies and schedules (every Saturday at noon,
alternate repeat on Mondays at 1700 hours). Several messages were
subsequently broken when Clemens relinquished his one-time-pads.
In addition to this form of observationfielfeis more extraordinary
operational behavior was being scrutinized as never before. In the LENA
ease a full scale security review was ordered - the reviewer unaware
of the pressing reasons for it, however. Within two months after this
order was given the slippery principal of the LENA case, Hofe, announced
thatt(Soviets had lost interest in him and turned him over to the East
*die phOne-tap�On Felfe 's Munich residence remained generally unproductive.
Felfe knew this phone was easy to tap, and he apparently instructed Clemens
to always call at the country home on Saturday evenings.
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German service. In Felfe's safe, evidence was found that he had falsified
official Registry records on the LENA case. In the Busch case, both
CIA and BND investigators watched nervously as Felfe and Clemens prepared
to accompany Busch to the 9 September 19G1 meeting with the KGB in Vienna.
CIA surveillance of Felfe in Vienna revealed that he took extreme
evasive tactics when leaving his hotel at a time when no activity was
scheduled in the Busch operation. It was a Sunday morning when the
Vienna streets were quiet. Felfe drove very fast, made several U-turns and
crashed a red light. The surveillance team was under instructions to let
Felfe go rather than risk being detected. It was later learned that
Felfe met with Alfred barely ten minutes after the surveillance had been
broken off. Clemens was in his hotel room with a bad cold and could not
make the meet with Alfred. (This was unfortunate, as after his arrest he
would have given an honest account of what happened at this meeting.)
By Atirnand.a. October 1961, the evidence from telephone intercepts
was convincing enough to prompt the BND to seek the opinion of the Attorney
General's office as to the chances for taking executive action against
Felfe. On 19 October the Federal Attorney advised that none of the tapping
evidence was juridically useful so far, but he advised that the investieation
be continued. On the 28th of October, a series of very provocative telephone
calls was recorded between Clemens and Felfe. From these calls it emerged
that Clemens was having difficulty deciphering a "call from Alfred." Clemens
said, "They must have called when I wasn't here.' since "several pages seem
to have been skipped." When Clemens was at last able to read Alfred's
message, he reported to Felfe that Alfred wanted Felfe's advice for the
continued direction of a press campaign then being directed by the KGB against
the BND regarding the murder of the Ukrainian emigre leader, Stefan Bandera.*
The KGB had already learned from Felfe about planned American and German
------7,767-I1TEefore this, the KGB assassin Bogden Stashinskiy had defected
to the West and confessed the murder of Bandera. To counter the adverse
publicity the KGB disinformation group in East Germany mounted a campaign
to discredit Stashinskiy and place the blame for the assassination on the BNB.
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publicity on this case, and on the basis of Felfe's information and with
his guidance were preparing to steal the show with counter publicity of
their own. Alfred also wanted Felfe's opinion about the further handling
of Fritz Busch's operation. Most important for the investigators, however,
was Felfe's news for Clemens that he had just made arrangements for Clemens
to accompany Busch to Berlin in rid-November as a counter-surveillant for
a meeting Busch was to have with a double agent. Clemens could, therefore,
have an opportunity to see Alfred again. Felfe remarked that the double
agent didn't know yet that there was to be a meeting, but that Felfe was
about to write (to Alfred) to arrange a meeting on the 13th or 14th of
November. At last it looked as though there would be an opportunity to
catch one or the other of the agents with incriminating evidence on him.
Furthermore, it seemed certain that Felfe's request to the KGB to make a
specific meeting arrangement would produce a response from the KGB in the
next scheduled OWVL broadcast. This was to be on Saturday noon, 4 November,
or alternately on Monday afternoon at 1700 hours, 6 November. Furthermore,
It was likely that Clemens would be telephoning to Felfe immediately after
the receipt of the OWVL message to report its contents. Perhaps at this
point the much needed legal evidence would appear.
'91iTiliiinfrIVEszatesr-e-eac4SPRJe. The expected OWVL message was picked
up on Saturday noon. During the afternoon Clemens made three telephone
calls to Felfe, the gist of which was that Alfred's message contained
more about the press conference, nothing as yet about the new meeting in
Berlin, in fact "nothing special)" consequently, Clemens would just send
It along to Felfe by registered rail. Thus the weakest link in the KGB's
communications channel was presented to us. The opportunity was ideal.
The following day, Sunday, saw hurried legal conferences between the ONE'
security chief and the Federal Attorney's office and between CIA and the
chief of the mail intercept service (which is under Allied control).
The coordination and plannine among these offices for Felfe's arrest was
superb - not a simple matter, since Felfe's own "special connections"
had to be circumvented without arousing ire or suspicion.
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At 1030 on Monday morning, r November, Clemens' registered letter
to Felfe was officially handed to the BND and the Federal Attorney. Dy
1130 the appropriate police officers with BND escort were assembled at
the BND Meadguarters building in Pullach; Felfe had been summoned to the
office of a senior BND official on an unalarming pretext; the compound
gates were locked, the telephone lines cut; all principal were armed,
and the BND doctor was standing by for any emergency. A few minutes later,
the arresting officers entered the office in which Felfe was conferring
and served their warrant. Felfe's first reaction was to grab for his
wallet and attempt to destroy a scrap of paper which was in it. There
was a small scuffle; the officers retrieved the paper, subdued Felfe. 5y
an enormous stroke of luck the captured notes turned out to be Alfred's
typewritten EEI which Felfe had received in Vienna in September. Felfe
refused for several days to make any admissions. Clemens. whose arrest
had been carried out in Cologne about eight minutes after Felfe's, began
talking immediately and led his arrestors to the place where he had
hidden his code pads. Erwin Tiebel was arrested the following day in his
home town. Thus ended, nearly ten years to the day, Felfe's career as
a West German intelligence officer.e,a,e
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IA VI PC 14
By 3 December 1961 news of the arrests was generally known throughout
the West German government. By 12 December it was in the newspapers. The
trials took place after lengthy (and from the counterintelligence officer
point of view, unsatisfactory) interrogations in July 1963. Felfe received
a sentence of 14 years in prison, Clemens nine years in prison, and Tiebel
two years at hard labor. Through his mother in Dresden Felfe managed to
reestablish contact with the KGB and continued to correspond with the
Soviets even from his prison cell. Ever resourceful, Felfe first prepared
an S/W system from the alum in his shaving kit; later, he undoubtedly
received a better system. From time to tine he "recruited" criminals about
to be released from jail to smuggle letters out for him. Some letters
were intercepted, but others apparently got through, and it is evident
that Felfe asked the KGB to send him', suitably concealed in laundry,
reading matter, a chess set, etc., various paraphernalia for escape and
for clandestine communications. He also asked for poison to be taken
in the event the KGB was unable to spring him. He also gave the KGB
a fairly comprehensive and self-exonerating damage report -- blaming
as much as possible on Clemens. The Soviets on several occasions
have attempted to gain Felfe's release in exchange for prisoners
In the East. As of the last reporting, Felfe remains confident that
he will eventually be pardoned, exchanged, or will manage to escape.
His spirits undoubtedly were boosted when George Blake succeeded in
escaping from jail in England.
In Felfe's two major deception operations, LE1A and Busch, the
KGB endeavored to act as naturally as possible after his arrest.
Fritz Busch received a routine message in early 1962 asking why he
hadn't corresponded lately with the KGB. OIRWetifixtwasfeetitir LEA
sem went to elaborate lengths to misconstrue or simply to ignore
the danger signals which the BND kept sending him, and he insisted on
sending "political intelligence" back to his West German case
officers. The KGB even went so far as to let him come to West
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Germany on one of his regular business trips, at which time he
was arrested and interrogated on charges of espionage. He refused
to admit KGB control; however, there were enough inconsistencies in
his story to bolster the earlier analysis that he had been KGB
directed from the beginning. After a brief period in prison,
LENA was returned to East Germany in a prisoner exchange agreement.
The manner in which the East Germans conducted these negotiations
was evidence in itself that LENA was regarded by the East as a
person of special importance, whose return was urgently desired. The
entire prisoner exchange agreement, which was a big thing and
Involved well over 1,000 prisoners, was made contingent upon the
release of LENA.*
One can see in ttlt Felfe ease the gradual deveiopmnt of KGB
,
\
/ counter
ce opera Beginniritl the comparatively 1
/ simple ak ion aUonsprogrssed graduAily,
th Nettolthe absurdly cnv. Thisch '
z. ', 4,4,... �
his period to exploit agent
I'
- wtYs.
ons in 'a wide
tration of a
recruitMeit of an O
- *Pe sons knowledgeable on this case have speculated that LENA
awl* be a long term KGB Illegal.
Re ,
syn rgierted that In Germany-in 1950, doeble agent
eptiepil, but that by 1 15 they had become very much In
He learned this from an Q -leer whq had retyrpi,to Moscv
h KGB r zi Ja
..
nit Ge
really notht, � 54rne officer also
cd that that, the Western
inte e duldriTt find out abut East Germigy, and
that cons, GB disposed of vase-mount of expendable build-up
or thr9w-aw er1a1 fxpm East Gefany which guld be used tp tOoort
of its LoperatIons. (From NO intervIew of Golittyn in
kl ,
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elfe wou7A-never haves e
A
ilf.nd 44114""i'l!jrstAttrir: 91'314'. ;A" :9 PI
. ,
It!nt really-gaVed him W
o so long to t it
, 3 '
took flPE. fortultous agpearante of a d_
WhiC4-th�
?t"
inca,ted-w4;
fri it
has taken to hesrt the sad lessons learned from this SW mad
has made vigorous efforts to improve and protect its security. Although
historical developments of the last 25 years inevitably make the German
services more vulnerable to penetration than other Western European services,
r, a' a,-7-e�.2
one should note that sinc�fibit the BND has faced this problem squarely.
The determined efforts of a small group of the DNDIs most competent younger
officers have been focussed on this problem, and much progress has been made
in detecting and removing �Milers who because of their wartime background or
for other other reasons ame4e1asbied as security risks.
tr imite4467the 7ery cow ust be
r d by t ously s ful et tion
/ *cur
-6 spat, t U.S militar en
PLITI(1.T::1 11,111
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Annex A:
The HACKE Story
At the end of 1943 hazi Party boss artj ormarri foresaw the
approaching defeat of the Third eichanWeoan to uild up a secret
Nazi cadre organization unknown to Hitler and other Nazi leaders. This
organization has come to be known in Western'intelligence circles unaer
the codeword HACKE.* According to Bormann's plan. HACKE was set up
according to the "V" pattern (5 ',arsons): members of one 'V" became
leaders of further 'V's, and the laadertala was anonymous to the
lower circles. It was to be numarically limited. but expended as
needed. Its objective was to ev!raise claadastirv, influence over
affairs of the Third Reich, and to prepare the roundwork for continues
activity after the defeat. In early 1944 there were alleaedly only
35 members; by the end of that yaar, half million dollars in
concentration camp booty had been amu oled abroad and clanoestina
bases had been set up in Spain, 'artugal. Argentina, ,Iloan and Italy.
HACKE members were quite different from those who opposed Hitler on
more or less moral grounds and who orqanized the attoLateo assassination
of Hitler on 20 July 1g44. They were war criminals, fanatics and
far-sighted opportunists who saw the handwriting on the wall and moved
early to assure their personal future. To the extea, that ideology as
well as opportunism played a aria, their militance and authoritarianism
brought them far closer to Communism� than to Western democracy. After
the war. HACKE kept alive the old Nazi slogan "Fiaht the Jews and
plutocrats in the USA," and its goal was tae founding of a Fourth Peich.
Typical of Soviet capabilities in this milieu, is the fact that thr
Soviets learned of HACKE at its inception. Cornann consulted with
r,estapo Chief Heinrich Mueller concerning tl-a.2 oroaniaation, both for
*This codmame was originally coined by Michal Goleniewski for use
In reporting on this subject while he was still in place as a CIA
penetration of the Polish Intelligence Service. Since we do not know
the actual name of the organization, the codeword HACKE has stuck and
Is still used for want of any beater term.
FaithiuA .L66EM"
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advice on conspiratorial organization and to gain Mueller
protection vis-a-vis SS Chief Himmler, who was an enPmy of Bormenn
and who Bormann feared might learn of the organization. Gestapo
.414104aaLf
Chief Mueller, in turn, wax1ready in contact with the Soviets at
least as early as the beginning of 1944, and he informed then of Bornann
plan.* The Soviet operation with Mueller was directed personally by
04,..EalAci 44144442 El A t 44< 4
Gen.Abakumov, then Chief of SMERSI,land subsequently head of the entire
A
MGB, predecessor of the ROB. Abakumov immediately recognized the
importance of HACKE and di evervining eossible to penetrate the
organization and direct it toward lone range Soviet goals. Mueller's
knowledge of HACKE was limited. e wasonly used by rormann; he wao
not fully trusted nor was he a mrater of HeCKE himself. But his
,ization,
and without waiting for the end of the war, bakumov,rethi.iit several
HACKE members by blackmail and tireat of denunciation to Hitler and
Himmler.
One member of HACKE with whoa: the Soviets reportedly were in touch
during the war is SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny, who is fmrous for leading
the airborn rescue of Mussolini from Allied imprisonment. Skorzeny
was under active development by , kumov's unit as early as 1/42. He
was suspected for a while of playing A double game, but was reportedly
firmly recruited by the Soviets in mid-1944. For a brief period
shortly before the end of the war, Skorzeny was maneuvered into position
as chief of Nazi military intellietance. Through Skorzeny, Abakumov
hoped to catch in time and exploit for Soviet purposes the Nazi Abwehr
knowledge was sufficient to identify other members o
*Mueller was well-known as a student and admirer of the NKVD, and
this apparently led him to general sympathy with the Soviet cause. In
his memoires, Gen. Walter Schellenberg, a senior SS and SD officer, quotes
Mueller as saying in Spring 1943: "I cannot help it; I incline more and
more to the conviction that Stalin is on the right road0 He is immensely
superior to the Western heads of state, and if I had anything to say
about it we would very quickly come to an agreement with him." It was
not long after this that Mueller apparently did make his own personal
accommodation with the Soviets. The Soviet contact to him was reportedly
arranged by Maj. Welgen, the Gestapo chief in Danzig. who had been
recruited by the Soviets sometime in 1943. Mueller's post-war whereabouts
Is a much-debated mystery. It was first believed that he died in the
siege of Berlin, but there have been a number of reports that he escaped
successfully to the Soviet Union.
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agents in the U.S. and South America.* It is not known fspita4r
whether Skorzeny is still a Soviet agent. Deryabin tells us the KGB
was trying to locate him in 1952, perhaps to reestablish contact. He
is presently living in Spain, from where he maintains active contact
with wartime friends and associates.
After the war, the Soviets concentrated on maximum investigation
of HACKE and maximum infiltration of agents into its membership. The
organization expanded in 1947-48, and this opportunity was exploited.
Several war criminals who were knowledgeable on HACKE were located in
various Eastern European jails. Goleniewski, for example, has described
the two-year effort to break HAM member Foerster, the former Nazi
Gauleiter of Danzig, who had been sentenced to death as a war criminal
In Poland. It was Goleniewski himself, who in mid-1952 after six
months of patient debriefing and persuasion, finally induced Foerster
to reveal what he knew about HACKE. In this case, as in a number of
others, Goleniewski operated on direct instructions from the Soviets,
wholly independent gf his own Polish service. As soon as Foerster
began to talk about HACKE, he was immediately removed from prison and
flown to Moscow in a special plaue. Our only source of direct
knowledge on HACKE is Goleniewski, and most of Goleniewski's
knowledge comes from his involvement in the Foerster case and
subsequent discussion with KGB officers who specialized in German
operations. Deryabin has provided circumstantial confirmation
however. He reports that the voluminous files on Abakumov's wartime
operations against high level Nazis were known in the KGB as "Abakumov's
legacy,' and that they read like a novel. There was renewed interest
in these files about November 1952 (i.e. after Foerster began talking
about HACKE); at that time the files were removed from the Austro German
* One of the reasons Abakumov rather than Merkulov became chief of the
MGB in 1946 was that Stalin agreed with his demonstrated policy of maximum
emphasis on intelligence operations against the United States.
/K-
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Section to a separate location, and a high degree of compartmentation
was put into effect with regard to all files pertaining to former Nazi
officers. .A.mi(04,947440-uraaica-ie k014010
The HACKE story is generally regarded' as an important backdrop to
A
understanding post-war German security problems, and particularly to an
understanding of Soviet penetration of German intelligence and security
services as illustrated by the Fclfe case. It shows how early in the
game
-
game and with whatiOuccess the Soviets moved to penetrate and exploit
the various formal and informal eroupings of former Nazis. Former $S
and SO officers were particularly vulnerable to Soviet blackmail, as
the Soviets systematically sought out and exploited the evidence of their
war crimes guilt. In this group for which conspiracy had become a way of
life, the Soviets could also make an ideological appeal -- continued
hatred of the United States combined with respect for authoritarian
Soviet power. Many of these former Nazi officers, including some with
a record of hushed-up war crimes, obtained important or sensitive
positions in the West German government. This group exercised a
particularly fatal attraction on The renascent West German intelligence
and security services, which had an obvious need for experienced
personnel to counter the growing threat of Soviet espionage.
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Annex B:
The ULU f4ARLEt Case
Using information gathered (At believe) by several penetrations
of Gehlen's CE branches, the KGB prepared a comprehensive document
on the personnel, organization and operations of GV"L". The document
had the appearance of a report from an agent in place in GV"LP or near
the chief of GV"L" and was signed with the name "Artur." The content
was genuine and implied a real Soviet penetration or penetrations, but
there were some discrepancies in the use of organizational terminology
which suggested that the document itself might be a fabrication. The
document was photographed on microfilm and the microfilm placed in a
dead drop at the base of a lamp post in the West German city of
Ludwigsburg by an agent whom we lave never identified.
The document was brought to the attention of West German police
by a KGB agent who was briefed to report to the police that he had
accidentally discovered the dead drop. Another KGB agent was briefed
to empty the dead drop and in doing so, unwittingly, to walk into
the police stake-out, be arrested and thus provide confirmation of the
existence of a Soviet penetration in GrL". The account of the
recruitment, preparation and handling of these two agents (drawn
lamely from their confessions) erovides some excellent examples of
tactical deception techniques. In general it should be noted that
both agents were of very low calibre - too low to possibly be used
In any real intelligence operation; both had already been blown in
one capacity or another to various Western intelligence agencies.
The KGB presumably used them in the LILLI MAREEN operetion not only
in spite of their low agent qualit;.yi but because of it!
The Agents:
"The Informer": Bodo Fromm, born in 1915, was a former Wehrmacht
resC
Lieutenant from the Dresden area. He joined theihtin9 Group against
Inhumanity in early 1951, was caught distributing leaflets in East
Germany and recruited by the KGB In Dresden. Fromm continued to work
for the Dresden KGB office as a penetration of the Fighting Group and
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and staged a "flight" to West Berlin when the Soviets arrested his
colleagues. Subsequently he tried, on Soviet instruction, but without
success, to get agent work with the French, the British and the
Americans in West Berlin. Later he was able to operate as a penetration
of the Conmittee for Liberation from Totalitarianism, a group which was
eventually taken over by the Gehlen Organization. At this point Fromm
was introduced to a new case officer in Berlin who told him that his
targets were the BfV and the Gehlen Organization. In the fall of 1953
all the West German agents whom Fromm had been able to identify to the
Soviets were arrested in the Soviet Zone (except one - so that Fromm
might not be suspect)) and Fromm was ordered to move from West Berlin to
West Germany where he was to await further instructions.
"The Throw-Away": Walter Kende, born in 1908 in Berlin, was a
periodically unemployed salesman. In 1950 and 1951 Kunde worked for
the Britis=lin, but was dropped on charges of being a swindler and
A
a fabricator. While employed in a West Berlin department store in 1951
and 195; Kunde made the acquaintance of an East Berlin customer named
Rolf Rhodin. Rhodin was an old German Communist Party member from
Dresden, a long time Soviet and ifS principal agent, spotter and
recruiter. He was already documented in the files of various Western
intelligence services. (Of interest in connection with the LILLI MARLP;
case is the fact that Rhodin had also appeared in the case of Wolfgang
Hoeher, a Soviet penetration of one of OV"L"s sub-bases in Berlin who
had returned to the East through a staged kidnapping in 1953, an/ who
could very well have provided some of the information contained in the
LILLI MARLEN document.)
Kunde lost his job in mid-1952 and was destitute for the next year
and a half. In late November 1951 he accidentally met Rhodin on the
street; he told Rhodin his troubles and accepted Rhodin's offer of help in
return for ''favors," to be specified at a later date. Kunde thought at
the time that Rhodin was referring to matters connected with East-West
trading. Between November 1953 and mid-May 1954, Rhodin met Kunde
fairly often without making any specific points, but was apparently
assessing him closely.
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The
Operation:
As of spring 1954 both From and Kunde were on call for the KGB's
CE section. From was a completely initiated Soviet agent and was in
direct contact with KGB officers. Kunde knew only Rhodin and had no
precise idea of whom or what Rhoein represented. Neither agent knew
the other.
In mid-May 1954 Frani' received a summons from the KGB to come
from West Germany to Karlshorst for a meeting. Rhodin at the same
time called on Kunde and told him to prepare himself to make a trip
to West Germany. (Kunde had to apply for the appropriate travel
documents.) On 24 May Frornm met his case officer in Karlshorst and was
told that in the near future he was to receive instructions to do
something (not specified) within a 50 km.radius of his home in
Stuttgart. The case officer gave Fromm instructions in S/W, a cipher,
and open code signals to be used for making meeting arrangements.
On the 10th of June 1954, Fromm received a telegram summoning
him again to Karlshorst, but From was unable to travel until the
17th. He let four days go by, however, before he informed the KGB
of this fact. In the meantime Rhodin had told Kunde to keep in very
close touch with him since he was waiting daily for a telegram from
West Germany which would give him some idea of when Kunde could make
his trips. Kunde had his travel documents ready by the 11th of June.
On 17 June 1954 From arrived in Karlshorst for his meeting with
the KGB case officers. They were annoyed that he had not been able to
come earlier and said that Fromm's task concerned a very important
matter which had "already cost many thousands of marks." It was
crucial that From be in Ludwigsourg on 18 June at precisely 0700 hours.
From was then given his mission: he was to look for a minox box con-
cealed at the base of a certain lamp post. If he found it he was to
leave it there and go punctually at 0200 to the Chief of the Ludwigsburg
police and tell him the story of seeing a man put something near the
base of the lamp post. He was to give a plausible excuse for being at
that spot himself early in the morning and was to say that the man had
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acted suspiciously making From suspect some spying activity. The
Soviets also gave Fromm a physical description for the man, which
they said was notional and which he could relay to the police. From
was to be sure to report only to thp Chief of the Ludwigsburg Police,
since he was known to be very pro-Anerican and would certainly inform
American agencies and have the dead drop surveilled.
The Soviet case officers further explained that another man would
empty the dead drop, would be arrested and would confess that he worked
for the Soviets in Karlshorst. (Here they relied on Rhodin's personal
assessment of Kunde's character.) As soon as Fromm had completed this
assignment he was to send a report to Rolf Rhodin.
While Fromm was being thus briefed, Kunde was meeting with Rhodin.
Rhodin explained that the matter of Kunde' trip trip to West Germany (task
still unspecified) would become acute two days later, on the 19th of
June. .Rhodin would meet Kunde on tne morning of the 19th and give him
the exact details of his mission.
On the 18th of June From arrived in Ludwigsburg, found the minox
in its cache as predicted and reported to the Chief of Police at 0900
precisely as instructed. Later in the day he returned to Stuttgart
and sent his report to Rhodin. On the 19th Rhodin informed Kunde how
to travel to Ludwi sburg'and where to find the dead drop. He instructed
Kunde to empty it between 0600 and 0700 on Monday. 21 June. He then
told Kunde that he should wrap up the film capsule and mail it to his
own address in West Berlin, then return to Berlin and give the package
to Rhodin on either the 22nd or the 24th of June, when Rhodin would
meet him. He promised Kunde a reward of a new suit, a pair of shoes and
full set of dentures. Kunde was given no advice about what to say if
he was picked up by the West German police. The bewildered man was
arrested exactly according. to Soviet expectations and willingly told
all he knew about his contact with Rhodin.
Not according to KGB plan, however, was the fact that From was
an unconvincing actor and aroused the suspicions of the Ludwigsburg
police when he made his first report about accidentally finding the
NO koidEi'JN
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deaddrop. Also contrary to Soviet hopes was the initial Gehlen
Organization reaction to the ULU MARLIN document; owing to errors
in the use of organizational terminology. it suspected Soviet deception.
Surveillance and mail intercept coverage was instituted on Fromm, and
he was detected mailing a letter to Rolf Rhodin in East Berlin, This
was evidence of a direct link between Fromm and Kunde and the KGB.
Fromm was eventually arrested and confessed his role in the Soviet
deception.
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The Sokolov Case
The Sokolov case illustrates how the Soviets were able, through Felfe, to
monitor a double agent operation against the RU involving the interests of a number
of German and American services and necessitating rather elaborate liaison
coordination arrangements. ilcummilmiamixemstammxlix At the same time, the KGB was
oyak1441%
able to monitor a Western attempt to induce the defection of an apparently
inept, insecure and disaffected RU case officer (Sokolov). There is reason to
suspect that the Soviets manipulated the case (a) so as to make it more attractive to thi
Western services and thus prolong its life, and (b) to involve the BND which was not
originally connected with the case in order to enable the KGB to RINK monitor it
closely through Felfe. In the end, the KGB was willing quietly to observe and
permit the roll-up of an RU net in West Germany consisting of five agents and a
Soviet high speed W/T transmitter.
The case involved considerable expenditure of time on the part of the Amelican
and German services affected, and if one of the Soviet aims was to divert the efforts
of the Western services to non-productive activities, they must be credited with
having succeeded.
1,1,0 � CA.
�iii 1.11.,P. 1.
o, � 'I R.,01:14j1,.4.161.
In addition to the extensive liaison involved in the unsue-essful attempt to induce
A
Sokolov's defection, the West German services investigated approximately 200 security
suspects. We have only two items of collateral information m which offer some insight
Clemens told kat& his interrogators that when
into the objectives of the case as seen from the KGB point of view./ idaimediftsommta
he deliberately
iblionam expressed to Alfred his concern that the Soviets would/allow an agent from
East Germany to xmxk walk into a trap and be arrested in West Germany, the KGB
officer shrugged and said "...this has nothing to do with my office, AINE ... Sokolov
will certainly be arrested." This suggests that at least by the end of the operation,
742-ei 4` I let t_
ett:tp
the investigation and arrest of Sokolov, who 44j entay genuinely vulnerable
to Western xmanacitiaa blandishments, had become a principal KGB objectivei justifying
the sacrifice of the GRU agents and the bonus Felfe received for his role.iglidamr,
same A second indication of KGB objectives is the UB officer,Michal
Goleniewski, who reported on a briefing given to Soviet and satellite CI officers
in late 1958 and early 1959 by General Aribanov, chief of the KGB's Internal
Counterintelligence Directorate, Gen. Kadin= Gribanov stressed the need to collect
information and documentation oil "coordination" among the Western services, as this
information could be exploited in propaganda against these 301306iNIX services. Thus
fostaring and monitoring the elaborate inter-service coordination mechanism which
was set up to handle the Sokolov case may have been one of the specific KGB objectives.
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apprised
We do not know whether the KGB trait/the RU that Sokolov's net was penetrated.
If it did, this
2k1/would have enabled the KGB to direct the RU's further handling of the came
and would have facilitated greatly its manipulation. On the other hand, if the
KGB suspected Sokolov from the beginning, it may have kept the A RU in the dark about
agents.
the status of Sokolov's =mit In this event, it would have been considerably more
difficult foril the KGB to manipulate the case, and some of the developments which
appear to have been the result of KGB manipulation may have to be regarded as mama
not the result of KGB direction or control.
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The central figures in the Sokolov case were:
(1) Major Sokolov, a GSFG RU Transborder
Intelligence Point officer at Erfurt, East Germany,
who ran a network targeted against an American
airfield at Sembach;
(2) Karl Heinz,Kiefer, a German railway
employee, member of Sokolov's net, who was doubled
first by CIC and later turned over to the BfV.
(3) Bruno Droste, a refugee from Erfurt who
is suspected of having been played into CIA by
the Soviets.
(4) Lore Poehlmann, a long-time Soviet and MfS
agent who served as principal agent and safehouse
keeper for Sokolov, with her husband,
(5) Waldemar Poehlmann, an RU Transborder
Intelligence Point agent; and
(6) Wilhelm Haller, a BND agent who reported
on MfS activities but who is suspected of having
been under Soviet control.
The Soviet case officer, Major Sokolov, had been
running agents to collect OB data on various US air
bases since the early 1950's. Numerous traces on him,
under various names, rested in CIC files. The consensus
of inform tion indicated that he was an almost unbelievably
careless operator: a drunkard, an insecure talker, a
flamboyant and promiscuous type, well-known around Erfurt
for exactly what he was.
One of Sokolov's longer-lived operations involved a
net of low-level West German agents whose main target
was the collection of information on the American airfield
at Sembach. When one of these agents, a railway employee
named Kiefer, confessed and volunteered his services to
CIC, the latter promptly doubled him. CIC's handling of
the operation can perhaps best be characterized as
defensive; there was apparently no particular CIC interest
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in Sokolov's vulnerabilities. (Kiefer, himself,
complained that GIG dalliance was causing the Soviets
to become suspicious.) Nevertheless, GIG continued to
run him from 1954 until March 1959, when, after five
years of relatively unproductive activity, they turned
the case over to the BfV and the local LfV with the
recommendation that the case be terminated and the network
rolled-up.
However, since the operation appeared still to be
viable the BfV was in no hurry to roll it up. In
keeping with BfV philosophy that W/T agents should be
doubled if at all possible rather than arrested, they
were particularly interested in one agent in the net
who happened to be Kiefer's brother-in-law and who was
reported by Kiefer to have him issued a W/T set by the
Soviets. (Although this agent was later judged to be
unsuited for a D/A role) he continued to be of key interest.)
The BfV was also intrigued by the relatively large
number of fringe personalities who appeared in the case
as agent suspects. They felt that further investigation
of these individuals would make for a more effective
roll up if this line of action were to be taken later.
Finally, they also felt that more positive handling
of the case including the release of more build up
material, might lead to additional interesting developments.
GIG had requested that all action be closely
coordinated with them. Although the main RU targets
) O.
were U.S. Air ForceA t4ts-..-1-at-tet. had not been apprised
of the case by GIG. The BfV now felt obligated to
coordinate with OSI. In order to preclude simultaneous
coordination with several American agencies on one
case the BfV requested CIA to act as coordinator and
represent the total American interest vis-a-vis the
Germans. CIA agreed to do this. After reading into
the case CIA also became strongly interested in Sokolov
as a recruitment/defection target.
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At this point, the case began to take on greater
interest. Sokolov gave Kiefer an OWVL system; and he
engaged him operationally with two Erfurt-based agents
previously known to Kiefer who were to help him recruit
a source at the Sembach airfield. These agents, a married
couple named Lore and Waldemar Poehlmann, acted as principal
agents and safehouse keepers for Sokolov. Frau Poehlmann
was already a long-time Soviet and MfS agent; her husband
had for some time been listed in GIG files as an RU
Transborder Intelligence agent. From Sokolov's action,
it appeared that he did not consider Kiefer to be under
Western control.
',get- �
There special significance to Kiefer's being given
OWVL just after the BfV took over the case from GIG.
We now realize (although we did not at the time) that it
the Soviets
-CliliEeaeaFt44an-S2,4, to supply agents whom they know or strongly
suspect have been doubled by the opposition with's�oa-told,
oK
communications systems./ least least as early as 1958, the
RU was deliberately continuing to run such cases with
increasingly elaborate communications. This is (oon6isiime4
by information from Apenetration of the GRU, Lt. Col.
Popov. In July of that year, Popov was discussing with
an RU colleague several Transborder cases aimed at Holland.
The Soviet remarked to Popov that his "entire Dutch
residency had been compromised." significantly, it was after
this conversation that the RU trained one of these agents
(Dutch Cryptonym PARKER) in OWVL. If we presume that this
n consi ering the reasons why the RU gave their agents
OWVL after they knew them to be controlled by Western services, we
surmise that this action served several purposes. It was a
new development which whetted the interest of the doubling service
and indicated that the agent was well-regarded by the Soviets.
At the same time, it provided a measure of protection to the RU,
as it allowed them to keep the cases running with a minimum of
direct personal contact between case officer and agent. It also
allowed a formal contact to be dragged out for a considerable
length of time without any real substantive content. For
example, the number of Kiefer's OWVL broadcasts consisting
simply of a call-up signal and a negative message indicator is
impressive. So is the numbeivqf broadcasts which wa-e unintelli-
gible for technical reaillias4dLi
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development in the Sokolov case is related to the fact
that the KGB had discovered by this time that Kiefer/had
been doubledjthen it must also be presumed that the KGB
shared this knowledge with the RU perhaps including
Sokolov. However, adequate information to support
this premise is lacking; in fact) some of Felfe's state-
ments after his arrest suggested that the KGB may not
have informed the RU.Lturing the summer of 1959 Kiefer's
information was investigated more fully and a plan was
devised for the fell-up of his net sometime in the fall.
In September, however, two developments delayed this
action: (1) CIA came upon what appeared to be an
independent lead to Sokolov; and (2) a BND agent appeared
who was in a position to provide information on the Poehlmann's
The new CIA lead was through one Bruno Droste, a
refugee from Erfurt of obscure loyalties, who was then
giving music lessons to Americans in Frankfurt. To one
of his pupils, an American officer, he offered information
about a Soviet intelligence officer named "Starov" with
whom he was in contact in Erfurt. Droste described
"Starov" as a remarkably insecure drunkard, who ran
operations against US installations in Wiesbaden.
Contrary to CIA orders to disregard Soviet attempts to
contact him, Droste met "Starov" in a safehouse in
Karlshorst, East Berlin, in September 1959. From Droste's
description of this encounter, "Starov" was identified as
Sokolov. At the same time, it was also discovered that
Droste had earlier reported having seen blank East German
residency permits in "Starov's" safehouse which were signed
with the name "Kiefer." This information led to speculation
that Droste and Kiefer might be part of the same net.
\Droste, consequently, was turned over for handling to the BfV.
The other development involved a resident of Erfurt
named Haller. Haller had been spotted by another BND agent in
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Erfurt who reported that Haller would be amenable to
recruitment and that he could provide information on
MfS activities. Haller was easily recruited and proved
to be a prolific source of information on Frau Poehlmann.
In September 1959, Haller stated that the Poehlmann's
were both MfS and Soviet agents. A short time later, he
reported that Frau Poehlmann was working for a Soviet
intelligence officer named Sokolov, and that the two were
having an affair. This report that Frau Poehlmann was
being run by the Soviets rather than by the MfS caused
her case to be turned over by the BND's MfS section to
the direct control of Felfe in the Soviet CE section. In
mid-November, Halla. reported that Frau Poehlmann was going
to West Germany for a "holiday." The BND, under Felfe's
direction, then began to plan an operation against
Frau Poehlmann, to use her as a means of access to
Sokolov.
Until this time, there had been fto official coordination
between the BND and the BfV on this case although it is
possible that Felfe learned about the case informally
through his contacts within the BfV. It was not until
the BND submitted a priority namecheck request on the
Poehlmann's to the BfV and CIA that it came mt2 the open
that all services were working on the same targetA If
we presume that Felfe learned about the case informally from
the BfV and reported this to the KGB)or that the KGB had
already learned about the case from another penetration
of Western intelligence, then a further interesting
premise presents itself, i.e., that the lead to the Poehlmanns
through Haller was contrived by the KGB and fed to the BND
in order to bring the latter into the case and enable the
KGB to monitor all further developments through Felfe. The
KGB co id have done this without cutting in the RU.
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A BND man, Richard Schweizer, acting on Hailer's information,
had contacted her on her arrival in West Germany and had
easily established a liaison with her.* He reported that he
found Frau Poehlmann more than approachable; that, in fact,
she seemed to go about the business of being promiscuous
as though it were a duty. 4t=4.WOVITe- apparen.I�Zkett-Tids
lead to Frau Poehlmann gave the BND a significant equity
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case took on some additional interest
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