WEST GERMAN QUARREL OVER WHO BLAME FOR SPY SCANDAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605150005-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 1, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: August 27, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/01: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605150005-3
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ON PAGE
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
27 August 1985
West Germans quarrel over
who to blame for spy scandal
Staff writer-ofe'giristl~ Science Monitor
Born
As new sPy cases keep turning up with
monotonous regularity, Bonn's political
Peres are already fighting over which
heads will roll - and what the longer-
term Policy consequences will be.
The disputes pit the opposition Social
Democrats against the center-right coali-
tion. They also pit the three coalition par-
ties against each other.
In order of primacy, the chief candi-
dates for resignation in what the Social
Democrats are terming the worst spy di-
saster in West German history, are;
? Heribert Hellenbroich, head of the
Federal Intelligence Service (the equiv-
alent of the United States Central Intelli-
gence Agency) and a Christian Democrat;
? Chancellery intelligence overseer
Waldemar Schreckenberger, also a mem-
ber of the Christian Democratic Union
(CDU); and
? Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmer-
mann of the Bavarian Christian Social
Union (CSU).
Much more muted calls for the accep-
tance of "political responsibility" by
Christian Democratic Chancellor Helmut
Kohl and Liberal Party leader and Eco-
nomics Minister Martin Bangemann have
also been made in some quarters.
Dr. Bargeman's long-time secretary
Sonja Luneburg vanished in mid-August
as the first of four suspected spies who
have fled. One suspect has been arrested,
and authorities have said they are about
to arrest another. The most damaging de-
fector of the lot was West Germany's top
counterspy Hans-Joachim Tiedge, who
turned up in East Germany last Friday.
The DPA West German news agency is
now reporting that there are 8,000 spies
active in West Germany.
The policy disputes in the wake of Mr.
Tiedge's defection focus on East-West-
German relations and the balancing of the
right of privacy against the need to ferret
out spies.
The chief candidate for resignation,
Heribert Hellenbroich, was, until his pro-
motion on Aug. 1, head of the Office for
the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschut4,
West Germany's counterintelligence agency.
In a major misjudgment, Mc Hellenbroich kept his
old friend Tiedge on as head of the Verfassungsschutz's
operations branch in the past three years despite the ob-
vious security risk in Tied s well-known problems of
drinking and debts. Hellenbroich reasoned that demoting
him to a less sensitive position would be even riskier and
might in fact push the unstable Tiedge into defecting.
But Hellenbroich never passed on information about
this problem to Chancellor Kohl or Interior Minister
Zimmermann. Both men were caught by surprise on
their vacations last week by the. news of this blow to
Bonn's whole counterespionage effort. Zimmermann
gave a first report on the affair to Kohl yesterday and
will give a second one later this week; Kohl will then see
what "personnel, organizational, or other consequences"
should be drawn, said the government press spokesman.
The Bonn government is trying to see Tiedge in East
Germany this week, so far without success. Because of
neighbors' recent allegations that in the early 1980s
Tiedge's wife showed signs of being beaten, prosecutors
are also reopening an investigation of her death in a
home accident three years ago.
Initially Christian Democrats defended Hellenbroich
somewhat, pointing out that he acted humanely in trying
to help Tiedge out of his difficulties. Conservatives even
made one short-lived effort to deflect responsibility for
Tiedge's retention from Hellenbroich to the
Verfassungssehutz's second in command. a Social
Democrat. By now conservative defense of Hellenbroich
has evaporated, however, and few observers think he can
remain in office.
Interior Minister Zimmermann has also been urged to
resign by one member of the third and most junior party
in the Bonn coalition, Liberal State Secretary Jurgen
MBllemann in the Foreign Ministry. This reflex of peren-
nial Liberal-CSU strife has not been echoed by other
Liberals, though - if only because Liberal Chairman
Bangemann is himself so vulnerable.
For his part CSU leader and Bavarian Premier Franz
Josef Strauss has been asserting that the Tiedge fiasco
could have been avoided. He has not named names, but
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/01: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605150005-3
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/01 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605150005-3
J+/ a .-ter' .
the general assumption is that he is once again needling
his old-time rival Kohl by implying that Kohl's man, Mr.
Schreckerrberger, has not been doing his duty in monitor-
ing.the intelligence agencies. The implicit contrast is with
former Strauss aide- Holger Pfahls, who succeeded
Hellenbroich this month and ordered a check on Tiedge's
financial situation just before Tiedge fled.
In policy. matters, the Tiedge affair has also revived
the old liberal-conservative feud over civil rights versus
law-and-order. The CDUand CSU both want to weaken
data. protection laws so that police and security officials
can inspect personal records held by private and public
agencies - especially in. the case of East German immi-
grants, all of whom have the right to immediate citizen-
ship in West Germany with few questions asked. The
conservatives argue that such checks would speed up the
unmasking of. East German "moles who assume the
identity`of other persons - as allegedly happened with
"Luneburg.' So far, the- Liberals have opposed such
legislation.
Coalition infighting over the impact that the. current:
spy affair should now have on East-West German rela-
tions is just as fierce as the infighting over resignations. .
Kohl's right wing would gladly put a freeze on East-West
German relations to show Bonn's displeasure with East
German- espionage. And centrist Chancellor Kohl. him-
self warned East Berlin of this possible consequence &
few hours before Tiedge's defection was confirmed.
Minister' - for Inner-German Relations Heinrich
Windelen, a member of the CSU but an opponent of de-
tente with East Germany. before he became minister, has
this time urged .Bonn. not to go overboard in sacrificing
East-West relations to the current spy scandal.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/01: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605150005-3