TOP BONN COUNTERSPY DEFECTS TO EAST GERMANY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201720011-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: August 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201720011-1
&PPEARED
ON PAU
WASHINGTON POST
24 August 1985
Top Bonn Counterspy Defects to
East Germany
By William Drozdiak
Washington Past Foreign Smice
BONN, Aug. 23-East Germany
announced today that a leading
West German counterespionage
o icial had defected to the Commu-
nist state, confirming a burgeoning
s scandal t at i omats here said
could seriously undermine western
intelligence capabilities.
The official East German news
agency ADN said Hans Joachim
Tiedge, 48, who disappeared last
weekend amid mounting evidence
of a hemorrhaging spy ring in Bonn,
had asked for political asylum and
hat authorities were considering
us request.
The West German government
;onceded that Tiedge's defection
would cause enormous damage to
he country's security because it is
issumed that he will betray all of
xhat he learned in nearly two dec-
ides of counterespionage work.
For the past four years Tiedge
,vas in charge of tracking East Ger-
T,an spies. Security officials said he
was entrusted as well with the iden-
tities of many western agents and
their contacts. His detailed knowl-
edge of West German methods in
detecting Communist spies would
now enable East Germany to alter
?spionage tactics and to protect any
agents deemed at risk, the sources
added.
The _shocking disappearance of
one of West Germanys chief spy
trackers provoked harsh criticism
of Bonn's intelligence authorities
a ter it became clear that his supe-
riors had been aware of Tied-Re's
serious drinking and debt problems
but had refused to relieve him of his
sensitive duties.
iege's neighbors in Cologne
said today that they had complained
to his office about his increasingly
drunken and disorderly behavior,
which worsened after the death of
his wife three years ago.
Security experts said the govern-
ment must now seek to determine
whether Tiedge had served as an
East German "mole" throughout his
career or had changed allegiances
after becoming depressed over his
wife's death.
[In Washington, State Depart-
ment sources said that reports from
the U.S. Embassy in Bonn and the
U.S. mission in West Berlin have
given no indication that Tiedge's
defection poses any significant
threat to U.S. intelligence interests.
The sources cautioned, though, that
State does not always know the full
extent of CIA activities in Central
and Eastern Europe.
[These sources also noted that it
has been evident since the 1960s
that East Germany has been able to
infiltrate the West German govern-
ment and its security services with
relative ease. As a result, the
sources added, while the United
States maintains intelligence coop-
eration with Bonn directly and
through organizations like NATO,
special efforts are made to limit the
degree of cooperative efforts and to
keep important U.S. intelligence
shared with the West Germans re-
stricted to a relatively small circle
of senior officials. ,
[In Brussels, however, a NATO
intelligence source told Reuter, "On
a scale of seriousness from 1 to 10,
this (defection) rates 91/z."I
Hans Neusel, a state secretary in
the Interior Ministry, said there
were strong indications that Tiedge
defected in a moment of panic after
cracking under the psychological
strain of his problems. But the of-
ficial did not minimize the impor-
tance of the information that could
be betrayed by Tiedge, who ranked
third in command at the counter-
intelligence service known as the
Office for Protection of the Consti-
tution.
"This case will have serious re-
suits for West Germany's security,"
Neusel told a news conference. "If
Tiedge passes-on all his knowledge
to the opponent secret services this
will mean massive damage for West
Germany's intelligence work."
Neusel said that the government
had undertaken emergency mea-
sures to protect people whose work
and lives could be jeopardized by
Tiedge's defection. He said the
Bonn government also would carry
out an urgent rehabilitation of its
counterintelligence operations
against East Germany.
Tiedge's treachery swelled spec-
ulation that he might have tipped off
three other spy suspects, including
the personal secretary of Ecor,,m-
ice, Minister Martin Bangemann,
who have disappeared this month.
All three are believed to have
sought sanctuary in East Germany,
but the Communist authorities have
not mentioned their whereabouts.
Tiedge was ostensibly in charge
of the hunt for Ursula Richter, an
accounts secretary for an East Eu-
ropean exile organization in Bonn
who was suspected by security
forces of acting as a control agent
for several East German spies. She
vanished last weekend along with
her friend Lorenz Betzing, an Army
messenger who had once worked
inside a top-secret government bun-
ker 20 miles from Bonn that is in-
tended to serve as an underground
command post in time of nuclear
war.
The third alleged spy, Sonja
Lueneburg, a confidant of Econom-
ics Minister Bangemann for 12
years, disappeared three weeks ago
after telling her office that she was
going to Brussels for the weekend
with friends. When her story
proved false, police searched her
apartment and found signs of a
hasty departure and espionage de-
vices.
Lueneburg received a promotion
last month that required further
security checks. and security offi-
cials theorized that she feared the
false identity she had used to infil-
trate into West Germany 20 years
Continued
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A93 "might have been discovered.
Neusel said that he anticipated a
continuing exodus of Communist
spies in the coming weeks once
Tiedge informs East German au-
thorities about agents who could be
close to exposure in West Germany.
The East German news
agency ar tat Tiedge's defection
showed East German was "con-
stant in the ict e" e
est erman intelligence work
East Berlin newspapers r oo1
today that 168 West German
agents had been captured in the
past 18 months.
Neusel confirmed the reports
about Tiedge's personal problems
but said that the troubled spy hunt-
er would have presented a more
severe security risk if removed sud-
denly from his post.
If he is sacked you can't imoris-
on him or isolate him [becausel
what happens is that you put him in
a psychological position where he
becomes a real security threat. It's
better to look after a man like that
than to put him on the street,"
Neusel said.
Tiedge called in sick on Monday
and was later reportedly seen vis.
iting his wife's grave. A nationwide
search began on Wednesday when
his three daughters filed a "missing
person" report. Police were alerted
at all border crossings to East Ger.
many, but Neusel said that as an
intelligence specialist, Tiedge knew
several hidden routes to the East.
Diplomats said that Tiedge's high
rank and broad access to sensitive
information could compromise the
work of the intelligence services of
Bonn's western allies, including the
United States. They said the allies'
network of intelligence data, par-
ticularly concerning East Germany,
where the West Germans share a
common language and culture, was
sufficiently broad that Tiedge could
impair certain allied functions.
Security experts say the current
scandal is the worst espionage blow
to West Germany since 1961, when
Heinz Felfe, a senior officer in the
foreign secret service, was arrested
as an agent of the Soviet security
service KGB.
The Tiedge affair also is being
likened in terms of political volatil_
ity to the case of Guenter Guil-
laume, a close aide to former chan.
cellor Willy Brandt. Brandt was
forced to resign from office after
Guillaume was unmasked as an East
German spy in 1974.
Earlier this week, Chancellor
Helmut Kohl tried to deflect the
scandal's political consequences in a
television interview by suggesting
that its roots trace back to previous
governments. If someone plans 30
years ahead, provides agents with a
completely new identity, infiltrates
them into [West Germany] through
foreign countries and builds up his
network, he has naturally got good
chances of putting his people into
place," Kohl said.
Diplomats said that while Kohl
may not be personally implicated in
the scandal, Bangemann's connec-
tion to Lueneburg could become a
serious political liability for himself
as well as for the Free Democratic
Party he now heads.
Wash 11191011 Post staff wri ter John
M. Goshko contributed to this report
in Washington.
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