Markus Johannes "Mischa" Wolf was head of the GRA, the Foreign Intelligence Unit of East Germany's Ministry of State Security (MfS or Stasi). For 34 years he was the number two in the Eastern German security apparatus, known as "the man without a face" for his ability to avoid being photographed. It was only revealed in 1978, when he was finally fingered by an East-German defector.

From 1958 to 1987, Wolf ran a network of 4,000 operatives outside East Germany, infiltrating NATO HQ and the administration of Chancellor Willy Brandt of Germany. "We used traditional methods to gather information, to recruit -- pressure, sex and human weakness. But, our greatest strength was a target approach, and to take advantage of the West's Achilles heal -- money," the colonel-general once said. Wolf developed one of the most effective espionage operations of the Cold War, sending shivers down the spine of Western intelligence.

In 1998, in a rare German interview, Wolf said "...our experience was that a simple Sergeant in the U.S. Army, or a technical employee in the ministry in Bonn, where not many abilities were needed apart from a willingness to furnish information, was perhaps more important and resulted in better, more secret information than a high official or a high officer. What we wanted from an agent depended on a series of factors: he had to be willing to do it, and to accept certain risks and dangers and a variety of different psychological preconditions as well. One person can take papers, photograph them without getting excited, return them, and give them away without any scruples. Finding the right people for the right job was key to our operation."

Born in what is today Baden-Wurttemberg, where I spent part of my youth and parts of my adult life, Wolf was the son of a writer and physician. His father was a member of the Communist Party of Germany and of Jewish ancestry. After Hitler took power, the family emigrated to Moscow via Switzerland. During his exile, Wolf studied at the Moscow Institute of Airplane Engineering and joined COMINTERN, where he prepared for undercover work behind enemy lines. He covered the Nurnburg Trials on behalf of the Soviet Zone Radio News Service.

In 1953, at the age of 30, he helped found the foreign intelligence service within the East German Stasi. Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political and business circles of West Germany. His most famous spy was Gunter Guillaume. Wolf once said, "With intelligence methods, you can't apply the same yardstick as with ordinary morals. And surely, one or the other means is justified."

Wolf continued, "The atmosphere in Berlin in the 1950's, early 1960's was a hard, it was a tough fight. It wasn't fun; it was a difficult fight for all those involved ... It was an exciting time. I lived in a small settlement at the time, which was surrounded by guards. Leading politicians of the GDR used to live only a few hundred meters away from the French sector in West Berlin. We could freely move to and fro. There were abductions -- people got kidnapped from the West to the East. We had to expect retaliation. The regime felt I might become a target. I didn't have a personal bodyguard, although I had been offered one. But I didn't like that. But of course, I had a pistol, I was armed."

Wolf retired in 1987, and sought political asylum in Russia and Austria, which was rejected. He refused an offer by the CIA to defect to the United States, and instead turned himself in to West German authorities. After German reunification Wolf was sentenced to six years in prison for espionage and treason, a decision which was later overturned, and he received a suspended sentence on lesser charges.

For many East Germans, Wolf was a symbol of the ongoing changes. He supported Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika. Many dissidents saw him as a high-ranking petty criminal, a man who should have been punished severely. For others, he was, and remained, a divisive and complicated figure -- a man who propped-up a despicable system.

On a purely objective level, Markus Wolf was the best in his field, a man who did not suffer fools gladly. I acknowledge this with all due respect to those prisoners' of conscience who were tortured and imprisoned, or just abused, during the darkest years of the Cold War. Some are personal friends and colleagues.

In the words of one ranking member of Israel's Mossad: "We wanted to target him, but he had unanimous respect within the services. It would have been like culling a golden eagle. Nobody was prepared to take that step. He was the master spy."

Wolf was, as Churchill famously said about Russia, " ... a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Indeed, he represented the last of a very rare breed.

UPI Columnist Marc S. Ellenbogen is chairman of the Berlin-based Global Panel Foundation and president of the Prague Society for International Cooperation. He may be reached at [email protected]

Related Links
News and analysis about the Global War Against Terror at SpaceWar.com

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News