MARKUS WOLF - Former East German Stazi Hired by Homeland Security to Set Up Soviet-Block Tyranny Here

KGB Chieftain Finds Home at Homeland Security
by Mike Whitney
www.dissidentvoice.org
January 21, 2005

"Security and liberty go hand-in-hand. Members of Congress, like too many Americans, don’t understand that society with no constraints on its government cannot be secure. History proves that societies crumble when governments become more powerful than the people and private institutions." [1]

–Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)

Why would Homeland Security hire former Stasi chief Markus Wolfe and former head of the KGB General Yevgeni Primakov?

Is this part of the Bush anti-terror strategy? After all, Wolfe is the man who is credited with building up the feared East German secret police that was responsible for the disappearance and deaths of thousands of citizens. And, Primakov’s record is not any better. As skipper of the KGB he was driving force behind the machinery of state terror; a legacy that still has a chilling affect on many Russians.

Now, apparently, they’ve found a new place to hang their hats at Homeland Security. Or have they? Perhaps, the numerous stories on the internet are just fabrications intended to mislead independent research. That’s certainly one possibility. But, consider this; for those who have followed the activities of the current administration (the torture, the deception, the death squads, the destruction of Falluja) stories like this are difficult to discount. As a matter of fact, the hiring of Primakov and Wolfe seems fairly consistent with the long-term goals of the Bush team.

We already know that there’s a power struggle within the government from the number of top agents who have been jettisoned at the CIA. Why not develop a new Security apparatus under the auspices of a proven loyalist like Michael Chertoff? (the new appointee at Homeland Security) That would require the expertise of a couple of old pros who can help-out with the basics and get the machinery of state repression clanking along?

The move is not unprecedented either. As Noam Chomsky points out, in SS officer Klaus Barbie, "The Butcher of Lyon" was employed by the US Army after WW2 to "spy on the French." [2] Col. Eugene Kolb of Army counterintelligence later admitted that Barbie’s "skills were badly needed… His activities had been directed against the underground French Communist party and the resistance’ who were targeted for repression by the American liberators". ("What Uncle Sam Really Wants") Other Nazi leaders were also used in counterintelligence operations in Italy. They were regarded as "specialists in anti-resistance activities."

Primakov has allegedly been hired to oversee the issuing of federal IDs. Now that the new Intelligence Reform Act has passed, (uniform) federal standards will be required for licenses within two years. All the citizens personal, credit and biometric history will be stored on one small document. No one will drive a car or get on a plane without one. Don’t leave home without it, or else.

The new federal ID will be required in all financial transactions. Details will be electronically transferred to Office of Internal Security (which falls under the authority of Homeland Security), which will keep "threat files" on each citizen. Ultimately, the ID will be used as an "internal passport" (Primakov’s words) so the government can keep tabs on the movements of every citizen; to keep us safe, of course.

Sound Orwellian? This is what our "freedom loving" Congressmen and Senators overwhelmingly supported in the Intelligence Reform Act. Most of its provisions were written nearly a full year earlier as part of Patriot Act 2. It slipped by the media without a whimper of dissent. There’s also plenty of "enhanced powers" for the President; like the ability to incarcerate suspects indefinitely without charges. But, then, George would never abuse that authority, would he?

Apparently, there’s a Patriot Act 3 in the hopper, too. Investigative journalist Al Martin believes that this new addition will be intended to "establish the internal mechanism to coordinate, as an official function of state, a system of informants."

"System of informants"? The land of the free and the home of the snitches.

This must be where a man with Markus Wolfe’s unique talents fits in. As Stasi king-pin he reportedly groomed an impressive network of moles, finks and stool-pigeons. His professional know-how will probably be soothing balm to the quick-learners at Homeland Security. It’s bon voyage to the enemies of the State.

Of course, all of this could just be more paranoid, conspiratorial claptrap?

After sitting through 45 minutes of President Windy’s delusional ramblings of "global liberation", that seems rather unlikely. Our national nightmare is grounded in some very real changes in the law, and we already know how far these people will go.

The political remedies to the Bush onslaught are diminishing by the day and the observations of Texas congressman Ron Paul are looking increasingly more prophetic. Paul said, "Those who believe a police-state can’t happen here are poor students of history. Every government, democratic or not, is capable of tyranny. We must understand this if we hope to remain a free people."

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.

REFERENCES

Thanks to Al Martins, "Get Ready for the USSA" (United Soviet States of America), Behind the scenes in the Beltway (www.almartinraw.com)

[1] Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) "It Can’t Happen Here"

[2] Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants (Odonian Press, 1992), page 18.

Tyranny Comes to Amerika
By Henry Makow Ph.D.
March 5, 2005

The "suicide" deaths of Hunter Thompson, Gary Webb and J.H. Hatfield show that reporters who expose the criminal activities of our political elite are risking their lives.

They are on the front line of freedom. When they are killed, it means very bad things are in store.

In the latest issue of "World Currency Review," veteran British intelligence analyst Christopher Story warns us to expect a tyranny in America worse than Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. I’ll elaborate below.

Hunter Thompson was killed late last month. He was working on stories dealing with a homosexual callboy (or programmed sex slave?) ring in the Bush White House and the demolition of the World Trade Center.

Gary Webb was killed in December. His specialty was the Cocaine Import Agency (CIA).

J.H. Hatfield "committed suicide" in 2001. His book "Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President" was actually withdrawn by the publisher during the 2000 election campaign. About 100,000 copies were actually burned!

In the book, Hatfield established that G.W. Bush was convicted of cocaine possession in 1972. His father had the record expunged.

Otherwise Hatfield’s book is quite positive about Junior. I never thought El Presidente had the wit to fly a jet fighter. Two other details caught my attention:

One of the original investors in Daddy Bush’s Zapata Oil was Eugene Meyer, a Chairman of the Federal Reserve, a war profiteer and the publisher of the Washington Post. The Bushes were always operatives for the Illuminati bankers.

And when Junior was looking for investors in Arbusto Oil, James Bath staked him. Bath was a close business associate of Osama Bin Laden’s father! This supports my contention in "Bush, Bin Laden Serve the Same Master" that the globalist elite directs the War of Terror against the American people.

TYRANNY IN AMERIKA

Christopher Story is the author of "The New Underworld Order: Triumph of Criminalism and the Global Hegemony of Masonic Intelligence,"(available from amazon.com.uk)

I haven’t read it yet but I have read the latest (winter 2004-2005) issue of his"International Currency Review."

Story has extensive contacts in the Intelligence Community. Essentially his view is that, despite the supposed "fall" of Communism (See Anatoly Golitsyn’s The Perestroika Deception) the Illuminati bankers continue to use Russia, and specifically the KGB successor agencies to foster their world tyranny, which he defines as:

"The destruction of the nation state and its replacement by regional and global governance systems, with a small, self-appointed elite controlling the world’s resources at the expense of everyone else, for their own benefit. This is the essence of the world revolution through which we are living."

Story says that this "revolution" uses corruption and criminalism as instruments. Soviet intelligence operatives were literally retrained as criminals and infiltrated into Europe and the U.S. He says the US intelligence community also is used to foster moral corruption partly to blackmail and bribe holders of public office. No elected official "can move," he says.

"In this coup d’etat by installments, the US intelligence community has impregnated and corrupted the republican form of democratic governance by blackmail…and by always ensuring that its own personnel occupy the most important policymaking posts. In this respect there is no difference between the US and Soviet Systems."

This is literally true in terms of personnel. The list of "former" KBG generals working for the new Dept of Homeland Security includes Yevgeny Primakov, Alaxander Karpov and Oleg Kalugin. These men continue to serve "the covert Communist Party of the Soviet Union." (82)

The Dept. of Homeland Security, headed by Israeli-US joint citizen Michael Chertoff, is accountable to the President only. Its entire dealings are secret. It operates with impunity.

Story writes: "The language of Patriot Act II is believed to be lifted almost verbatim from…the Soviet Internal Security Enhancement Act (1965). A system of internal spying is being installed…along East German STASI lines [with help of consultant] East German STASI General Marcus Wolf." (130)

In an interview, Primakov volunteered that when the National Identity Card act (NICA) is passed, the Posse Comitatus Act is overturned, and other forms of repressive legislation are approved, "the White House will have acquired greater control over the American people than the Kremlin could exert when Stalin was alive." (82)

Story says that "the volume of official criminal operations and funds stolen have exceeded mind boggling numbers…only the most draconian control mechanisms can ever guarantee the immunity of all the high-level perpetrators…from exposure, arrest, indictment or worse." (110)

He reminds us of George H.W. Bush’s comment that "if the American people knew what we have done, they would string us up from the lamp posts."

The "draconian control mechanisms" include the construction of an American Gulag, a system of "prison camps" in army installations, euphemistically known as the "Civilian Inmate Labor Program." The same thing has happened in Canada.

CONCLUSION

Christopher Story is describing the stealth Communist takeover of the USA. How better do it when everyone is thinking Muslims, and our elected officials are too corrupt and compromised to protect us?

The Illuminati puppeteers appear to be setting the stage for a world war between the US and Israel on the one hand, and Iran, Russia and possibly Europe and China on the other. The Iraq war is a proxy war like the Spanish Civil War. According to Story, the Russian GPU prepared the Iraqi insurgency.

World War may be preceded by a breakdown in the world financial system prompted by financial and criminal excesses or the abandonment of the US dollar.

Or a "terrorist" event could provide an excuse to impose martial law, the draft, confiscate gold etc.

I almost didn’t write this week. I felt like taking a break from this stuff. Spring is teasing us here in the North where I live. The days are getting longer.

Divorced from our real history, we are taught to think of concentration
camp, plague, mass slaughter and secret police as things from a benighted past.

The events of Sept 11 have brought us back to rude reality. The forces
responsible for the excesses of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia are
responsible for 9-11. They still rule the world.

The Internet is abuzz. The American sheeple are stirring. Wolves have slaughtered some at the edges. Three thousand at the World Trade Center; ten thousand in Iraq; some reporters.

The sheeple hope they will be spared if they keep their head down and
play stupid. If history is an indication, this won’t be the case.

Sheep get slaughtered.

Ex-Stasi Spy Chief Markus Wolf Hired By Homeland Security?

Prison Planet | December 6 2004

Political analyst Al Martin, who has in the past proven accurate in getting ahead of the news curve, is reporting that Homeland Security have hired former Stasi head, the ‘Silver Fox’ Markus Wolf.

Martin states,

“Wolf is the man that effectively built the East German state intelligence operation’s internal directorate,” Martin continues. “He turned half the population into informants. That is his specialty, is taking a population, constructing the various state divisions, mechanisms of control, in order to organize informants within the population. That is his real specialty. And that is precisely, as Primakov has intimated, why Wolf is being brought in. The regime knows that once all of Patriot II is in law and they begin working on Patriot III, they will then begin to establish the internal mechanism to coordinate, as an official function of state, a system of informants. Wolf’s speciality was to turn East Germany into the greatest and most efficient informant state ever created.”

On a radio appearance earlier today Martin stated that the admission that Wolf would be hired was made in a BBC radio interview given by the former head of the KGB, General Yevgeni Primakov.

Martin had previously reported that Primakov had been hired as a consultant by the US Department of Homeland Security to implement CAPPS II and the national iD card system which he dubbed an ‘internal passport’.

Sources close to Martin have told Alex Jones confidentially that the appointment of Wolf was also confirmed by a US Congressman.

During his radio interview, Martin outlined the immediate agenda. The remaining portions of the 9/11 Commission intelligence reccomendations which include the introduction of a national ID card would be passed and subsequently ‘Patriot Act 3,’ which would include the formal establishment of a Stasi-like domestic spying organisation which would be similar in scope to the TIPS program.

TIPS, which was supposedly nixed by Congress, would have recruited one in twenty-four Americans as domestic informants, a higher percentage than was used by the Stasi in East Germany.

Government funding was cut but private funding continues and the same program was intriduced under a number of sub-divisions including AmeriCorps, SecureCorps and the Highway Watch program.

After the passage of Patriot Act 3 Wolf and Primakov would be tapped for their expertise in further collapsing America into a surveillance grid police state. Primakov has openly stated that they are working on behalf of Bush and Cheney to complete the ‘Sovietization of America.’

Markus Wolf on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Wolf
In 1953, at the age of 30, he was among the founding members of the foreign intelligence service within the ministry of state security Stasi. As intelligence chief, Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political and business circles of West Germany with spies. The most influential case was that of Günter Guillaume that led to the fall of chancellor Willy Brandt. He retired in 1986 in order to continue the work of his late brother Konrad about them growing up in Moscow in the 1930s. The book Troika came out on the same day in East and West Germany. For the people in the East he was a symbol of the ongoing changes, because he supported the Glasnost and Perestroika policies of Mikhail Gorbachev.

In 1997 he was convicted of unlawful detention, coercion, and bodily harm, and was given a suspended sentence of two years imprisonment.

Stasi on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi
The Stasi was founded on February 8, 1950. Wilhelm Zaisser was its first leader, and Erich Mielke his deputy. In 1955, Mielke became head of the Stasi, and Markus Wolf became head of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA), its foreign intelligence section. The Stasi was modeled on the Soviet KGB, which regarded the Stasi as an extremely loyal and effective partner among the intelligence services of the Warsaw Pact countries.

SVR on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SVR
SVR stands for Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, and is Russian for, “Foreign Intelligence Service”. The SVR is the Russian intelligence agency, which evolved from the KGB after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The CSR, for Centralnaya Sluzhbza Razvedki (Central Intelligence Service) took over the intelligence gathering and analysis duties of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate in October of 1991.

In December of that year, the former chief of the KGB First Chief Directorate, Yevgeni Primakov, was appointed head of the organisation, which was renamed SVR.

The SVR are suspected of assassinating Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, former leader of Chechnya.

US: KGB and STASI reinforce Homeland Security. For whom?

Foreign Press Foundation | 16.12.2004 13:06

Why have Soviet secret service ‘KGB’, General Yevgeni Primakov, as well as Markus Wolfe, the ex-boss of the ”STASI”, the equally feared former East German ‘State Security Police’ been hired by - and for - the US Gov’t.?

PEOPLE NOT UNDERSTANDING NOR SEEING THIS ”MENE TEKEL” ARE BRAINWASHED BLIND…

“These appointments have already been made”

Dec. 16th - 2004 - If somebody would inform you, that the former Ex-head of the inhuman and despicable Soviet secret service ‘KGB’, General Yevgeni Primakov, as well as Markus Wolfe, the ex-boss of the ”STASI”, the equally feared former East German ”State Security Police” - (Staats Sicherheitsdienst) - have been hired by the United States Gov’t for the lawless and already feared secret service “HOMELAND Security”, as experts to reinforce the control in the US of all it’s citizens: would that make you sleep badly ? Im sorry to wreck your night’s rest, but it seems that it just happened to you, or, better said: to all of us globally.

Nobody - outside the US mainstream media’s reach - would be surprised if the US neocons would appoint a revived Dr. Josef Mengele from Auschwitz as the new Head of Medicare.

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO [1997-06-09] WOLFE FROM THE STASI
WAS REFUSED A VISA TO THE US BECAUSE HE WAS A TERRORIST.*

Or do you still belong to this completely brainwashed group which - standing in the rain - assures everybody that it’s dry and quite sunny still? Up to one’s neck in the manure; saying it doesn’t smell …. ?

Saying US concentration camps do not exist and are not prepared?*

Bad luck: you even might end up there if you keep reading items like this. An American friend of mine, Jim Kirwan, today send me his views on this very underreported matter in an article called: “Tribute” a Submission:

“The White House today paid tribute to three individuals by awarding each of them, the ‘American Medal of Freedom’. This is the nation’s highest honor for civilians, who have contributed to the advancement of this country and the world.

The awards went to retired General Tommy Franks, for his role in fighting the Iraq War; to George Tenet, for his role as the head of CIA Intelligence in the same war; and to Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator of Iraq, for his administration of the aftermath of that invasion.

All three men failed miserably in their assigned duties, but each was nonetheless awarded a ‘Medal of Freedom’ for their respective efforts. For his part, Bush was ”re-elected” to the office he has occupied since 2000.

Indeed a black day for ”Freedom” in the United States (and all countries the US warmachine is trying to dominate, using genocidal ‘Might’ instead of ‘Right’. -HR)

Which brings us to the next group of sterling individuals who will no-doubt be awarded their own Medals of Freedom, in the very near future.

The first will be the new Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the man who has remained as close as a shadow to Bush since his governorship in Texas.

This is the genius who wrote all those legalistic overrides of the Geneva Conventions so that we might have unlimited charge of ”enemy combatants” worldwide.

He’s also the man who created the contents of that evil pair of Patriot Acts, that serve as bookends for the legalistic crushing of what’s left of law and government responsibilities under the new ”Terror Laws”. This guy’s a ”must have” if we are to remain on track for Fascism in America, in 21st Century style.

The second recipient of the next round of ”Freedom Medals” ought to be Ex-Admiral Poindexter, for setting up ‘Total Information Awareness’ (TIA) prior to 911, but he’s been officially trashed, so that’s impossible. Instead the award could probably go to one of his additions to the offices of HOMELAND Security: That would be the Ex-head of the Soviet KGB, General Yevgeni Primakov:

http://www.impeach-bush-now.org/Articles/Americans/USSA.htm

The third Medal ought to go to the latest addition to HOMELAND Security.

That would be the former East German STASI chief, Markus Wolfe*, a master of manipulation and intimidation - just what we now need to run our ”Secret National Spy Service”:

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=49&contentid=1676

Sounds like business as usual, but wait: this is not what it might appear to be. When we took Nazi scientists after W.W.II, to work on weapons systems, they were severely limited to working on systems that other civilians had control over.

We knew who they were and what they were, and they were monitored. This time, these vicious and utterly barbaric individuals will be employed specifically for the very skills they brought to their communist states, only now they are being imported to decide who lives and who dies in America. [See below: US Concentration camps?*]

These men have not changed, they are who they are, and that is exactly why Bush & the Bandits want them to run those aspects of HOMELAND Security, that spy on and attempt to co-opt U.S. Citizens.

USA is paying ex-barbarians to harass and prosecute Americans.

If these men were to appear for work, in the uniforms of their former States, the public would be outraged, and rightfully so! But that’s exactly what is happening here, only no one seems the least bit disturbed that the Government of the USA is paying ex-barbarians to harass and prosecute Americans under the guise of ”HOMELAND Security requirements.”

This is not a proposal ”these appointments have already been made” maybe that’s why the Bush government insists on doing everything in SECRET.

Do you like the idea that the former head of the KGB will be practicing his skills on Americans, and getting a handsome US paycheck for his efforts to control us?

Do you like the idea that the ex-General in charge of the world’s most notorious secret service, in charge of spying on the citizens in Communist East Germany, will also be getting a handsome paycheck from US taxpayers, to practice his obscenities on us?

Potential disaster

Most who have heard about this addition to HOMELAND security, believe that ‘it sucks!” Maybe if enough of us actually question the wisdom of these appointments, on the record - then perhaps - something more creative could be done about this potential disaster.

People here work really hard for every penny today, thanks to Bush & his Bandits; so why should we have to pay the cushy salaries of these particular despicable thugs, who have made careers out of torture and lies, not to mention having held lifelong professional hatreds of our supposed way-of-life.*

United States ”Homeland Security” ?
(For Whom ? - HR)

Bush created this 180,000 person agency out of 22 separate agencies, and to date, the public has seen nothing but bad jokes come from this huge and out-of-touch beast. But under the guidance of these former slave state torturers, maybe things will move along much more efficiently?

Maybe there are no longer any real differences between the belief systems at the top of the transnational corporate food chain. Maybe what is being used against the population here is only what so many corporate powers have been reluctant to do for far too long.

Apparently the real powers must now feel very comfortable, at this present moment, when all pretense can finally be dropped and the USA can finally take its place among the tyrannical empires that have preceded us on that one-way road to owning everything and everyone?

Think about that day, in the near future when the Bushwhacker will pin the American ”Medal of Freedom” upon the shapeless chests of these three despicable throwbacks (in the grand tradition he just established today) - and don’t forget how many more Americans they will each mutually be responsible for sending to prison, to torture, or to death.*

This is not just ”politics” anymore; this is ‘Tribute’, being paid out in the actions that we take as a nation, against our own people.

Who profits from these appointments, and who pays? [andend]

*************************************************************************

* HR: And this is what I found the White House said earlier about Wolfe: ”he sponsored terrorist attacks against us, why would we give him a visa?”

Excerpt from the U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing #87, 97-06-09*

QUESTION: Do you have anything on the visa situation of Mr. Wolfe, of the former East Germany?

MR. BURNS: You know, I think I do have something on that, George, and I’m glad you raised that question. Yes. We’re talking about Markus Wolfe, the former head of Stasi, right? The East German police.

Well, he was refused a visa, as my records show, in 1996. He was deemed to be ineligible for an American visa under Section 212(a)(3)(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

This section states that aliens who have engaged in terrorist activities are not eligible for visas to travel to the United States. It covers several types of terrorist activities, including preparing and planning terrorist activities, providing material support to those who have committed or plan to commit terrorist acts.

He was the deputy minister of state security for East Germany. He was the head of the ministry’s foreign espionage branch. He actively aided and abetted and fostered international and state-supported terrorism when he was an East German government official.

As the number 2 person in Stasi and the head of the espionage branch, he was absolutely in the decision-making channel. There’s no question about that.

By his own admission, he participated in determining the ministry’s policy and goals and he’s, therefore, ineligible.

We, in the State Department, do not believe it is appropriate to give him a waiver from Section 212(a)(3)(b) because we think it is inadvisable for someone who spent his entire career as an opponent of free German, West Germany, as an opponent of the German people, and someone who is anti-American and trying to bring down our government and sponsor terrorist attacks against us, why would we give him a visa?

So, he is not coming to the United States. He can write his best-selling books, but he won’t be able to enjoy the United States throughout the rest of his life if we have anything to do with it.”

[end quote-BURNS]

NOW WOLFE BROUGHT THE STASI/GESTAPO TO THE STATES…

Who dares to call this “Homeland Security” ?

U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing #87, 97-06-09:

* Burns - Quote - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/4pokl

* Jim Kirwan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3kbaz

* Your ‘pick-up’ - ”Global Terror by Secret US Death Squads”
http://tinyurl.com/6d9sa

* Possible destiny: US Concentration camps/FEMA:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/camps.html

* Dr. Josef Mengele - Google Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3knhv

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://tinyurl.com/3crhn
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/5uvtv
The Netherlands
FPF (at) Chello.nl

The Dutch author has this far worked abroad for 4 decades for international media, as a foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East.

Seeing every bomb and every bullet breeding more terror and hate towards the US Gov’t and it’s collaboraters.

Blog - HR - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5sr9p

Russian spy veterans mourn passing of East Germany’s Markus Wolf

RIA Novosti

09/11/2006 18:54 MOSCOW, November 9 (RIA Novosti) - Veteran agents of Soviet and Russian foreign intelligence said Thursday they were deeply saddened by the death of Markus Wolf, East Germany’s long-serving spy chief, who died at the age of 83.

Wolf, who retired as head of the German Democratic Republic’s foreign intelligence agency in 1986 after 35 years of service, died Thursday morning in his apartment in Berlin.

An association of Russia’s foreign intelligence veterans said in a statement: “Many Soviet intelligence agents knew Markus Wolf personally, and would closely cooperate with him, jointly fighting against imperialism to maintain peace and consolidate the positions of socialism in the Cold War era.”

During WWII, Wolf worked for German People’s Radio in Moscow, where his family fled from Nazis in 1934. When the war ended, he served as a counselor for East Germany’s embassy to the Soviet Union.

In 1951, Wolf joined the fledgling communist state’s foreign intelligence agency, part of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi.

“When the young GDR’s intelligence service was established, he became a prominent member, and then a long-standing helmsman of one of the world’s most efficient intelligence agencies,” said the statement.

Wolf, believed to have planted some 4,000 agents in the West to steal NATO secrets for the Soviet bloc, faced prosecution on espionage, treason and bribery charges following the reunification of Germany.

He fled to Moscow in 1990, but surrendered to German authorities a year later. He was convicted and sentenced to 6 years in jail in 1993, but the sentence was eventually overturned by an appeals court.

Markus Wolf, 83, East German Espionage Chief

Spymaster Riddled The West With Agents

By Adam Bernstein Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 10, 2006; Page B06

Markus Wolf, 83, who helped to oversee the growth of East Germany’s espionage network and once wrote that he wanted to be remembered for “perfecting the use of sex in spying,” died of undisclosed causes Nov. 9 at his apartment in Berlin.

Mr. Wolf led the foreign intelligence division of the East German Ministry for State Security, known as the Stasi, during much of the Cold War.

“Misha” Wolf’s impact was undeniable. He was said to have been remarkably effective in stealing West Germany’s weekly intelligence reports and was credited with planting thousands of moles in Western capitals, NATO headquarters and essential industries in science and technology.

One operative, Günter Guillaume, helped to topple the Social Democratic government of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1974. Another agent, Mr. Wolf said, became a secretary in the office of West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and provided details of communications between Schmidt and then-President Jimmy Carter.

Among Mr. Wolf’s favorite spying methods was a forgery technique he called “seamless penetration,” involving the reuse of passports confiscated from West Germans emigrating to the East.

Yet Mr. Wolf said he was likely to be remembered for his prolific use of sex to gain secrets, whether in the form of brothels to trap Westerners or by procuring wives and mistresses for loyal soldiers or by cultivating “Romeo spies” to target the lonely office secretaries and bureaucrats who had access to important, restricted documents. The intention was to steal hearts and then secrets.

He had sympathy for agents who fell in love while on the job, later writing in a memoir that he “had to develop my qualities as an agony uncle.”

Mr. Wolf’s avuncular manner was different from most Eastern bloc spymasters, such as his superior, the much-despised Stasi chieftain Erich Mielke. In retirement, Mr. Wolf made an attempt to redefine himself as a Gorbachev-style reformist by denouncing Mielke’s methods and the reign of East German leader Erich Honecker.

However, this effort was widely regarded by his Stasi colleagues as an act more of expediency than of conviction.

Seeking political asylum, Mr. Wolf fled Germany before reunification in 1990, first to Russia and then Austria.

In 1993, a German court convicted him of treason and sentenced him to six years in prison, but the ruling was reversed by the country’s high court on the grounds that Mr. Wolf could not be prosecuted for actions on behalf of what was a sovereign country. A later finding of guilt on kidnapping charges, related to his Stasi work, led to a two-year suspended sentence.

The publicity was ideal to help him sell his memoir, which was called “Man Without a Face” because of his reputation for avoiding being photographed for much of his life. He was eager to explain his career to Western reporters, telling one, “The morality of the intelligence world can never be compared with the normal moral thinking of normal people.”

Markus Johannes Wolf was born Jan. 19, 1923, in Hechingen, a village in southwestern Germany.

His father, Friedrich, was a prominent doctor, playwright and Communist Party activist. He also was Jewish and relocated the family to Moscow soon after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933.

As a young man, Mr. Wolf was educated at a Soviet Comintern school, where he became handy with weapons and propaganda techniques.

In Soviet-held Germany after the war, he befriended future East German leader Walter Ulbricht, who ordered him to abandon aeronautical studies to work as a Communist Party radio broadcaster.

Covering the Nuremberg trials of former Nazi leaders led Mr. Wolf to join the new Stasi. He later explained to the publication Tikkun, “Many other Jews took a similar path, becoming active in the Stasi to hunt down former Nazis.”

He justified his decision on the grounds that Western powers used high-ranking Nazis, including Reinhard Gehlen, to build up their postwar intelligence services.

At 33, Mr. Wolf assumed command of the East German foreign intelligence service and wandered the world in disguise, under many names.

Ronald Payne and Christopher Dobson, authors of “Who’s Who in Espionage” (1984), wrote: “He had a taste for travel, and has been seen in Aden, the capital of the People’s Republic of South Yemen, where the East Germans control security and fill a prominent neo-colonialist role. It has been suggested that he played some part in attempting to destabilize the monarchy in Saudi Arabia.”

In retirement, Mr. Wolf wrote a bestselling novel, “The Troika,” based on his youth, and tried to revive his standing in a changing society that had little but contempt for the Stasi. He embraced Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of openness and appeared at rallies against Honecker.

Despite his public transformation, he was barred from entering the United States, which he found hypocritical, considering that Yasser Arafat and Gerry Adams, leaders aligned with violent political groups, were embraced by the White House. Partly to blame, he said, was his refusal to work for the CIA with the promise of a seven-figure salary, a home in California and a fresh identity.

Recounting his career in later years, Mr. Wolf could be charming and self-effacing. He noted that his best-known operative, Guillaume, was supposed to target only a West German labor leader but inadvertently took down Brandt’s government.

Mr. Wolf’s first two marriages, to Emmi Stenzer and Christa Wolf, ended in divorce. Survivors include his third wife, Andrea Wolf; three children; and a step-daughter.

Mr. Wolf was said to be an inspiration for the Soviet spy Karla, a character in John le Carre’s espionage novels, but le Carre said he did not know of Mr. Wolf when he created Karla.

Le Carre was also unimpressed with Mr. Wolf’s latter-day conversion, calling him “the modern equivalent of Albert Speer . . . a nasty little twerp.”