Markus Wolf

Markus Johannes "Mischa" Wolf (January 19th 1923 - November 9th 2006) is the leading one, of 1956 to 1986, the service of the external information, Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA), of the powerful secret police (Stasi) of GDR.

Life and work

It is called the man without face , because the first photography, the representative in the streets of Stockholm as a simple tourist, is taken by the Western services only in 1979.

Born with Hechingen in the province from Hohenzollern (current Bade-Wurtemberg), Markus Wolf is resulting from an Jewish family. His/her father is a doctor member of the Communist party as well as a novelist. Markus Wolf emigrates with his/her father on arrival of Hitler to the capacity, in 1933. The family settles in Suisse, then in France and finally in the USSR. The young man is allowed in a school of elite, reserved for the executives of PCUS. He becomes " there; Mischa" , the Komintern integrates and works in the services of propaganda of the Red Army .

Of return to Berlin, in 1945, under the Soviet uniform, it is initially corresponding East-German radio and follows, for this reason, the Procès of Nuremberg. Then he becomes diplomat with the East-German embassy of Moscow, before taking part in the creation of the intelligence service external of the GDR of which he takes quickly the head in 1958.

During more than thirty years (until in 1987), it is one of the most dreaded men of the Western secret services. With nearly 4000 agents, its organization is in the middle of a great number of secret operations. Markus Wolf does not hesitate with to treat directly agents and often travels incognito, at least until its identification in 1979. One of the most known businesses is the recruitment of Günter Guillaume, the right-hand man of Willy Brandt. The scandal is enormous and obliges the chancellor to resign in 1974. It recruits also Rainer Rupp, known as Topaze , which works more than 10 years at the general headquarter of NATO. In 1987, it takes its retirement and is opposed to the hard line Erich Honecker. With the fall of the Wall, it takes refuge in the USSR before going in September 1991. He is condemned in 1993 and 1997, for treason and sequestration during the cold war, at 6 years then 2 years of prison that he does not purge.

Rather atypical and mysterious character, it affirmed in his memories that it is by antifascism, as a Jew, German and Communist, that it had become one of the Masters spies of the Eastern bloc. He always refused to reveal the names of his agents after the fall of the Communist regime. Markus Wolf is the character who inspired the novelist John the Square to create Karla , the pitiless adversary of George Smiley .

References

Wolf, Markus; Memoirs off has Spymaster , Pimilco,

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