Herbert Willner
Herbert Willner (born July 1, 1926 in Dairen , China; † February 22, 2017 ) was a journalist and GDR spy at the State Security Intelligence Headquarters . He was married to Astrid Willner, who was secretary to the head of Dept. 3 in the Federal Chancellery and also worked as a GDR spy.
Life
In 1959 Herbert Willner began working with the GDR secret service. In 1961 he moved from the GDR to West Berlin .
There he initially took on journalistic activities for the news magazine Der Spiegel . In 1965 he first worked in the FDP federal office, later in the FDP-affiliated Friedrich Naumann Foundation as a consultant for foreign, security, Germany, European and development policy. He reported on this activity to the GDR secret service and was also active as an influence agent. Willner proudly described himself as Günter Verheugen's “ ghostwriter ” .
In September 1985 Willner's espionage operation was ended for security reasons. Probably the defector Hansjoachim Tiedge had warned of an impending exposure. There was already suspicion of espionage against both of them, but in May 1985 a telephone and mail surveillance requested by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution was rejected by the Federal Ministry of the Interior under Friedrich Zimmermann because there were insufficient suspicions. Herbert Willner returned to East Berlin and lived in a bungalow in Wandlitz . In 1987 an arrest warrant was issued against him in the Federal Republic of Germany, but it could not be carried out because of his stay in the GDR. After German reunification on October 3, 1990, he fled to Bulgaria to avoid the execution of the arrest warrant. After the statute of limitations in 1995, the arrest warrant was canceled and the Willner couple returned to Wandlitz.
Works
- Klaus Eichner , Gotthold Schramm (ed.): Scouts in the West, top sources of the GDR enlightenment remember . With a foreword by Markus Wolf and Werner Großmann . Edition Ost , Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-360-01049-3 (co-author)
literature
- Wolfgang Hartmann: Willner, Herbert . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
- Friedrich-Wilhelm Schlomann : The moles. They are still with us, the Stasi helpers in the west. Universitasverlag, Tübingen 1993, ISBN 3-8004-1285-3 .
- Markus Wolf: Chief of espionage in a secret war. Memories. Ullstein, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-548-36589-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Obituary in: Heidekrautjournal, 2/2017 , p. 3
- ↑ Maybe we made the wrong decision . In: Der Spiegel . No. 39 , 1985 ( online ).
- ↑ Karl Wilhelm Fricke : Historical revisionism from a MfS perspective (review) ( Memento from June 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 132 kB)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Willner, Herbert |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German journalist and spy for the GDR foreign intelligence service |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 1, 1926 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dairen , China |
| DATE OF DEATH | 22nd February 2017 |