Erich Schmidt-Eenboom

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Erich Schmidt-Eenboom (born November 23, 1953 in Leer , East Frisia ) is a German social pedagogue, publicist and peace researcher with a focus on intelligence services .

Life

Schmidt-Eenboom grew up in Leer and attended the local high school for boys . From 1973 to 1985 he was an officer and soldier in the German Armed Forces . He studied modern history and pedagogy at the Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg and graduated as a social worker. In 1985 he became managing director of the Research Institute for Peace Policy eV founded by Alfred Mechtersheimer in Starnberg. In 1990 he succeeded Mechtersheimer as chairman. In 1992 he moved the institute's headquarters to his residence in Weilheim.

Schmidt-Eenboom appeared as the author of numerous books and articles on the subject of security policy and intelligence services and is also a sought-after interview partner. In 2005 it turned out that he was monitored by the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) from 1993 to around 1998, which led to the BND's journalist scandal . The trigger for the surveillance was obviously his 1993 book Der BND . The Focus reported in 2006 that the BND had made several small donations to Schmidt-Eenboom for his research institute, and that he had been recorded as a source by the BND under the code names “March” and “Gladiator”. In return, he gave a BND contact in July 1997 copied documents from a deceased Stasi spy for analysis. In his own estimation, Schmidt-Eenboom always wanted to maintain the necessary distance from the BND, he had never betrayed informants and only occasionally “got involved in a cat-and-mouse game” with the BND.

The “ Schäfer report”, under the code name “Journalist T”, deals with Schmidt-Eenboom's relationship with the BND up to its work for it.

Books

Undercover - How the BND controls the German media (1998)

The book mainly deals with 230 journalists with whom the BND is said to have had contact. Among them are Michael Naumann , Marion Gräfin Dönhoff , Henri Nannen , Peter Boenisch , Karl Holzamer , Mainhardt Graf Nayhauß , Gerhard Löwenthal and Walther Steigner. The data are based on a BND document with the title “BND-Presse-Sonderverbindungen” from 1970 and are divided into three groups, from “fully viable contacts” to “random contacts”. Marion Countess Dönhoff explains in the book that she has no use for the term “BND press special connections”. However, she was occasionally visited by a BND employee. The conversations were "just like you talk to any stranger who visits a newspaper, without any major problems being involved."

In her review in Telepolis writes Christiane Schulzki Haddouti on 24 August 1998 Schmidt Eenboom draw in his book almost every variety of conscious and unconscious cooperation after. She finds it particularly remarkable that “left-wing intellectual circles” were also used for intelligence purposes during the Cold War. For example, the International Society for Human Rights in Frankfurt was founded by an institution financed by the CIA and BND and launched some campaigns supported by the left. Schmidt-Eenboom points out that the topic of human rights was used as an "essential lever for the internal destabilization of Eastern European coercive systems". Overall, the reviewer judges that the book captivates with an abundance of details, but unfortunately on some points it remains on the surface. "It offers starting points for further research work as well as suggestions for critical biographies."

Secret Service, Politics and Media (2004)

In 2004 a follow-up volume was published by Kai Homilius Verlag, “Secret Service, Politics and Media” . In it, Erich Schmidt-Eenboom again deals with the “amalgamation of BND and media”. Klaus Eichner rates the publication in Neues Deutschland as “an exciting, entertaining, instructive and informative book”. He particularly emphasizes that Schmidt-Eenboom had access to the private archive of the former BND Vice President Dieter Blötz as well as the estate of the former President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Günter Nollau and could therefore offer “exceptional and authentic factual material”.

Publications (selection)

  • with Barbara Dietrich: Wiesbaden - An analysis of the military structures in the Hessian state capital - Extended version of the expert opinion for the state capital Wiesbaden . Information Office for Peace Policy , Starnberg 1987, ISBN 3-924011-09-5 .
  • The BND - snoopers without a nose - the uncanny power in the state . ECON Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-430-18004-X .
  • The dirty business of industrial spies . together with Jo Angerer, ECON Verlag 1994, ISBN 3-430-18007-4 .
  • The Shadow Warrior, Klaus Kinkel and the BND . ECON Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-430-18014-7 .
  • Undercover - How the BND controls the German media . Droemer-Knaur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-426-77464-X .
  • Intelligence Services in the War on Terrorism . In: Arnold Schölzel (Ed.): Das Schweigekartell - Questions & contradictions on September 11th . Kai Homilius Verlag , Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89706-892-3 , p. 61-84 .
  • Secret service, politics and the media - opinion making undercover . Kai Homilius Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89706-879-6 .
  • BND - the German secret service in the Middle East - secret backgrounds and facts . Herbig, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7766-8010-2 .
  • with Matthias Ritzi: In the shadow of the Third Reich - The BND and its agent Richard Christmann . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86153-643-7 .
  • with Ulrich Stoll: The Partisans of NATO - Stay-Behind Organizations in Germany, 1946–1991 . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86153-840-0 .
  • with Christoph Franceschini & Thomas Wegener Friis: Espionage among friends - partner service relationships and Western intelligence by the Gehlen organization and the BND . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-86153-946-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich Schmidt-Eenboom. Archived from the original on October 31, 2012 ; accessed on July 15, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Register of Associations, Starnberg District Court, sheet 690, entry No. 5 of May 29, 1985
  3. ↑ Register of Associations, Starnberg District Court, page 690, entry No. 5 of May 29, 1985 and No. 10 of June 27, 1990
  4. ↑ Register of Associations, Munich Local Court, sheet 80431, entry No. 1 of July 20, 1992
  5. ↑ BND scandal: "They even shadowed me in the sauna" Der Spiegel, November 11, 2005
  6. ↑ Scandal: Systematically Infiltrated FOCUS (20/2006), May 15, 2006
  7. ^ Schäfer report ( Memento from April 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
  8. ↑ Michael Hanfeld, Tilmann Lahme: Journalists and slouch hats: What does the Schäfer report say? The BND's Schäfer report reveals nothing that is not already known. On the contrary, it leaves many questions unanswered. Last but not least, how to distinguish a real journalist from an intelligence agent. May 28, 2006, accessed September 5, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Illegal surveillance. taz, November 17, 2013, accessed on September 27, 2018 .
  10. ^ Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti: Undercover. The BND and the German journalists. In: Heise Online . August 24, 1998, accessed December 2, 2014 .
  11. ↑ Klaus Eichner: Political book: opinion makers with slouch hat. In: New Germany . October 28, 2004, accessed on December 2, 2014 (full article is available for a fee).
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt-Eenboom, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German social pedagogue and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Leer , East Frisia