Florian Rotaru

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Florian Rotaru (also Ovidiu Florin Rotaru ) was a Romanian cryptographer in the Romanian embassy in Vienna and a defected agent in the service of the foreign intelligence service Departamentul de Informații Externe (DIE) and Centrul de Informații Externe (CIE) of the Socialist Republic of Romania . He was responsible for the encrypted transmission of messages to Bucharest and went into hiding on November 23, 1980 with 50 kg of secret documents. A short time later he first handed this over to the BND , which forwarded the material to the CIA . Rotaru moved to the USA.

Secret service scandal in Austria

Two months later, the CIA released details that led to the withdrawal of three exposed agents from the Romanian embassy. The further evaluation showed that high Austrian officials were informants of the Romanian secret service Securitate in the Vienna Stapo (then officially: Police Department I ). The department inspector Josef Czernanski (code name: Costea ) and the head of the Aliens Police, Hofrat Edgar Berger were named. The Austrian daily Kurier reported about it on January 30, 1981, as did Die Presse and the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel . The name "Florian Rotaru" was mentioned. A short message with this name also appeared in the New York Times . Romanian sources called "Ovidiu Florin Rotaru". The allegations were later expanded to include Franz Ehrenreich, who was the personal security chief and bodyguard of the then Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky .

As a result, a total of 12 Austrian officials were named, both from the police apparatus and from the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Education. According to Austrian legislation, however, secret service activity was only illegal if it was explicitly directed against the Republic of Austria. Nevertheless, the Austrian secret services suffered a loss of image and confidence in the NATO services, which only a few months later in June 1981 was fueled by an affair involving the Czech Josef Hodic . In connection with the Rotaru affair, a high-ranking Austrian police chief was removed from office in March 1981.

Three years later, the Romanian diplomat Constantin Constantinescu could be proven by the Rotaru documents connections to the international terrorist Carlos , who had carried out a bomb attack on Radio Free Europe . Constantinescu and five other Romanian diplomats had to be withdrawn from the Romanian embassy in Bonn in March 1984 , 10 days before Nicolae Ceaușescu's state visit to the FRG.

Thereafter, reporting related to the Rotaru documents stopped. It can be assumed that the defected Romanian agent lived on under a different name in the USA .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hotnews.ro: Defectarile lui Nicolae Plesita , from July 29, 2005 (Romanian)
  2. ↑ Ziariul Financiar: Diplomatii si spionajul (X) , August 17, 2007 (Romanian)
  3. ↑ Der Spiegel: Austria - Kranzschleife Command , (Issue 34/1981)
  4. ^ New York Times: Espionage Case in Austria (March 31, 1981)
  5. ↑ Ziariul Financiar: Diplomatii si spionajul (X) , August 17, 2007 (Romanian)
  6. ↑ Dennis Deletant : Ceauşescu and the Securitate: coercion and dissent in Romania, 1965-1989 , ME Sharpe, 1995, ISBN 9781563246333
  7. ↑ Ziariul Financiar: Diplomatii si spionajul (X) , August 17, 2007 (Romanian)
personal data
SURNAME Rotaru, Florian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rotaru, Ovidiu Florin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian cryptographer and agent
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century