Heinz Felfe

Felfe is a redirect to this article. Further meanings are listed under Felfe (disambiguation) .

Johannes Paul Heinz Felfe (born March 18, 1918 in Dresden ; † May 8, 2008 in Berlin ) was a member of the security service of the Reichsführer SS (SD), the Gehlen organization and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND). In 1960 he was arrested as a spy for the KGB , convicted and exchanged for the GDR in 1969 . There he became a professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin and published his memoirs .

Life

1918-1938

Heinz Felfe was the only son of Johann Felfe (* 1863 in Särka , Oberlausitz) and Elisabeth Ulrich (* 25 August 1880 in Bautzen ). His father became a criminal inspector in Dresden in 1926 and later took over the moral department . Starting in the early summer of 1924, Felfe attended the 24th elementary school in Dresden for four years  . In the summer of 1928 he switched to the reform pedagogical Dürerschule (which was also the 51st elementary school) in Dresden. He was involved in the Protestant youth , in the Young German Order (Jungdo) and in the German Young Society from November 1, 1929 (dj 1.11), which saw itself in the tradition of the wandering bird . Furthermore, he joined the "Ring Association of Free Scouts ".

On July 15, 1931, Felde joined the National Socialist Student Union (NSS). When they were transferred to the Hitler Youth (HJ), he became a member from January 1932 to March 1, 1936. Felfe belonged to the HJ-Bann 100, local group Dresden. From January 1932 to July 1933 he took part in pre-military training courses of the " Black Reichswehr " at the Königsbrück military training area in the Schmorkau camp and took part in the first Reich Youth Meeting on October 1 and 2, 1932 in Potsdam . At the end of 1932 Felfe became HJ-Scharführer and in 1934 adjutant of the Bannführer . Under the spell, he made it to the HR manager. After his Bannführer was deposed in the course of the Röhmputsch , Felfe briefly changed to the staff of Oberbanns 5 in Bautzen and then to the Dresden regional staff 16 on a post "for special use".

Felfes' school attendance ended on March 31, 1934 and he decided to do a three-year apprenticeship as a precision mechanic at Müller & Wetzig, a special factory for projection and magnifying devices in Dresden. From January 24th to March 31st, 1935, Felfe completed as a volunteer in the police service a training course for supplementary teams in the 14th  Hundred of the Saxon State Police Group in Leipzig and was appointed supplementary sergeant on January 24th, 1935. At the age of 17, Felfe applied to the General SS , for which he received his father's consent. On February 11, 1936, he was assigned as a relay applicant to a special unit of the General SS, which belonged to the SS Upper Section Elbe. Felfe became a member of the SS motor unit (1 / M06), which was called the SS motor unit (1 / K6) from 1938 and later the SS motor storm.

At the age of 18 Felfe met his future wife Margarethe Ingeborg Conrad - like Felfe a staunch National Socialist - whom he married in 1942. On May 1, 1936, Felfe became a member of the NSDAP (No. 3,710,348). As a spectator, he took part in the Summer Olympics in Berlin. From April 25 to May 15, 1937, Felfe completed his motor vehicle training at the SS motor school in Berne near Bremen . On July 1, 1937, he was appointed as a candidate for "relay man". From September 1937 Felfe worked in the NSDAP Gauleitung Sachsen as a full-time registrar of the Gau court in Dresden. He later rose to head the office of the district court . On December 27, 1937, he resigned from the Protestant Church. His SS probationary period ended on January 30, 1938 and he was appointed SS-Sturmmann (SS-No. 286.288). On April 20, 1938, the “Führer birthday”, he swore the SS oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler . At the age of 20, Felfe was conscripted and on June 22, 1938 at the Dresden I military district command as "suitable". From September 20 to October 26, 1938, he completed an exercise “on leave” with the motorized pioneer tower of the SS disposal troops , during which time he took part in the occupation of the Sudetenland and was awarded the Sudentenland medal on May 22, 1939.

Reich Labor Service and Wehrmacht

On April 1, 1939, Felfe was drafted into the Reich Labor Service (RAD), for which he had to give up his post at the Gaugericht. He was barracked in the RAD camp "Wolfgang A. Mozart" in Niederrödern near Radeburg , where he belonged to working group 150 of the 11th department. As a laborer he was sworn in again on April 20, 1939 as the "Führer". His unit mainly expanded the reservoir in Radeburg and the nearby motorway. After completing his apprenticeship, Felfe aimed to study law . Since he did not have a high school diploma , he wanted to complete a Langemarck degree . He successfully completed a selection camp in Bielatal near Königstein from July 24th to August 26th, 1939. His preparatory studies should begin in November 1939. On August 26, 1939, Felfe was drafted into the military as part of the general mobilization. Four days later, as a soldier, he swore his oath on the "Führer". The RAD departments were converted into construction battalions, which were to repair or create roads, bridges and airfields, carry out clean-up work or guard transports of prisoners of war . Felfe was assigned to the 3rd / Construction Battalion 120, which was to be used in the rear area of ​​the 10th Army .

Felfes war effort lasted only ten days. Tending to be morbid on his own, he contracted severe pneumonia and pleurisy . On October 6, 1939 he was taken to the hospital in Silesian Beuten and on October 30, 1939 to the reserve hospital in Bad Landeck in Silesia. On November 23, 1939, he was transferred to the Dresden I reserve hospital. On February 29, 1940 he was released with the qualification "garrison usable home". However, he was deferred for active military service until May 26, 1941 and transferred to the Reserve Reserve II.

SD

The unemployed Felfe tried again to study Langemarck. For information about his future classmates and teachers to deliver, he was appointed by SD as undercover agent recruited. He committed himself to this on July 31, 1940. In November 1940, he began his preparatory studies in Radebeul, which should last until Easter 1941. On November 26, 1940, Felfe applied for recognition of military service damage and compensation. The responsible welfare and pension office recognized the military service damage, but did not grant any compensation. On March 24, 1941, Felfe obtained the university entrance qualification . Since Langemarck graduates were obliged to work for five years in party or state organs, representatives of the authorities held recruitment presentations to the students at the end of 1940, including an employee of the SD and the SiPo . Then Felfe applied as a "candidate for the executive service" of the SiPo and in the SD in the RSHA . After he had already worked for the SD, Felfe was accepted into the SD on February 7, 1941 and appointed SS-Unterscharführer . In April 1941 he passed the aptitude test.

With effect from May 1, 1941, Felfe was called up to the RSHA as a candidate for the executive service of the SiPo and the SD . First he completed a ten-day course for prospective SS-Untersturmführer in Frauenberg. After two drafts on May 26 and September 2, 1941, he was again deferred from military service until March 31, 1942.

On July 31, 1941, the marriage office in the Race and Settlement Main Office in Felfe issued a marriage permit at his request. Felfe got engaged on April 5, 1942 and married on July 25, 1942. The couple moved to Dölzschen in the south-west of Dresden, first to Residenzstrasse 27 and in September 1942 to Strasse Am Kirschberg 50. His son Hans-Ulrich "Uli" Felfe was born on March 7, 1944.

Felfe began studying law at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (today Humboldt-Universität ) and lived with his uncle in Berlin-Tempelhof (Kaiserin-Augusta-Strasse 51). He studied three semesters from the summer of 1941 to the summer of 1942 , but he was unable to complete the last one. As a member of the RSHA, he had to take part in so-called Wednesday colloquia and compulsory sports (riding, shooting, fencing) in addition to the regular lectures .

Felfe completed compulsory internships at the SiPo offices in Berlin and Dresden and practical training in the work areas of SiPo and SD. For the training, Felfe was assigned as a criminal trainee to the criminal police control center of the Berlin police headquarters . He also worked in the Reich Criminal Police Office , the control centers in Berlin and Dresden as well as in the StaPo control center of the Gestapo in Dresden and in the Forensic Institute of the SiPo . On September 30, 1941, the Reich Judicial Examination Office granted Felfe permission to take the Notexamen, the first legal state examination after five semesters. On January 30, 1942, he was promoted to SS-Oberscharführer . At the beginning of 1942, however, the preparatory service for the executive service was discontinued due to the war. Felfe was posted to the Dresden Criminal Police Office from March 1 to June 9, 1942.

From June 10 to 1942 to March 5, 1943, Felfe attended the 32nd Detective Commissioner Trainee Course. Of the 35 participants, Felfe was the youngest and the only one with no prior experience in the police or the Gestapo. Nevertheless, he passed the course as the best in the course and was appointed assistant and probationary commissioner and SS-Untersturmführer on March 5, 1943 . Two weeks later he was transferred to Gleiwitz . Given his achievements, Felfe was disappointed about the use in the province.

Already on August 28, 1943 Felfe However the RSHA seconded and Unit VI B 3 ( Switzerland , Liechtenstein im) Subject " evaluation " as a clerk employed. He should set up a network of agents in Switzerland, recruit and train informants and process agent reports relevant to foreign policy. On November 18, 1943, after completing a probationary period , Felfe was promoted to detective inspector and became a civil servant . At the beginning of 1944 Felfe actually had to run the official business of the department due to his superiors' assignments abroad . For this he received the War Merit Cross, Second Class. On April 20, 1944 he was appointed SS-Obersturmführer .

In May 1944, Felfe's department was relocated to Zossen in the Maybach II camp. As a result of the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , the Foreign / Defense Office was incorporated into the RSHA as the "Mil Office". The head of the Swiss department there was now head of Felfes' department on a provisional basis. At the end of 1944, Felfe was transferred to the Netherlands , where he reported on December 26, 1944 in The Hague . He was posted to Enschede , where he worked as the deputy head of the department. There he performed routine service and instructed SD sources on business trips within the Netherlands. He was ordered back on January 22, 1945 and drove to the alternative location of the RSHA.

Felfe reported that his superior in Enschede, Hinrich Ahrens, had an extramarital relationship with Charlotte Otto. Eugen Steimle then sent him back to watch him. In Enschede, Felfe interrogated the husband of the Ahrens affair, Ernst Jakob Otto, for three days. Thereupon Otto made a "voluntary statement" and confessed to contacts with the Dutch resistance . Otto was then executed and Felfe was awarded the War Merit Cross, First Class with Swords. On March 8, 1945, he allegedly took part in the shooting of 263 prisoners in retaliation for the assassination attempt on Hanns Albin Rauter . On April 1, 1945, Felfe's office moved from Enschede to Groningen and on April 14 to Oostmahorn . From there they crossed to the island of Schiermonnikoog under fire from the advancing Canadian forces . On May 5, 1945, Felfe was sworn in on Hitler's successor and Reich President Karl Dönitz . It was not until May 31, 1945, 23 days after the end of the war, that Felfe surrendered to the Canadians with other SS and SD members; the last 600 soldiers on Schiermonnikoog only on June 11, 1945.

In Office VI of the RSHA he got to know Johannes "Hans" Clemens from Dresden , with whom and with Erwin Tiebel he worked as a double agent until 1961.

Captivity

Felfe was captured by the 1st Canadian Army and taken to Groningen, where he remained until June 27, 1945. On July 12, 1945, he was transferred to Noordsingel prison in Rotterdam and, after a month, to Utrecht . On November 23, 1945 he came to the British "Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Center" (CSDIC) in the old Fort Blauwkapel. Felfe betrayed all the comrades he knew as well as the agents in Switzerland and the Netherlands. The SD members who were also arrested disregarded him for this. In gratitude for his betrayal, the British certified that he was not a war criminal and that he was particularly suitable for the new German police force.

Felfe agreed to work for the British Intelligence Service (SIS). On July 12, 1946 he was sent to the Kamp de Beer near Rotterdam and after two weeks to the "Bewaringsen Verblijfskamp Duindorp" prison near Scheveningen . By ruse - he pretended to be first lieutenant instead of SS-Obersturmführer as well as residing in Münster - he was released on October 31, 1946 in the internment and release camp in Münster.

From 1946

Felfes wife advised him not to come to the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) and Felfe also feared reprisals as a former member of the SD. She gave him the contact address of a friend, Gisela Hering, in Honnef , where Felfe was traveling on November 1, 1946. When registering with the authorities, he gave the name Felfe, known as Freiberg . He had also used this code name as a detective inspector. However, he was registered under the double name Felfe-Freiberg . From December 1946 to June 1950 he moved into accommodation in Rhöndorf (Auf dem Rüdel), only 300 meters from Konrad Adenauer's house .

Felfe did not find a job as a police officer, despite applications and interviews. At first he lived off the black market trade. From July 4, 1947 to April 14, 1950 he was an undercover agent for the British SIS, for which he initially received 400  Reichsmarks per month and food. After the currency reform in 1948 , he was paid on a fee basis. At the beginning of 1947 his wife and son finally came from Dresden.

Felfe was given the task of observing communist students, for which he enrolled with the help of the SIS at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in the law course and, as ordered, became a member of the KPD to camouflage . In January 1948 Felfe traveled to the SBZ under the code name Heinz Freiberg , did private things and brought personal belongings to West Germany. He tried in vain for a job in the private sector. As an agent provocateur , Felfe was one of the founders of the “Marxist Student Circle” and became its third chairman, secretary and treasurer . This was later renamed the Study Circle for the Study of Communism and dissolved on June 25, 1950.

At the end of 1948, Felfe was charged with “falsifying questionnaires”, which at the time was comparable to perjury . When he applied to the Cologne Water Police, he did not mention his membership in the SD, which they found out through an inquiry to the Berlin Document Center . Due to British intervention, the charges were dropped a week later. On October 3, 1948, Felfe's daughter Ursula ("Ursel") Ingeborg Felfe-Freiberg was born.

Disguised as a freelance journalist for a communist newspaper, Felfe researched the KPD in the Parliamentary Council and, among other things, provided reports on the KPD parliamentary group as well as on Max Reimann and Heinz Renner .

During a visit to his mother-in-law in Dölzschen in July 1949, Felfe was recognized by a neighbor and SED member as a former member of the SD and reported to the police. Felfe found out about this in good time, was able to avoid his near-arrest and leave unmolested. From August 21 to September 4, 1949, he researched the FDJ Central Council and the Western Commission of the SED in Berlin and the West German participants in the Goethe Festival of the German nation in Weimar . In order to be able to research the KPD faction in the German Bundestag after the first federal elections , Felfe received his denazification papers at his insistence with British support on October 20, 1949 , according to which he was “exonerated” (category V).

Felfes application to the Cologne water police was unsuccessful, but their manager put him in touch with the Düsseldorf "information center", the forerunner of the later state office for the protection of the constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia , more precisely to its head of analysis Hermann Hennes , later Bochum police chief. Felfe offered Hennes the information gathered on behalf of the British and thus became a news dealer. Felfe also applied to the new Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and had an interview with the responsible BKA officer in the Federal Ministry of the Interior , Max Hagemann .

1950 Felfe lost his access to the KPD. The party suspected him of spying on them. Hennes warned Felfe against traveling to the Eastern Bloc. They want to make him "disappear". The British therefore lost their interest and switched Felfe off as an undercover agent on April 14, 1950. The only thing left to him was the work for the information center, for which he researched the “Nauheimer Kreis” and the National Front . Since the end of April 1950 he has been part of the executive committee in North Rhine-Westphalia under the name "Heinrich Felfe". He also wrote reports on a fee basis for the Berliner Zeitung's Bonn office . In January he wrote a critical article about the head of the Observatory, Fritz Tejessy . On June 18, 1950, Felfe signed the lease for his new apartment in Honnef at 3 Asbacherstraße.

On July 1, 1950, Felfe began working for the Federal Ministry for all-German issues in the Probst office as an interrogator for zone refugees in the Gießen emergency reception center , where employees of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Hesse also worked and with whom the interrogators worked. Felfe took a room to sublet and worked under the service name "Frenkel". He developed into an expert for the East German People's Police (VP) and wrote the “yellow book” about the VP and the MfS. In the second half of 1950 Felfe applied to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), which obtained information about Felfe from the British intelligence service, which strictly monitored its establishment. These were negative, so that both the application to the BfV and the BKA departmental authority had been completed. The refusal by the BfV was communicated to him on February 22, 1951. Felfes regular employment ended due to restructuring on June 30, 1951. From then on, he was only to receive individual monthly contracts. This ended in July 1951. From August 2 to September 14, 1951, Felfe took over one last vacation replacement in West Berlin and was unemployed again. Thereupon he applied again to the BfV in the summer of 1951 in ignorance of the negative information available about him there.

In his financial and professional emergency situation, Felfe asked his friend Johannes Clemens, who had worked for the Soviets for over a year, to contact them. On September 2, 1950, Felfe signed his written declaration of cooperation at the KGB headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst , was given the cover name "Paul" and 300 D-Marks.

On September 18, 1951, Wilhelm Krichbaum visited Felfe to check him out for a job in the general agency L of the Gehlen organization . Clemens typed Felfe beforehand. On October 18, 1951, Felfe flew to Berlin again, where he met his long-time commanding officer Vitaly K. Korotkow.

Organization Gehlen

Effective November 15, 1951, Felfe began his service in the Gehlen organization. He was given the service or code name "Hans Friesen" and the administrative number (V-Nr.) 3068. According to camouflage papers, he was born in Gleiwitz and lived in Frankfurt am Main as a businessman. Whenever necessary, he should name the Munich company Siegbert & Co., a legendary company of the organization, as an employer. Another cover name Felfes was "Heinrich Sanders", which he occasionally used on business trips. Felfes first order was to set up the Rhine-Ruhr sub-agency in Düsseldorf from April 1, 1952 . On April 10, 1953, the Bonn police authority informed the former detective commissioner Felfe that they were examining his reinstatement under Article 131 of the Basic Law .

After the dissolution of the general agency L on October 1, 1953, Felfe moved to the headquarters in Pullach in Department 40, responsible for counter-espionage, under the direction of Kurt Kohler. He moved into a room in the Grünwalder sports school at Ebertstrasse 1. Outwardly, he was an employee of the Munich company “Sinduver”. On January 27, 1954, he moved into a ground floor apartment with four and a half rooms for 200 D-Marks at Friedrich-Herschel-Strasse 3 in Munich- Bogenhausen , into which his family and his mother-in-law moved. In January 1954, Felfes department was reorganized, was called "122" and was directed by the chief executive Konrad Kühlein. In autumn 1954 he received a Walther Model 8 as a service weapon .

In May 1954, Felfe was assigned the "Lena" case, behind which Günter Hofé was hiding. In January 1955, Felfes KGB code name changed from Paul to "Konrad". Under the name “Mercedes” he was also responsible for Bogislaw von Bonin's attempt at contact with the East and led Günther Tonn under the name “Bambi” as a double agent.

BND

On April 1, 1956, the Gehlen organization became a member of the BND and Felfe. In 1956, Felfe took part in a trip to the USA organized by the CIA for members of the BND.

At the end of February 1958, Felfe was taken on as a civil servant and appointed to the government council (grade A 13). Because he lacked the educational requirements for a career in the higher service , he had to take an examination before the Federal Personnel Committee as a so-called “other applicant” . He had to explain to the then chairman, Federal Audit Office President Guido Hertel , among other things, what a dead mailbox was.

On March 1, 1959, Felfe, at that time responsible for counter-espionage against the Soviet Union, took over Operation "Index" to monitor the Soviet embassy established in Bonn in 1955. From January 1956 to February 1959 he was not yet a member of Index's staff, but as a consultant for the counter-espionage department he was generally informed about the operation. During this time he received the full scope of the operative index work from Hans Clemens, who headed a small external organization in Cologne as part of the operation.

From April 21 to May 19, 1960, at the request of the KGB, Felfe applied for a military exercise at the Bundeswehr Intelligence School (SNBw), which trained the personnel of the Military Counter- Intelligence Service (MAD). A security check for which the MAD was responsible was necessary for the military exercise . He obtained information from the former Western Allies, the state authorities for the protection of the constitution and the Berlin Document Center , which the BND had failed to do so far. As a result, the MAD learned of the concerns about Felfe and decided that the military exercise could not be started before the security clearance had been completed, which did not happen until his arrest.

Michael Goleniewski, a Polish double agent and defector with the CIA code name "Sniper", told the CIA that two BND employees on the trip were supposed to be KGB spies. This was the first concrete indication of Felfe's espionage activity. Before that, there were only vague and unconfirmed assumptions. In the following it became increasingly clear to the BND that its own operations had been betrayed.

BND President Gehlen set up a small, directly subordinate investigation team under the code name "Mexico". On March 13, 1961, the BND began to eavesdrop on all of Felfe's telephone connections, his office phone, in his Munich apartment and in his weekend / holiday home in Oberaudorf . As a result, Johannes Clemens and Erwin Tiebel also came under suspicion of espionage. At the end of October 1961, the BND informed the Federal Public Prosecutor General of the suspicion, who did not consider the evidence to be sufficient or usable in court. Clemens received instructions from the KGB for Felfe via agent radio , which Clemens passed on to Felfe. A letter from Clemens to Felfe with KGB instructions was intercepted by the postal control, the decisive evidence. Thereupon officers of the Munich criminal police were called to the doctor house, the seat of the BND president in Pullach, and Felfe was also ordered there. At 12 noon on November 6, 1961, Felfe was arrested.

Felfe became a close confidante of Gehlen thanks to the game material supplied by the KGB and GRU . Among other things, he claimed in 1953 that he was running an agent ring in Moscow and, among other things, provided the service with secret SED Central Committee protocols (including alleged criticism of high SED functionaries of Walter Ulbricht ), the identity of agents that the KGB could dispense with and a very precise plan of the KGB headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst , which Gehlen was particularly fond of showing to foreign secret service visitors. Most recently, he was appointed head of the Soviet Union Counter-Espionage Unit with access to many secret files of the Foreign Office and the Federal Government . In this function he was also in charge of the investigation called “Panoptikum” into a high-ranking mole suspected in the ranks of the BND , that is, with his own case.

According to a damage memorandum (Damage Report) of the US American intelligence service CIA , which was created after its exposure, it revealed over 15,000 "recorded individual items" (secret items) and "burned" (exposed) to the 100 CIA agents alone. Among other things, he managed to get involved in the CIA activities against the headquarters of the KGB in the GDR in Karlshorst, which among other things led to the exposure of a CIA mole. According to Gordiewsky / Andrew, he was able to keep the Soviets informed about their areas of interest by forwarding inquiries from the CIA and other services. At the BND, his betrayal had even more disastrous effects. He not only exposed the top management, but also “a relatively high number of field officers” (foreign agents).

Felfe met his senior officer in person at least 20 times and was aware of the details of at least 19 counter-espionage operations. He revealed the structure of the Gehlen organization and the BND, the composition of the management staff and knew the BND schools in Backnang , on Lake Starnberg, in Weinheim and Cologne. In the criminal proceedings, at least 95 identified identities were assumed. It was only after almost 15 years that the CIA officially lifted the reservations that existed with the BND due to the Felfe case.

Through his position as head of counter-espionage , Felfe had for years let the activities of this area run wild (like Kim Philby, who worked in a similar position in the British secret service before that ). The BND's damage report must have been much more extensive; there were 300  Minox - microfilms found 15,660 photos and 20 tapes in his apartment. Among other things, Felfe revealed the secret situation reports prepared by the BND for the Chancellery . He betrayed 94 agents of the BND worldwide  , including the BND resident in Bangkok . The identities, which were otherwise known to only a few employees at the BND, were obtained through skillful inquiries within the agency. Even while still in custody , he informed the KGB about the ongoing interrogations with additions to private letters written in secret ink .

The reputation of the Federal Intelligence Service, which had previously not been able to recognize the GDR's preparations for the construction of the Berlin Wall , was further damaged by Felfe's betrayal, both with German politicians and with the Americans and other foreign services. Even worse was the loss of trust within the organization and towards BND President Reinhard Gehlen himself. Konrad Adenauer's trust in Gehlen, who had ambitions to become an important advisor to the Chancellor , was also shaken by the affair.

At the CIA and even at the BND there were suspicions from the mid-1950s due to Felfe's lavish lifestyle. In addition, his successes were too perfect - people within the BND had also become suspicious and even Gehlen's brother-in-law, who also worked for the BND, warned him. But Felfe always had Gehlen's backing.

Custody

The Federal Chancellery was informed on the evening of the arrest . The security case triggered by the arrest of the three KGB spies Felfe, Clemens and Tiebel was named " Chile " in the BND . The organizational unit “office” was supposed to clarify the case and support the special staff “Mexico”. Felfe was housed in the Koblenz correctional facility . There, fellow inmate Heinrich Bastigkeit, a former major in the Bundeswehr, recommended the Cologne lawyer Eduard Burger. The espionage case became public in mid-December 1961. On April 28, 1962, the Federal Chancellery revoked Felfes’s appointment as a federal civil servant and demanded reimbursement of salaries since the beginning of 1958 in the amount of 67,000 D-Marks. However, the requirement should never be enforced. On May 22, 1962, Felfe was transferred to the Karlsruhe correctional facility .

On September 25, 1962, Felfes' marriage was "culpably" divorced by the Munich District Court I due to his KGB espionage . His wife Ingeborg took her maiden name "Conrad" again; later his children too.

Criminal trial

On July 8, 1963, with great public interest, the trial of Felfe, Clemens and Tiebel began before the 3rd criminal division of the Federal Court of Justice in room 232 of the new building in Karlsruhe . Federal Judge Kurt Weber chaired the prosecution, while Attorney General Erwin Fischer represented the prosecution . Felfes lawyer was the Cologne defense attorney Eduard Burger. Nine witnesses were summoned. Six out of ten days of negotiations took place in camera because of the threat to state security. On July 23, 1963, Felfe was sentenced to 14 years in prison for treason in unity with treacherous relationships, with breach of secrecy in a particularly serious case, with breach of custody with profit-addictive intent with heavy bribery , whereby only one year was credited to pre- trial detention. That left the court under the prosecution's request for a year. In addition, the forfeiture of DM 140,000 and all private items connected with his espionage was ordered and the loss of civil rights declared. His holiday home in Oberaudorf had already been confiscated . The court assessed the extraordinarily large scope of his many years of treason activities, the great importance of the material he delivered, his unscrupulousness, the devious creep into the Gehlen organization, the unscrupulous breach of the official's oath, his drive through low profit motivation and the endangerment of BND- Employees. Clemens received ten years in prison and Tiebel three years.

Criminal detention and agent exchange

Felfe served his sentence in a 8.69 square meter room in the Straubing correctional facility . There he had the prisoner number 7709. In the prison he had contact with Alfred Frenzel . Felfe hoped for an exchange soon and the KGB and the GDR government tried to get it, but the BND and the Federal Prosecutor General delayed it again and again. The GDR threatened to freeze the federal government's ransom program for political prisoners. The Federal Minister for Pan-German Issues , Herbert Wehner , then obtained Felfes approval from Federal Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger .

With the "Operation Schippchen" the BND wanted to persuade Felfe not to go east after his release from prison. Instead, he was to receive 500,000 Deutschmarks, write his memoirs in accordance with the BND, and set up a new existence in a third country - the USA was being considered. In the prison a “Dr. Bayer ”presented the plans to Felfe, who was clearly impressed. The conversation was secretly recorded by the BND. However, the CIA and federal government, which were later inaugurated, opposed the operation, so it was discontinued. Felfe was left in the dark about this.

On February 14, 1969, Felfe was exchanged at an agent exchange at the Wartha / Herleshausen border crossing and was released after 2,658 days in prison. On site he was granted a pardon by the Federal President . Felfe was exchanged for the Heidelberg students Walter Naumann, Peter Sonntag and Volker Schaffhauser, who were imprisoned in the Soviet Union for espionage. The day before - as part of the agreement, which was not to be made public - 21 people convicted of espionage for the BND had been released. Felfe was welcomed by his former agent "Alfred" (Witali W. Korotkow) with a large bouquet of red carnations . The BND secretly photographed the exchange and passed photos of it to the West German press.

In the DDR

Initially, Felfe lived in a small house provided by the KGB in Berlin- Karlshorst . The MfS led him under the code name "Starke", the KGB it remained with "Kurt". The intensive support and integration into society should radiate to active and potential spies. Felfe tried again and again to get permission to travel to the west, but he was always refused. This also applied when he reached retirement age and GDR pensioners were basically allowed to travel to non-socialist countries. Felfe remained a citizen of the Federal Republic. Therefore, in 1969 he applied for a passport from the West German authorities , but this was rejected.

Felfe's daughter visited him in the east and they went on a trip to the Soviet Union. There the Romeo agent “Viktor” was put on her, with whom she fell in love and then began to learn Russian. Felfes ex-wife Ingeborg visited him on his 50th birthday on September 16, 1969. He asked her if she wanted to marry him again and move to the GDR, which she decidedly refused.

Felfe was well looked after by the MfS. He drove a BMW 2000 and usually made several trips a year, which were paid for and organized by the MfS. Since the demanding Felfe was not afraid to complain to the MfS leadership or to Moscow right away, all of his wishes were usually met.

Felfe was to write his memoirs as soon as possible on behalf of Moscow. In order to forestall this, the BND created the anti-Felfe book “Moscow calls Heinz Felfe”. Despite the finished manuscript, it was never published because the federal government was against it. In the meantime, the BND continued to fear a "second field", which was constantly being searched for and which hindered the actual assignment. Later the book “In the center of espionage” by defector Werner Stiller became the improvised journalistic alternative to Felfes memoirs.

On July 15, 1970, Felfe achieved the academic degree of a qualified criminalist with the highest grade by the laying on of hands . This was justified by his work as a scout and his expected achievements, which meant his book with his memoirs. He then became a freelance research associate at the Criminology Section at Humboldt University. The section was headed by Ehrenfried Stelzer and mainly trained for the MfS, the Ministry of the Interior of the GDR and the customs administration of the GDR . The Stelzer family and the Felfe family were later on friendly terms. The “Working Group for Research into Imperialist Criminology” was set up especially for Felfe. On January 1, 1971, Felfe was appointed senior scientific assistant.

The MfS played a friend, the doctor Anne-Margret Rose, to Felfe, with whom he actually got together. However, the MfS later said she was influencing him badly, so measures were taken to work towards the separation. In fact, they separated a little later. Less than a month later, Felfe met a doctor again, the Junta Storch, who was born in Berlin- Moabit in 1933 . After just a few months, they were officially married on May 27, 1971.

On November 1, 1971, Felfe received his doctorate with a dissertation on the subject “On the continuity of the politics of imperialism. Origin and structure of the Federal Intelligence Service ". According to Bodo Hechelhammer, it was superficial and on a low scientific level. Nevertheless, the work, for which Felfe had received massive support, was given the highest grade summa cum laude and classified as confidential information . On December 1, 1971, the Humboldt University approved the granting of teaching qualifications (Facultas Docendi). With effect from September 1, 1972, Felfe was appointed associate professor in the criminalistics section.

As a professor, Felfe received a monthly salary of 1,600  marks . Added to this were 2,200 marks from the MfS (2,500 marks from 1980), a further 100 marks for personal needs as well as the costs of his car and the running costs of his house in Berlin-Weißensee . The KGB contributed 2,000 marks, of which 1,450 marks were paid into a Moscow custody account to finance care services and the remainder, exchanged for D-Mark, was paid out to Felfe's daughter under a legend.

After the death of Johannes Clemens, his widowed wife got in touch with Felfe. Clemens wrote his memoirs, which she would publish if Felfe did not pay a sum of money. The KGB paid the amount so that the work would not be in competition with Felfes planned memoir and that these could gain the sovereignty of interpretation through their first publication. Clemens' widow then allegedly burned the manuscript.

In November 1977 the Law School of the MfS in Potsdam - Eiche opened a traditional cabinet in which Felfes' role as a "heroic" scout was recognized in pictures, curriculum vitae and documents. Felfe was given a place of honor with its own showcase in an internal museum at the KGB headquarters in Lubyanka .

On March 8, 1979, Felfe completed a study entitled “Possible BND Procedures for Using Traitor Stiller”. Shortly before, Werner Stiller had fled to the West as a full-time MfS employee. From July 1, 1980, Felfe was the “full-time unofficial employee ” (HIM) of the MfS. Although he did not receive a military rank, he did receive a service card and now also had the code name Starke himself. Felfe later applied for a service pistol. He was then given a Walther Model 8 , which he already knew from the BND. The main department II (counter-espionage) of the MfS shot an almost 70-minute educational film about the life of Felfes as a scout with the title "The man from Camp Nikolaus " for its employees .

In 1986, Felfe's memoir was first published in the West under the title In the Service of the Adversary . When he presented the book in East Berlin, he pointed out his West German citizenship , which annoyed his GDR “hosts”. The first edition had a volume of 8000 copies, the second 2000. In the GDR a revised and partly supplemented version appeared later under the title Im Dienst des Gegners. Autobiography . The Russian version of his book is said to have appeared in a number of 200,000 copies, of which 100,000 are said to have been sold on the first day.

United Germany

After German reunification , the Humboldt University of Felfe, who had long since reached retirement age, resigned from his professorship at the end of March 31, 1991. The occasion was an article in Spiegel magazine . From 1990 to 1992 Felfe published four articles in the specialist journal Kriminalistik , to which he had subscribed since 1950. In August 1991 the Bild newspaper reported on an alleged lottery win by Felfe in the amount of 709,611.70 DM under the title "6 correct ones for the wrong one". The report turned out to be newspaper duck . Who was behind the action remained unknown. During this period, the BND contacted Felfe. He was supposed to work for the BND again because the BND was interested in his inside knowledge of the KGB. Felfe refused. On March 30, 1995, Felfe was interviewed by the two authors for the book "Battleground Berlin".

In March 2008 the KGB successor organization for foreign espionage, SWR, congratulated him on his 90th birthday.

Felfe died in his sleep of heart failure on May 8, 2008 in his house on Bundenbacher Weg in Berlin-Weißensee. His urn was buried anonymously on June 19, 2008 in the nearby Weißensee cemetery on Roelckestrasse. Former MfS members and representatives of the Russian embassy in Berlin attended the funeral .

reception

The 1973 film The Snake took up the Felfe espionage case.

In 1991 Roland May broadcast his documentary KGB - Two Spies, a Friendship on Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk about Felfe and his commanding officer Korotkow.

Awards

• War Merit Cross 1st Class with Swords (1945)
• War Merit Cross, Second Class with Swords (November 24, 1944)
• Golden HJ badge of honor
• Sudentenland Medal (May 22, 1939)
• Order of the Red Star (late August 1975)
• Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver (March 1978)
• Socialist Labor Activist (March 1978)
• Order of the Red Banner (June 18, 1982)
• Honored Employee of the Security Forces (KGB) (March 1983)
• Medal "For the Consolidation of the Combat Community" (March 1983)
• Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold (March 1983; associated with a 10,000 mark premium)

Publications

• In the service of the enemy: Moscow's man in the BND for 10 years. Rasch and Röhring Verlag, Hamburg / Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-89136-059-2 . (his memories and justification)

literature

• Mary Ellen Reese: Organization Gehlen. Rowohlt, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-87134-033-2 . (English original: General Reinhard Gehlen - the CIA connection , Fairfax 1990)
• Top secret. Exhibition catalog. 2000. (including in the Museum for Communication, Berlin)
• Oleg Gordijewski , Christopher Andrew : KGB. The history of his overseas operations from Lenin to Gorbachev. Bertelsmann, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-570-06264-3 , pp. 527, 583.
• Janusz Piekałkiewicz : World history of espionage. Weltbild, 1990, p. 464.
• Heinz Höhne : The war in the dark. Power and influence of the German and Russian secret service. Bertelsmann, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-570-05667-8 , pp. 548ff.
• Heinz Felfe . In: Der Spiegel . No. 26 , 2008, p. 1662008-06-23 ( online - obituary).
• Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Felfe, Heinz . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Double agent Heinz Felfe discovers America. The BND, the CIA and a secret journey from 1956. Schöningh, Paderborn 2017, ISBN 978-3-506-78694-4 .
• Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinz Felfe in the catalog of the German National Library
• Frank Westenfelder: Old comrades and cold warriors: Ex-Nazis between East and West. In: kriegsreisen.de. October 30, 2013 . 
• Norbert F. Pötzl : Double agent Heinz Felfe: Moscow's mole with the BND. In: one day on Spiegel Online . September 24, 2019 . 
• Stephan Erdenberger: Heinz Felfe: A very special mole - Bodo V. Hechelhammer. (mp3 audio, 25.6 MB, 24:51 minutes) In: WDR-5 broadcast “Curiosity is enough - speaking time”. October 8, 2019 (conversation with chief historian of the Federal Intelligence Service). 
• Propaganda and disinformation from secret services . Interview with the BND chief historian Bodo Hechelhammer about the double agent Heinz Felfe.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 9-34 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 35-58 .
3. ↑ ^{a b} Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 59-63 .
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 63-78 .
5. ↑ see also: "On his Majesty's Secret Service": Heinz Felfe and his intelligence work for the British secret service against the KPD (1947–1950). In: Yearbook for Historical Research on Communism. 2016, pp. 57–96. Wrong with Piekalkiewicz: World history of espionage.
6. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 78-89 .
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 89-105 .
8. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 105-118 .
9. ↑ Fiffi in III f . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 1969 ( online - Gehlen had for him, like his KGB command officer, the code name Fiffi ).
10. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 118-129 .
11. ↑ Thomas Wolf: The emergence of the BND. Structure, financing, control (= Jost Dülffer, Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Wolfgang Krieger, Rolf-Dieter Müller [eds.]: Publications of the Independent Commission of Historians for Researching the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 . Volume 9 ). 1st edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-022-3 , pp. 202, 406 .
12. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 129-149 .
13. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Double agent Heinz Felfe discovers America. The BND, the CIA and a 1956 secret trip . Schöningh, Paderborn 2017, ISBN 978-3-506-78694-4 .
14. ↑ Thomas Wolf: The emergence of the BND. Structure, financing, control (= Jost Dülffer, Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Wolfgang Krieger, Rolf-Dieter Müller [eds.]: Publications of the Independent Commission of Historians for Researching the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 . Volume 9 ). 1st edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-022-3 , pp. 498 .
15. ↑ Thomas Wolf: The emergence of the BND. Structure, financing, control (= Jost Dülffer, Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Wolfgang Krieger, Rolf-Dieter Müller [eds.]: Publications of the Independent Commission of Historians for Researching the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 . Volume 9 ). 1st edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-022-3 , pp. 410 ff .
16. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 149-183 .
17. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer: Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 183-209 .
18. ↑ We even cooperate with the devil for the security of Israel. In: Berliner Zeitung . January 8, 2000.
19. ^ Gehlen: The service. From Hase and Koehler Verlag, Mainz a. a. 1971, p. 287 praised the material, which, on the personal instructions of KGB chief Scheljepin, was so good that it "can still be described as unique without understatement". Incidentally, Gehlen only briefly addresses the Felfe case on three pages (p. 296ff). He doesn't want to know anything about the loss of reputation. Friendly services, like the CIA , had congratulated him by saying that they themselves had not yet found their field.
20. ↑ Gehlen mentions in his memoir a “publicist W.” who was also convicted afterwards.
21. ^ CIA: Heinz Felfe - Damage Report. NARA Report 263, online in report by Norman Goda. (fas.org)
22. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 213 ff .
23. ↑ ^{a b c} Fiffi in III f . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 1969 ( online ).
24. ↑ Bodo Hechelhammer: Heinz Felfe (1918-2008). A wolf in sheep's clothing. In: Susanne Meinl, Bodo Hechelhammer: Secret object Pullach: From the NS model settlement to the headquarters of the BND. Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86153-792-2 , pp. 218-221.
25. ↑ Sleep through all major crises. Interview with the Gehlen biographer Rolf-Dieter Müller, Der Spiegel, No. 50, 2017, pp. 60f
26. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 209-219 .
27. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 221 .
28. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 224-226 .
29. ↑ ^{a b c} Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 237; 242-250 .
30. ↑ Fiffi in III f . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 1969 ( online - The students included Peter Sonntag and Walter Naumann).
31. ↑ Liudmila Kotlyarova: "Because Moscow was striving for a unified Germany": KGB Colonel Korotkow on GDR and agent "Kurt" Felfe. Sputnik News , November 2, 2019, accessed May 8, 2020 . 
32. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 251-292 .
33. ^ Newly appointed professors in Berlin. In: Berliner Zeitung . September 13, 1972, p. 4; Bodo V. Hechelhammer: An academic career on behalf of the secret services. The university career of the KGB spy Heinz Felfe: from student of SD and MI 6 to professor for the MfS. In: Yearbook for University History. 18, 2015, pp. 9–34.
34. ↑ Piekalkiewicz, loc. Cit.
35. ↑ ^{a b c} Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 298-306 .
36. ↑ ^{a b} Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 306-319 .
37. ↑ I am a state guest in the Soviet Union . In: Der Spiegel . No. 13 , 1986 ( online ).
38. ↑ This is the handwriting of the KGB . In: Der Spiegel . No. 13 , 1986 ( online ).
39. ^ Memories of Christian von Ditfurth: Ostalgie or left alternative. cditfurth.de and Piekalkiewicz
40. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 319-342 .
41. ^ Launch pad for spies . In: Der Spiegel . No. 5 , 1991 ( online ).
42. ↑ ^{a b} Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 343-351 .
43. ↑ KGB veterans congratulate German top agent on his birthday. (No longer available online.) RIA Novosti , March 18, 2008, archived from the original on July 9, 2012 ; accessed on May 7, 2020 . 
44. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 292 .
45. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 345 .
46. ↑ ^{a b} Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 50 f .
47. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 18 .
48. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 27 .
49. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 297 .
50. ↑ ^{a b} Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 307 .
51. ↑ Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 312 .
52. ↑ ^{a b c} Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 315 f .