Hermann von Berg

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Hermann Günter von Berg (born March 29, 1933 in Mupperg ; † March 21, 2019 ) was the GDR's secret diplomat from 1962 to 1972 and at the same time an agent of the GDR State Security .

Life

Von Berg joined the FDJ in 1946 and the SED in 1950 and was the first secretary of the FDJ district leadership and a member of the SED district leadership in Eisenach . From 1954 he studied economics, history and philosophy at the Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig and was deputy head of the all-German student council of the university as well as an employee of the international relations department of the central council of the FDJ. Since 1959 he was a lecturer at the Fachschule für Außenwirtschaft in Potsdam .

From 1962 he was head of the International Relations Department in the press office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He conducted secret negotiations with representatives of the Federal Government, the SPD and the West Berlin Senate and others. a. in preparation for the pass agreement 1963-64, the meetings between Willi Stoph and Willy Brandt in Erfurt and Kassel in 1970 and the German-German Basic Treaty in 1972. In 1973 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver. According to the Stasi , in the run-up to the vote of no confidence in Willy Brandt in 1972, Berg discussed with Egon Bahr the possibility of the State Security's financial influence on CDU / CSU members. According to Spiegel information, the only evidence up until 2013 was that the Stasi had bribed Union MP Julius Steiner with 50,000 DM in order to overturn the Union's vote of no confidence. Daniela Münkel from the Stasi records authority reports the same .

From 1966 he was an aspirant at the Institute for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED , after his doctorate from 1970 lecturer and from 1972 professor at the economics section of the Humboldt University in Berlin . After submitting a critical article on the leadership of the SED and on the national question to the magazine Der Spiegel , which was published as the “ Manifesto of the Federation of Democratic Communists in Germany ”, he was arrested in 1978 and subjected to three months interrogation by the Ministry for State Security . Further critical statements led to increasing hindrances to his work and publication opportunities in the GDR.

After he illegally handed over two book manuscripts with radical criticism of Marxism and the economic system of the GDR to a Cologne publisher and submitted an application to leave the country in 1985, von Berg was interrogated again by the MfS and threatened with imprisonment, initially on leave from Humboldt University and then released Deported to the Federal Republic in 1986 after intervention by West German politicians and mediation by lawyer Wolfgang Vogel .

From 1987 to 1990 he taught at the University of Würzburg , then again at the Humboldt University in Berlin until 1992.

Awarded by Egon Bahr in 1972

On June 20, 1972, at the invitation of Egon Bahr , then State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery and at the same time authorized representative of the Federal Government in Berlin, von Berg was in the Federal Chancellery for talks regarding the basic treaty between the FRG and the GDR. According to his minutes of conversations for the GDR State Security , von Berg received on this occasion from “Bahr a personal gift in the form of a commemorative coin with the likeness of Brandt, Scheel and Bahr, who were responsible for the ratification, with the comment that Comrade Kohl , Bahr's official negotiating partner for GDR -Page, I have already asked for this coin several times, 'but he won't get it'. "The coin then apparently landed immediately with the Stasi.

The historian Daniela Münkel described this award as “a rather curious occurrence” and cites it as one of several proofs of “how much Berg was valued by his western contacts.” One of the other proofs is a meeting between Bahr, von Berg , and the journalist Dettmar Cramer (FAZ), one of the people who often brokered such secret contacts, in Bahr's apartment near Bonn shortly after Brandt took office as Federal Chancellor in 1969. Here, Bahr said, under the condition of absolute secrecy, according to von Berg's subsequent Stasi Reporting the following:

“On behalf of the Federal Chancellor, he had [...] to inform the reporter that a 'dress code' was now essential. It was said that the rapporteur [von Berg], as ministerial director of the government instance, Stoph, had kept in touch with the head of administration of the Senate Chancellery [of West Berlin], but it was not acceptable to negotiate with the State Secretary of the Federal Chancellery or the State Secretary of the Federal President allow. […] Expressly declared as a personal opinion, Bahr said he was very interested in not only talking to the rapporteur [von Berg] 'about political matters', but also negotiating. [...] Bahr declared literally: 'Let yourself be appointed State Secretary at the Council of Ministers, as a special envoy or whatever, otherwise we can't see each other anymore'. “Von Berg did not receive any such promotion from the GDR leadership. Nonetheless, he stayed in the role for another three years and acted as a secret channel between the two German governments, and its importance even increased. According to Münkel's judgment, however, the German side did not allow itself to be manipulated in the contract negotiations through the longstanding relationship with Berg.

Stasi agent

Von Berg was a top agent in the Enlightenment Headquarters (HV A) of the Ministry for State Security ( code name "Günther"). It was often led personally by Erich Mielke (Stasi Minister) or Markus Wolf (Head of HV A). The minutes of his talks with Western partners contained in his reports for the AGM were "meticulous".

Many of Bergs' reports about his work as a secret diplomat 1962–1972 and at the same time an agent of the HV A have survived in large parts by chance. After his arrest in 1978, Main Department II (counter-espionage) of the MfS carried out an extensive investigation into the "von Berg" case. Large parts of Bergs 'reports on his work for HV A. These investigation files, a bundle of 12 volumes, survived the fall of 1989/1990 , as Department II and the Society were occupied in good time by the citizens' movement was subsequently monitored with the files.

In contrast to the domestic departments, the foreign department of the Stasi, the HV A, received permission in 1990 to “dissolve itself” without any external control for reasons that are still unclear today. This led to a gigantic destruction of files, which was complete, apart from a few (albeit momentous) mistakes, and to which the original files about the activities of the agent "Günther" fell victim.

Fonts

  • The analysis. The European Union; a future model for East and West? . Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-7663-0942-0 .
  • The GDR on the way to the year 2000. Politics, economy, ideology; Plea for a democratic renewal . Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-7663-0954-4 (together with Franz Loeser and Wolfgang Seiffert ).
  • Marxism-Leninism. The misery of the half German, half Russian ideology . Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-7663-3015-2 .
  • Preventive submission. Politics in Real Socialism . Universitas-Verlag, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-8004-1177-6 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann von Berg died. In: Junge Welt , May 2, 2019. Retrieved May 2, 2019.
  2. ^ High government awards , In: Neues Deutschland , March 1, 1973, p. 2
  3. ↑ confidence vote against Brandt: Egon Bahr spach with DDR over vote-buying. Der Spiegel , October 13, 2013.
  4. ^ Daniela Münkel: campaigns, spies, secret channels. The Stasi and Willy Brandt (BF informed, 32/2013). Online publication by the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the Former German Democratic Republic - Department of Education and Research, Berlin, November 2013, ISBN 978-3-942130-75-2 , p. 50.
  5. ^ A b Daniela Münkel: Campaigns, spies, secret channels. The Stasi and Willy Brandt (BF informed, 32/2013). Online publication by the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the Former German Democratic Republic - Department of Education and Research, Berlin, November 2013, ISBN 978-3-942130-75-2 , p. 40.
  6. ^ Daniela Münkel: campaigns, spies, secret channels. Berlin 2013, p. 43f.
  7. ^ Daniela Münkel: campaigns, spies, secret channels. Berlin 2013, pp. 34–46.
  8. ^ Daniela Münkel: campaigns, spies, secret channels. Berlin 2013, p. 46.
  9. ^ A b Daniela Münkel: Campaigns, spies, secret channels. Berlin 2013, p. 45.
  10. ^ Daniela Münkel: campaigns, spies, secret channels. Berlin 2013, p. 42.
  11. ^ Daniela Münkel: campaigns, spies, secret channels. Berlin 2013, p. 36.
personal data
SURNAME Berg, Hermann von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berg, Hermann Günter von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German secret diplomat of the GDR and Stasi agent
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Mupperg
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 2019