Joachim Krase

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joachim Krase (* 1925 in Neubrandenburg ; † July 24, 1988 in Rheinbach ) was a German officer in the Wehrmacht and Bundeswehr , most recently in the rank of colonel , member of the Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD) and at the same time an unofficial employee (IM) of the Ministry for State Security ( MfS) of the GDR .

Life

Promotions

Childhood, Wehrmacht, early post-war period

Joachim Krase was born the son of a technical manager. He attended elementary and middle school, which he graduated in spring 1943. At the end of 1942 he had passed the entrance examination for the officer career. For six months, Krase was initially drafted into the Reich Labor Service (RAD), in the RAD camp near home in Neddemin in Mecklenburg. There, on the “Fuehrer's birthday” April 20, 1943, he joined the NSDAP , with or without his knowledge is unclear. Thereafter, Krase was drafted into tank reconnaissance department 3 in Bad Freienwalde . He was trained as a tank reconnaissance and in the last years of the war was mostly in schools such as Panzer Troop School II in Krampnitz near Potsdam . Krase gained his first experience at the front in Italy as a Fahnenjunker NCO in the Panzer Reconnaissance Division 190, where he was also wounded. At the end of the war he was a lieutenant and at the age of 19 company commander of a mixed rifle company in the Krampnitz Panzer Group in Mecklenburg. Four months of British captivity followed .

After the war, Krase learned the trade of bricklayer . He passed the journeyman's examination in September 1947. He then volunteered in an architecture office and in a commercial office. In 1954 he opened his own coal and building materials business in Glinde near Hamburg . In 1956, however, he applied to the newly established Bundeswehr and in the fall of 1956 was hired as a first lieutenant in the Panzer Reconnaissance Training Battalion 3 in Lingen (Ems) , which was set up on July 16, 1956 and is now stationed in Lüneburg . Shortly afterwards he was transferred to Bremen to the Panzer Reconnaissance Training Battalion Bremen-Grohn, from which the 7th Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion emerged.

Service in the MAD

In April 1957, for unknown reasons, Krase was transferred to the MAD Group in Defense Area I in Kiel . In his tenth year of service, in 1965, after having passed the staff officer course, he was appointed major and five years later, lieutenant colonel . He moved to the then headquarters of the MAD, the Office for Security of the Federal Armed Forces (ASBw), but was transferred back to Kiel for welfare reasons in April 1973 because his first wife was seriously ill. In 1974 Krase was appointed head of MAD position 11 in Hamburg and in October 1975 he was appointed colonel and the transfer to MAD Group S in Bonn as its head. In the fall of 1977 moved again to Krase ASBw, this time as head of counterintelligence . A year and a half later he became Chief of Staff and Deputy Head of Office of the ASBw. This post was intended for officers in the general staff service and was filled with Krase, although Krase had not attended the course for the general staff service.

In the course of the Kießling affair , the new head of the MAD, Hubertus Senff , exchanged numerous leaders regardless of individual misconduct. Krase was transferred to a post “for special use” in the “Staff and Supply Battalion BMVg ” and, at the request of State Secretary Günter Ermisch , was supposed to be an adviser for the MAD reorganization. In March 1985, when Krase reached the special age limit, he retired . He died in 1988 due to serious cancer.

Espionage

On New Year's Eve of 1969, Krase approached a post of the GDR border troops on the Priwall peninsula in Lübeck and asked for an interview with an Abwehr officer. He offered himself as a double agent . At that time, Krase was major and deputy head of department in MAD Group I in Kiel . As IM "Günter Fiedler" he was mainly led by Wolfgang Lohse. It is proven that as early as January 17, 1969, 1967 handed over information on double agents, which among other things led to the arrest of two sources by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Schleswig-Holstein (LfV SH). In 1978, the 66th US Army Intelligence Group suspected Krase, which could not be proven and did not lead to any further investigation.

After his death, Krase's senior officer Lohse tried to recruit Krase's son . However, he confided in the then President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Gerhard Boeden , a friend of the Krase family. In November 1988 the MAD initiated investigations. In 1990 the suspicion was reinforced by statements from defectors and former commanding officers. On October 19, 1990, the Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg) published a press release that was picked up by the German media.

The motives for his act are the need for money in the course of his gambling addiction , but also professional frustration as a result of not being selected for a career as an officer in the general staff service , which meant a considerable career break for him.

Krase was also suspected of having played a key role in the Kießling affair . Helmut R. Hammerich rates this as unlikely: The MfS would not have endangered its top source.

According to Jürgen Reichardt , Krase inflicted “immense damage” on the Bundeswehr and was one of the most successful agents of the Cold War . It can be assumed that Krase knew how to prevent major espionage successes at the latest in his positions as department head and deputy head of office in the MAD. If espionage operations succeed because Krase was not informed, those responsible then had to report to him and endure one of his dreaded outbursts of anger.

Awards

literature

  • Helmut R. Hammerich : “Always on the enemy!” - The Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD) 1956–1990 . 1st edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-525-36392-8 , pp. 356–374 ( limited preview in the Google book search - the subchapter is the expanded version of the article in “Spies and News Traders”).
  • Helmut R. Hammerich: Joachim Krase (1925-1988). An "inconspicuous gray colonel": the MAD vice as IM of the Stasi . In: Helmut Müller-Enbergs and Armin Wagner (eds.): Spies and news dealers. Secret service careers in Germany 1939-1989 . Ch. Links Verlag , Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-872-1 , p. 269-297 .
  • Helmut R. Hammerich: A GDR spy at the head of the MAD: Colonel Joachim Krase . In: Military History . No. 2 , 2016, p. 10–13 (heavily abridged version of the article in “Spies and News Traders”).
  • Died: Joachim Krase . In: Der Spiegel . No. 32 , 1988, pp. 158 ( online ).
  • MAD spy exposed . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 1990, pp. 14 ( online ).
  • Petra Schäfter, Ivo Thiemrodt: Criminal Justice and GDR Injustice: Documentation, Volume 4, Part 2 . De Gruyter , Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89949-081-9 , pp. 631 f .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Helmut R. Hammerich : "Always at the enemy!" - The Military Shield Service (MAD) 1956–1990 . 1st edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-525-36392-8 , pp. 356–374 ( limited preview in the Google book search - the subchapter is the expanded version of the article in “Spies and News Traders”).
  2. ↑ a b Helmut Müller-Enbergs, Armin Wagner (ed.): Spies and news dealers : Secret service careers in Germany 1939-1989 Verlag Ch. Links Verlag, 2016, ISBN 9783861538721 , pages 25, 272, 294
  3. ↑ Bad setback . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1990 ( online ).
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Wiedemeyer: From the morass to the abyssal swamp. Deutschlandfunk , January 3, 2009, accessed September 30, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Helmut R. Hammerich : "Always on the enemy!" - The Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD) 1956–1990 . 1st edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-525-36392-8 , pp. 315 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ a b Helmut R. Hammerich : “Always on the enemy!” - The Military Shield Service (MAD) 1956–1990 . 1st edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-525-36392-8 , pp. 364 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
personal data
SURNAME Krase, Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer and intelligence officer
DATE OF BIRTH 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Neubrandenburg
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 1988
Place of death Rheinbach