Karl-Christoph Grossmann

Karl-Christoph Großmann (born November 8, 1939 ) was Colonel of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) and deputy head of Department IX ( counter-espionage at home and abroad and enemy services in the FRG) of the Central Enlightenment Administration (HVA), the foreign secret service of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

He was temporarily employed in the HV A residency at Frimbergergasse 6–8 in Vienna , where he a. a. also was the contact officer for Helene Legradi and the command officer of Klaus Kuron and from August 1985 the MfS supervisor of Hansjoachim Tiedge after his escape to the GDR. In 1987, Großmann was given early retirement because, according to the MfS, after about a year of operational control , he was considered a security risk due to arrogance, talkativeness and boastfulness as well as immoral lifestyle.

In the fall of 1989, Großmann met the former press chief of Ronald Reagan , John O. Koehler , whom he knew from his school days in Dresden, in the East Berlin Grand Hotel . To this he reported u. a. of numerous Americans who had disclosed highly sensitive US military secrets to the MfS and thus attracted the attention of the West Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution . From this he was given the code name " Cardinal ", and according to his own statements he traveled about ten times for conspiratorial talks to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) in Cologne .

In January 1990, after the reunification and peaceful revolution in the GDR , he uncovered the identity of important HV A agents vis-à-vis West Berliners and German investigative authorities after their personal files had been destroyed by the HV A. In addition to the former Colonel Heinz Busch , who was Werner Großmann 's representative of the HV A at the round table in autumn 1989 , Rainer Wiegand , Eberhard Lehmann (formerly Main Department II, responsible for counter-espionage) and Werner Roitzsch , he is the main informant about top agents of the MfS in the Federal Republic of Germany .

Großmann called the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution u. a. the real names of Gabriele Gast , Karl Gebauer , Klaus Kuron, Alfred Spuhler and Ludwig Spuhler as well as Helmut Fischer . Gast, who was employed as a government director at the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), found out about it and informed her command officer in East Berlin , whereupon the HV A switched off almost all sources on March 31, 1990. Hansjoachim Tiedge escaped arrest with the help of the KGB .

In the criminal proceedings against these betrayed MfS sources, Großmann was used as a witness .

literature

• Helmut Müller-Enbergs : Unofficial employees of the Ministry for State Security, Vol. 2, instructions for working with agents, scouts and spies in the Federal Republic of Germany . 1998 ISBN 3-86153-145-3