Lilli Pöttrich

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Lilli (Lili) Margarethe Pöttrich (born November 3, 1954 in Wiesbaden ) is a German lawyer . Under the IM cover name "Angelika", she was an agent of the Enlightenment Headquarters , the GDR's foreign intelligence service in the Ministry of State Security .

Life

Pöttrich grew up in a middle-class family as the older of two daughters of the Stauer and trade unionist Raimund Pöttrich in Düsseldorf - Eller and - Benrath , where she attended a Catholic elementary school and graduated from the Annette-von-Droste-Hülshoff-Gymnasium in 1973 . Inspired by Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik , she joined the SPD as a student . After completing school, she began to study law at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main . During her studies, during which, as a member of the Socialist University Association, she consolidated her view that socialism was the political system to be striven for, the Enlightenment Headquarters contacted Pöttrich in the summer of 1975, and entered their service in January / February 1976 for political reasons Reasons for a stay in Strausberg .

In 1976 she signed the secret service declaration of commitment and chose "Angelika" as her code name. At the request of the GDR foreign espionage, she moved to the University of Cologne in the same year . In addition to her studies, she created personal files about her social and university environment and passed this information on using intelligence techniques in which she had received training. Since then she has met regularly with contacts from her intelligence service to hand over spy reports in the form of 35mm camera films and to receive instructions for operations. After Pöttrich had passed the first law state examination with the grade “fully satisfactory”, she traveled to the GDR via Copenhagen in December 1981 with a forged travel document , where she met high-ranking officers in Schöneiche near East Berlin , including Ralf -Peter Devaux . Conspiratorial meetings were repeated later at various locations abroad. She identified with the GDR regime . She joined the SED , took citizenship of the GDR as well as GDR awards and planned her espionage operation with the MfS command officers for the long term.

As a common goal it was agreed that she should apply for the higher service in the Foreign Office , which also happened in 1982. In the summer of 1983, Pöttrich began training as an attachée in the Foreign Office in Bonn , to which she was admitted in April 1983. She passed all security checks without objection. In 1986, this authority appointed her as a civil servant for life . This was followed by a career in the diplomatic service of the Federal Republic of Germany , which led via Bangladesh to the German embassy in Paris . There she started her service in December 1988. As deputy head of the “CoCom department”, she had access to important documents and meetings of the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls , on which she prepared reports and passed them on to her instructor. Even after the “ Wende ” in November 1989, Pöttrich initially continued her intelligence work. In February 1990, the last of their more than 60 meetings with contact persons of the GDR foreign espionage took place in Aachen .

Pöttrich was able to pursue her career as a diplomat until her exposure and arrest on December 1, 1993, which was obtained from the rosewood files . Most recently, she was appointed head of the German Consulate General in Sibiu (Romania) in the rank of lecturer in the Legation Council , a position that she did not take on as a result of her arrest and dismissal from the public service. The Higher Regional Court of Dusseldorf condemned Poettrich on 28 April 1995 because of secret service agents work in the severe case that was suspended on probation to imprisonment of two years. After a long-term legal professional ban had expired, Pöttrich started working as a specialist lawyer for social law in Düsseldorf. As an exception among former GDR spies, she was willing to provide journalistic research and documentation about her secret service activities.

According to the SIRA database of the Ministry for State Security, Pöttrich delivered 38 significant messages between February 1984 and November 1986, 34 of which were forwarded to the Soviet secret service KGB . Of 29 documents that were clarified in Unit I / 3 of the head office, 17 were rated as “valuable” and one as “very valuable”. The latter contained excerpts from a conversation between Foreign Ministers Hans-Dietrich Genscher and George P. Shultz in December 1985.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Herbstritt: German citizens in the service of GDR espionage. An analytical study . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-52535-021-8 , p. 196 ( Google Books )
  2. ^ Karl Wilhelm Fricke: Stasi spies in the AA. A case study based on SIRA and “Rosewood” materials . Article from October 22, 2005 in the faz.net portal , accessed on April 25, 2015
  3. ^ The Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR (ed.): Head Office A (HV A). Tasks - structures - sources. (MfS manual) . Berlin 2013, p. 53 ( PDF ( Memento from 23 September 2015 in the Internet Archive ))
personal data
SURNAME Pöttrich, Lilli
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pöttrich, Lili; Pöttrich, Lilli Margarethe (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and agent
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd November 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden