Peter Weinmann

Karl Peter Weinmann (* 1. March 1946 in Schwäbisch Hall ) is a German journalist , who as an undercover agent was unmasked and for three different secret services was partially active simultaneously. In 1994 he was convicted of espionage for the GDR.

Life

Peter Weinmann grew up as an orphan with foster parents in Ilshofen . After attending elementary school, he obtained a journeyman's certificate as a hairdresser. He was twice named the best hair clipper in Northern Württemberg. This was followed by training as a police sergeant in Baden-Württemberg until 1965. He then moved to Westphalia and worked temporarily as a hairdresser and pool attendant. In 1968 he moved to Gütersloh and worked as a journalist and bookseller.

V-man "Werner"

Weinmann began his political career in 1966 when he joined the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) at the age of 20 . About the beginning of his work as an undercover agent for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) under the code name "Werner" there are different details. Weinmann himself stated the year 1968 in an interview. In his Stasi files the entry "since 1968" is also found as the beginning year, other sources mention the year 1969. In the following years he was built up and trained by the BfV, worked in the militant right-wing extremist spectrum as an agent provocateur and supplied the protection of the constitution Information about this scene. He sometimes obtained the information illegally, for example through break-ins.

In 1969 Weinmann worked for the Westfalen-Blatt in Gütersloh. Under pressure from his superior, Weinmann left the NPD in 1969 and became a member of the CDU. He was temporarily press spokesman for the Junge Union in the Warendorf district .

From 1970 Weinmann acted as a fan of the resistance campaign and took part in violent actions of the German Social Action . During this time he made friends with Friedhelm Busse , whom he knew from the NPD. In 1971 Weinmann moved to Bonn , where he is said to have been Bernd Hengst's partner . He is said to have organized military sports exercises with young people in a gravel pit in Sankt Augustin .

Together with Busse, Weinmann founded the Labor Party (PdA) on June 17, 1971 in Krefeld . On January 9, 1972, Weinmann co-founded the Aktion Neuerechte (ANR) and was later responsible for some ANR publications. In 1971 and 1972 Weinmann acted as a contact person for Rebell , the “central youth organ” of the extra-parliamentary cooperation (APM). In 1972, at the instigation of the BfV, charges against Weinmann for various criminal offenses in connection with the storming of a DKP event in Düsseldorf were dropped.

According to his Stasi files, Weinmann was deployed several times in Berlin on behalf of the BfV to participate as an “agent provocateur in terrorist and provocative actions against the border security systems of the GDR”.

In 1976 Weinmann joined the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann (WSG) and was named their “Information Center Bonn” in leaflets. At the same time he was involved in the "Friends of the Defense Sports Group Hoffmann" and collected funds for the WSG. With the consent of Karl-Heinz Hoffmann, he made the first film about the WSG, which he sold to the editorial team of the WDR's Monitor magazine . The fee went into the WSG as a donation. Another source of money, according to self-reported, was people smuggling. Another time Weinmann bought a VW bus for the WSG with funds from the BfV.

The information on the termination of the cooperation with the BfV is also contradictory. In an interview Weinmann stated that he worked for the BfV from 1968 to 1977. A few questions further, he admitted that he had worked for the BfV again in 1985. In his Stasi files there is a note that he broke off contact with the BfV in 1987.

Agent "Sigmund"

On May 1, 1976, Weinmann was arrested at the Austrian-Italian border, and the Wehrsportgruppe's VW bus, loaded with items similar to weapons, was confiscated. After interrogation by DIGOS , Weinmann was recruited by the Italian military secret service SISMI in June 1976 . In the same year he moved from Bonn to Bolzano in South Tyrol and worked as a freelance journalist for various media, such as the South Tyrolean press service .

Weinmann's job as agent "Sigmund" was to spy out the conservative to right-wing extremist separatist scene in South Tyrol and their contacts in the Federal Republic. Connections to the DVU or the Republicans were just as interesting as the views of Bavarian state parliament members on the South Tyrol issue. In South Tyrol he spied on Eva Klotz and her family, but also former South Tyrol activists in Germany, such as Peter Kienesberger in Nuremberg or Wolfram Lindner in Bonn, a former frigate captain of the German armed forces.

While Weinmann “rushed” and “called for acts of violence” in South Tyrol for his second client, he published various articles on the subject of South Tyrol under a pseudonym in various right-wing extremist German magazines such as in Nation und Europa or the German Voice . Conservative politicians were discredited by the launch of unauthorized written or oral statements in papers of the NPD or the Republicans.

In 1984 Weinmann moved back to Bonn after eight years in South Tyrol, but worked for SISMI for another six years (until 1992).

As in previous years, Weinmann regularly changed his place of residence and ran a “Market & Advertising Research Group” in Bonn.

IN "Römer"

On August 21, 1984 Weinmann took an Interflug machine from Milan to East Berlin, with the firm intention of tapping into another source of income. Once there, he served himself to the Ministry for State Security . After initial skepticism, Weinmann was managed as an unofficial employee (IM) "Rolf Römer" until 1989.

Weinmann informed the Stasi comprehensively about the methods of the BfV and about the militant right-wing extremist scene in Germany. The South Tyrolean separatists and the series of attacks in South Tyrol at the end of the 1980s were of particular interest to the Stasi. Since the objectives of the order were almost identical, Weinmann wrote the reports first for the Stasi in order to later use them again for the SISMI.

In 1985 Weinmann was assigned to the then newly founded Nationalist Front . Then there were the Wiking-Jugend , the Freedom German Workers' Party (FAP) and the Borussen Front .

In 1989 Weinmann worked as editor-in-chief of the newspaper Frank und Frei , which at the time mediated between the Republicans and the FAP, and used a PO box address in the Federal Palace for this. Weinmann developed a media concept for the party “The Republicans” and distributed its first press release in the government district.

He created an editorial concept for the new right magazine Elements by Pierre Krebs and took over the administration of advertisements through another of his agencies under the name “Zwei-Ring Verlag”. Also in 1989 Weinmann became an employee of Manfred Rouhs's Europa Vorn magazine .

After his friend Friedhelm Busse was appointed federal chairman of the FAP, he personally introduced Weinmann to the Bonn FAP under Norbert Weidner . According to one informant, Weinmann was traded as an explosives expert who offered to get ammunition and explosives from the Bundeswehr. For the FAP he had created a brochure on the correct handling of explosives and held ideological training courses.

Conviction for espionage for the GDR

After German reunification , Weinmann was exposed as an IM in the analysis of the Stasi files in 1991. In a trial before the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz (OJs 15/92) Weinmann was sentenced on February 18, 1994 for espionage for the GDR to a prison sentence of nine months on probation. His work for SISMI was not the subject of the proceedings.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c A} passionate spy , DER SPIEGEL 7/1994, p. 37; PDF available online
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} self-portrayal of Peter Weinmann In: Supplement "Tiroler" Heft 42 (1994) p. 1f
3. ↑ ^{a b} Rainer Fromm , The "Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann": Presentation, analysis and classification: a contribution to the history of German and European right-wing extremism , Lang Verlag 1998, p. 313
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Regine Igel, Terrorism Lies: How the Stasi acted underground , Langen Mueller Herbig 2012, p. 280
5. ↑ ^{a b} Passionate Spy , DER SPIEGEL 7/1994, p. 36
6. ↑ ^{a b} Michaela Koller, The Interests and Activities of the GDR State Security in South Tyrol , In: Zeitschrift für Politik 4/2006, p. 468; PDF available online
7. ^ ^{A b c} Rainer Fromm, The "Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann": Presentation, analysis and classification: a contribution to the history of German and European right-wing extremism , Lang Verlag 1998, p. 418
8. ↑ Hans Karl Peterlini, Bombs from Second Hand , Edition Raetia 1992, p. 310
9. ↑ Tobias von Heymann, Die Oktoberfest-Bombe: Munich, September 26, 1980-the act of an individual or a terrorist attack with a political background? , Novelties & Rarities 2008, p. 192
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Südtirol-Illustrierte 8/1993, cited. from 'Der Tiroler', issue 41, 1993, p. 10
11. ↑ Regine Igel, Terrorism Lies: How the Stasi acted underground , Langen Mueller Herbig 2012, p. 287
12. ↑ ^{a b} Michaela Koller, The Interests and Activities of the GDR State Security in South Tyrol , In: Zeitschrift für Politik 4/2006, p. 469
13. ↑ ^{a b} Regine Igel, Terrorism Lies: How the Stasi acted underground , Langen Mueller Herbig 2012, p. 283
14. ↑ Michaela Koller, The Interests and Activities of the GDR State Security in South Tyrol , In: Zeitschrift für Politik 4/2006, p. 470
15. ↑ Regine Igel, Terrorism Lies: How the Stasi acted underground , Langen Mueller Herbig 2012, p. 282
16. ↑ A passionate spy , Der Spiegel 7/1994, p. 38
17. ↑ A passionate spy , DER SPIEGEL 7/1994, p. 40
18. ↑ ^{a b c} Self-presentation by Peter Weinmann In: Supplement "Tiroler" Heft 42 (1994) p. 4
19. ↑ ^{a b c} Drucksache 12/4605, March 22, 1993, p. 1f ( available online )