René Bayer

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René Bayer (born November 18, 1904 in Trier ; † after 1982) was a German journalist , employee of the Gestapo , the Gehlen Organization (OG) and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND).

Worked in the Nazi regime and worked for the Gestapo

In the early 1930s he wrote articles on colonial policy issues. From 1934 he worked for the Gestapo. In the same year he became a correspondent for the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter in Paris. During his work as a foreign correspondent in the 1930s, he also met the later SED functionary Albert Norden .

In 1936 he was a correspondent for the Nazi newspapers Völkischer Beobachter and Westdeutscher Beobachter in Brussels . The German ambassador in Brussels (from May 1936 to October 1938) Herbert von Richthofen , informed the Ministerial Director Hans-Heinrich Dieckhoff on November 13, 1936 that Bayer was the press officer in the district leadership of the NSDAP in Brussels . He also has a direct communication link with Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels .

Agent in Spain

Bayer stayed in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War . During this time he was entrusted with counter-espionage duties by the Foreign Office / Defense . He also kept in touch with emigrants in Paris. In Spain he was closely associated with the national group of the NSDAP. About his connections to the national group of the NSDAP in Spain an article German fate in Spain was published by him in the yearbook of the foreign organization of the NSDAP in 1942 , in which he described his exact knowledge about the national group of the NSDAP.

Press work in West Berlin and for the BND

After the war he worked for a French news agency. Then he went to West Berlin on behalf of the OG . Over the next two decades he became a well-known journalist there and president of the Association of Foreign Journalists in West Berlin. In 1954 he worked as a correspondent for the Rheinische Post in Berlin. In 1956 he reported from there for several German newspapers: Weser-Kurier , Ruhr Nachrichten , Neue Ruhr Zeitung , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Badische Latest News , Kölnische Rundschau and Süddeutsche Zeitung . Later he also reported for Die Zeit and the Badische Zeitung .

News about contacts with the Eastern CDU

In September 1951 the Evangelical Church Congress took place in West Berlin , where he first met Otto Nuschke . Through this acquaintance he was able to get constant information from the secretariat of the board of the East CDU from about 1952/1953 on, which concerned both the government of the GDR, including the foreign ministry, as well as other important institutions of the GDR. Contact with Otto Nuschke had been strengthened since June 17, 1953, when Nuschke was deported to West Berlin. Bayer achieved through its connections that Nuschke could return to East Berlin. Even after the Wall was built in 1961, Bayer was able to collect its information this way. Nuschke's successor, Gerald Götting , continued this transfer of information.

Exposure of the contacts to the BND by the MfS

In 1969 the Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the GDR was able to prove that he had direct connections to the BND for the first time. Bayer had wanted to report there from a "meeting of young socialists". He had failed to lock his car. MfS employees found a BND paper in it. From this point on, Bayer was under direct observation by the Stasi. After that, the MfS was able to prove the connection to BND employees after the construction of the wall from an office in Munich that had the code names Dr. Linke and Wieland carried. With Dr. Left he met regularly every four weeks.

His wife Helene, born in 1918, also worked for the BND. As a representative of companies from West Germany, West Europe and West Berlin, she was in contact with more than ten foreign trade companies in the GDR and also with the trustee for interzonal trade .

Protests and arrests

Bayer did not hold back in its journalistic activities when it came to criticism and complaints. This affected the parties from the Federal Republic as well as measures taken by the GDR authorities. When a letter of protest against the closure of the office of Der Spiegel magazine was published in January 1978 , Bayer had signed the letter with others. He later withdrew his signature and apologized during a conversation at the GDR Foreign Ministry. He even gave the names of the three journalists who wrote the letter.

On January 28, 1982 he was arrested in East Berlin in the party office of the East CDU. When he was subsequently interrogated, he refused to admit any connection with the BND. In 1937 he replied to the German ambassador Wilhelm Faupel in Madrid when he was asked whether he was an agent, and if he were to lie he would tell the truth. And if he were to tell the truth, he would have to lie. Because no one could confirm the truth. The following day he was released and deported. This ended his career as a journalist and employee of the BND. His arrest did not lead to protests in West Berlin, but proceeded silently.

In the Berlin history workshop there is a René Bayer collection that contains written documents from his work as a journalist from 1950 to 1981.

Fonts (selection)

  • The African economy - copper in Africa . In: Übersee- und Kolonialzeitung . Berlin 1931
  • The war in the German colonies . In: Der Tropenpflanzer: magazine for tropical agriculture , 1931
  • German fate in Spain . In: Yearbook of the foreign organization of the NSDAP 1942, Berlin 1942, pp. 21–29
  • The Berlin CDU blocks itself . In: Die Zeit , No. 8/1963

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Journalisten-Handbuch 1974, Wiesbaden 1974, p. 15
  2. ^ Helmut Wagner: Greetings from Pullach - BND operations against the GDR . Berlin, 4th edition 2006, pp. 94–96
  3. ^ Institute for Newspaper Studies at the University of Berlin (Ed.): Handbuch der Deutschen Tagespresse , Leipzig 1937, p. 37 and p. 155
  4. ↑ Files on German Foreign Policy 1918–1945, Series C; 1933–1937 - The Third Reich; The First Years, Volume VI, 1, November 1, 1936 to March 13, 1937, Göttingen 1981, p. 61
  5. ↑ Helmut Wagner, ibid, p. 94/95
  6. ^ Karl Raddatz: Fascism and War . Berlin 1952, p. 50
  7. ↑ Karl Raddatz, ibid
  8. ↑ Gerhard Kunze: Border experiences: contacts and negotiations between the state of Berlin and the GDR 1949–1989 . Berlin 1999, p. 77.
  9. ^ Institute for Journalism at the Free University of Berlin (Ed.): Die Deutsche Presse 1954 . Berlin 1954, D.30
  10. ^ Institute for Journalism at the Free University of Berlin (Ed.): Die Deutsche Presse 1956 . Berlin 1956, pp. 19, 28, 71, 76 and 98
  11. ↑ Helmut Wagner, ibid, p. 95
  12. ↑ Helmut Wagner, ibid, pp. 95/96
  13. ↑ Berliner Zeitung
  14. ↑ Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk and Arno Polzin (eds.): Be brief! The opposition's cross-border telephone traffic in the 1980s and the Ministry of State Security. P. 622, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Goettingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-525-35115-4
  15. ↑ berliner-geschichtswerkstatt.de
personal data
SURNAME Bayer, René
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, employee of the Gestapo, the Gehlen Organization and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND)
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH trier
DATE OF DEATH after 1982