Siegfried Dombrowski

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Siegfried Dombrowski (born October 13, 1916 ; † June 20, 1977 ) was an officer in the National People's Army (NVA) in the German Democratic Republic and, as a lieutenant colonel, temporarily deputy chief of staff in the intelligence administration , the NVA's military intelligence service . In 1958 he defected to the Federal Republic of Germany .

Life

youth

According to his own statements, Dombrowski had been a member of a communist youth organization since 1920 (his brother has denied this). During the Nazi era , he held various prisons and concentration camps last in, Majdanek , imprisoned . At the end of 1944 he was liberated there by the Red Army . From 1946 to 1950 he was a functionary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). In 1950 he joined the Kasernierte Volkspolizei (KVP) and in 1956, after the founding of the National People's Army, he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Enlightenment Administration , the NVA's intelligence service, as a lieutenant colonel .

Since February 1957, he was from the Stasi - counterintelligence monitored because it is about the travel ban on members of the CIP to West Berlin defied several times and in the Federal Republic of Germany. For this reason, the MfS rejected his appointment as head of operations of " Administration 19 ", which the Ministry of National Defense, however, disregarded. Thereupon, on February 14, 1957, a more detailed examination was arranged by MfS captain Friedrich Busch (HA I / 8, subject area army reconnaissance) in order to find out with whom Dombrowski was associating. This review comprised four points. For this he was called to a meeting first and had to prepare a list of his relatives, friends and acquaintances , since October 1951 also listed as a secret informant "rebel", but not active due to his position. Furthermore, inquiries about the lieutenant colonel's stay in the Soviet Union were obtained through former companions . This resulted in discrepancies, since he stated in his biography that after his liberation from the Majdanek concentration camp, he was initially in Zaporizhia for recreation and until August 1945 in "Object VII", a KPD school near Moscow. Furthermore, there was a conspiratorial investigation against him in his residential area and among his relatives. The MfS's mistrust continued to grow when Lieutenant Alexander Karin reported to Karl Linke that Dombrowski's wife was talking to Karin's wife about a planned object of "Administration 19". Linke was then sworn to secrecy by the MfS, on the grounds that "we have registered unexplained moments against D.".

During the subsequent vacation of the Dombrowski family, their apartment was searched and further conspiratorial investigations were carried out in the area. Employees of a language school in Karl-Marx-Stadt reported that Dombrowski had promised them well-paid jobs in a decryption department near Bernau . He is also said to have betrayed the true character of the reconnaissance school to the commander of the engineer regiment in Klietz . Busch also found out from Ms. Karin that Ms. Dombrowski knew some secret information about the inner-German border . As a result, at the end of 1957, the MfS set up an operational plan that was supposed to complete this matter, as Dombrowski was considered unreliable, talkative and dishonest for the MfS. He is said to have behaved immorally in his first marriage and had contacts with people who were suspected of espionage. A strict postal control was imposed and the conspiratorial investigations were extended to relatives and acquaintances in Selchow , Mahlow , Kolberg and Radegast . Former fellow prisoners from the concentration camp were also interviewed and his chauffeur hired as an informant. By the end of July or beginning of August 1958 at the latest, Dombrowski felt the noose tightening around his neck, which the MfS had no idea of.

As Reinhard Gehlen stated in his memoir , he had worked as an agent for the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the US intelligence service CIA since 1956 .

On July 28, 1958, he had the object commandant give him the keys and asked when the guards would be up. On August 2, 1958, under a pretext, he obtained the duplicate keys for the cassette with the "operational money" and stole around 71,000  marks from it .

Escape to West Berlin

On the night of August 5th to 6th, 1958 Dombrowski fled to West Berlin . There he revealed himself to the United States Army Intelligence (USAI) and was flown to the USA , where he was interrogated at the CIA headquarters in Langley . It was presented on January 22, 1959 at a press conference in Bonn and distributed by employees of the " Berlin Operating Base " leaflets with information from Dombrowski. The background to this press conference was, among other things, a request by Nikita Khrushchev on November 27, 1958, to demilitarize West Berlin within six months and to declare it a free city. He also accused the Western Allies of using West Berlin as a spy swamp. They now wanted to answer this attack by trying to prove in Dombrowski's presentation that the GDR and the Soviet Union operated the actual spy hearth in East Berlin. The Berlin Senator for the Interior also published an information brochure with the title “ Eastern underground work against West Berlin ” and a little later, under the leadership of the BND, a collection of material appeared under the title “ East Berlin, agitation and decomposition center for the attack against the existing and the constitutional Order of the Federal Republic of Germany and base of operations for the eastern espionage services ”. Statements by Dombrowski were reported, which specialists enriched with information from the CIA agent Anna Kubiak in order to provide evidence that East Berlin was an East German and Soviet spy hole.

On the same day the BZ reported on its first page " Defected to West Berlin, chief espionage of the zone army ". There, the end of the career of his former boss Karl Linke was announced, who had not been in office since the summer of 1957.

Investigations in the GDR

The interrogations and investigations carried out by the Stasi on August 7, 1958, had shown what Dombrowski could actually have revealed. Dombrowski was familiar with the entire internal information of "Administration 19", as far as they did not directly concern local branch offices of the MfS. Busch came to the conclusion that Dombrowski's knowledge of the personnel policy of the NVA intelligence service, of their telephone connections and of the entire service operations were more extensive than that of the head of the administration, and suggested extensive security measures. On the same day, “Verwaltung 19” was renamed “Verwaltung 12”, house IDs were exchanged, telephone connections were changed and the branch offices in Schwerin , Magdeburg , Erfurt and Leipzig moved. However, it was only at this point in time that the MfS became aware that the walls between Dombrowski's offices and the then NVA spy chief Erich Rippberger were so thin that you could understand every word next door. But since Rippberger did not believe in conspiracy, he named sources in the Federal Republic by their plain names. Dombrowski could well have heard that. For this purpose, Rippberger was interrogated for more than twelve hours on August 8, 1958 and punished with a severe reprimand. His telephone connection was also monitored afterwards. The operative case “Hooded Crow” used against Dombrowski determined that he knew too much.

The MfS gave the all-clear on one point in 1959, because no clues were found in relation to a collaboration with a “foreign power”.

Liquidation attempts by the state security

From the end of 1958, Dombrowski's whereabouts were to be determined and surveillance initiated. Among other things, his nephew, who had lived in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1955, was involved, especially since he was already working as a secret informant for the MfS. He was needed to determine Dombrowski's new whereabouts and to explore the possibilities of a murder or kidnapping in the GDR. Several kidnapping and liquidation attempts were unsuccessful. After the MfS knew the whereabouts in Moers in Rhineland in the second half of October 1958 through the sender on a card sent to Dombrowski's brother Kurt, plans were made to send both the brother and another employee there to investigate the place of residence. The operative procedure “Hooded Crow” provided: “1. The return of Dombrowski to the territory of the GDR with the aim of sentencing him . Or 2.  The liquidation of Dombrowski at his whereabouts on the condition that such an event can be caught and published by the press ”. Richard Busch, alias IM “Wald”, a brother of Gerda Dombrowski, who lived in Stralsund, made a “vacation trip” to Moers in June 1959, but it was fruitless.

Work for the CIA

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In September 1958, his former colleague, Captain Heinz Hoffmann, found a handwritten letter in his office that also contained a West Berlin identity card with Hoffmann's photo. He tried to blackmail Dombrowski by claiming that he had "left" a bag containing documents relating to information about nuclear research and photos of it. When the latter did not report to West Berlin, a second letter came a little later, containing a copy of a letter to the MfS. Hoffmann handed these letters over to the MfS and was transferred to Rostock as a precaution.

Further poaching attempts

Dombrowski and the CIA wanted to poach more officers from the NVA espionage department. A first lieutenant Poppig was sent a letter by courier in which he was given the prospect of providing medicine for his sick child when he came to the West. Poppig reported and the offer was forwarded to the MfS by a department head.

With a threatening letter, the former head of the squad department Lieutenant Colonel Shift should also be induced to desert. Although this had been transferred to the reserve since February 1, 1959, which Dombrowski probably did not know, he knew the strengths and weaknesses of the NVA spy personnel like no other. The latter also reported this letter, but the MfS was not sure whether further offers had been made that they did not know about.

Reappear

At the end of 1959, the counterintelligence in Main Department II / 4 of the MfS learned from their West Berlin agent "Lenz", a former neighbor of the Dombrowskis in the GDR and known or friends with them since 1953, that Gerda Dombrowski had written to him several times. Among other things, she announced that she had been in America with her husband for six months, but had now returned to Germany and was looking for an apartment. Dürnbach Post Gmund am Tegernsee was given as the sender . In April and June 1960, “Lenz” received more letters with the same sender, but with the name Hirsch . Thereupon an employee of the HA II with the code name "Hausmann" was sent to Tegernsee, who delivered photos and a cine film on which the couple Dombrowski could be identified. He also reported that Dombrowski was probably an employee of the Americans in Munich or Bad Tölz and also worked at home. The suspicion that he was employed by the CIA was borne out and confirmed by observations.

End of surveillance

By 1976, 37 reports and reports on Dombrowski had been sent to Berlin. On August 7, 1977, the postal inspectors came across a letter from Gerda Dombrowski in which she wrote that her husband had recently died. Another letter dated August 24, 1977 confirmed that Dombrowski suffered a fatal heart attack on June 20 while changing tires on Autobahn 9 between Nuremberg and Ingolstadt . After this information was thoroughly checked, the MfS concluded the operational process (OV) Dombrowski, now known as the “doppelganger”, on June 15, 1978. Gerda Dombrowski was no longer monitored due to a lack of interest in her person. Finally, on August 22, 1978, the East Berlin district court in Köpenick put the arrest warrant of the 1st Military Criminal Chamber of the Military Court of Berlin on file.

consequences

The CIA Germany expert George Kisevalter said that Dombrowski could not know much because he was only responsible for administrative tasks. Former GRU Lieutenant Colonel Pyotr Semjonowitsch Popov , who also worked as a double agent for the CIA, told his command officer: “ The man may not have taken part in operations, but he did take part in meetings, and of course he knows very well about the staff in the German secret service . “According to unproven information from the BND, two colonels and 67 other members of the NVA intelligence service are said to have been taken into custody by the MfS in February 1959. Around 200 army reconnaissance officers and soldiers have been dismissed and their headquarters in East Berlin allegedly took five years to be active again in the Federal Republic.

The then GDR Defense Minister Willi Stoph criticized those responsible within the NVA and its intelligence service, who he accused of extensive political omissions.

literature

Web links

  • Personal details: Siegfried Dombrowski . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1959, pp. 64 ( online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Walter Richter: The Military Intelligence Service of the National People's Army of the GDR and its control by the Ministry for State Security. The story of a German secret service . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-631-38318-5 , p. 63 ff.
  2. ^ A b Walter Richter: The Military Intelligence Service of the National People's Army of the GDR and its control by the Ministry for State Security. The story of a German secret service . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-631-38318-5 , p. 66 ff.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Krieger : Secret Services in World History. Espionage and covert actions from ancient times to the present . C. H. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-50248-2 , p. 71 ff.
  4. ^ Hermann Zolling, Heinz Höhne: Pullach intern . In: Der Spiegel . No. 23 , 1971, p. 100–116 ( online - preprint of the book publication of the same name, 12th continuation).
  5. ^ The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen by Reinhard Gehlen.
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Krieger: Secret Services in World History. Espionage and covert actions from ancient times to the present . C. H. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-50248-2 , p. 65 ff.
  7. ^ Personal details : Siegfried Dombrowski . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1959, pp. 64 ( online ).
  8. ^ Friedrich-Wilhelm Schlomann : Area of Operation Federal Republic - Espionage, Sabotage and Subversion , Munich 1984, pp. 354 and 357 ff.
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Krieger: Secret Services in World History. Espionage and covert actions from ancient times to the present . C. H. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-50248-2 , pp. 72 and 92 ff.
  10. ↑ Wolfgang Krieger: Secret Services in World History. Espionage and covert actions from ancient times to the present . C. H. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-50248-2 , p. 54
  11. ↑ Wolfgang Krieger: Secret Services in World History. Espionage and covert actions from ancient times to the present . C. H. Beck, Munich 2003, 379 pp., ISBN 3-406-50248-2 , p. 55
  12. ↑ Wolfgang Krieger: Secret Services in World History. Espionage and covert actions from ancient times to the present . CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-50248-2 , p. 76
  13. ^ Walter Richter: The Military Intelligence Service of the National People's Army of the GDR and its control by the Ministry for State Security. The story of a German secret service . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-631-38318-5 , pp. 63 and 67 ff
  14. ^ A b Klaus Behling : The NVA's intelligence service . Das Neue Berlin, 2005, ISBN 3-360-01061-2 , p. 219 ff
personal data
SURNAME Dombrowski, Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German secret service agent, officer in the reconnaissance administration
DATE OF BIRTH October 13, 1916
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 1977