Wolbert Klaus Smidt

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Wolbert Klaus Smidt (2009)

Wolbert Klaus Smidt (born April 11, 1936 in Wilhelmshaven ; † January 29, 2016 in Hamburg ) was a German secret service agent , diplomat and publicist . Until 2001 he was First Director of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and Counselor First Class in Paris .

career

Wolbert Klaus Smidt was a son of Admiral Karl Smidt . After studying law in Mainz , Berlin , Munich and Kiel and the subsequent internship, Smidt joined the Federal Intelligence Service in the mid-1960s. He started his activity in Pullach . During his career, he was employed, among other things, in the investigation of international terrorism and international economic structures. In the 1970s, Wolbert Smidt led various special operations.

In the 1980s, Smidt went to Paris as a resident of the BND , where he worked both as a diplomat and head of the French BND branch, and after 1989 he was responsible for establishing official contacts with the secret services of East Central Europe. According to his own information, he also advised these services on their new establishment. Most recently he was First Director of the Operational Reconnaissance Department and was thus responsible for the procurement of informants and secret material.

Smidt was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit and Officier des Ordre national du Mérite of the French state.

Public effectiveness

After his retirement in Paris in 2003, in coordination with the Federal Chancellery, together with high-ranking German intelligence officials, journalists and scientists, he founded the Intelligence Service in Germany discussion group. V. (GKND e.V., German Forum for the Discussion of Intelligence) in Berlin, a "discussion forum on future issues of services in Germany", of which he was chairman until 2012, and then honorary chairman. "Abuses that have become public and a lack of transparency make general acceptance more difficult," said Wolbert Smidt. "The association was founded with the aim of objectifying the public discussion about it and providing 'education about the education'."

Since then he has regularly organized scientific conferences, appeared at conferences at universities, at foundations and at the annual GKND events as an expert and speaker and was considered an important contact person for the German press and political foundations, especially on issues relating to international intelligence work on terrorism and war on Terror as well as the control of the secret services in the modern democratic society. Early on, in a television interview, he described the US alleged “evidence” of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as obviously falsified by any secret service. In interviews and publications, he emphasized the primacy of civil rights and democratic principles. Regarding the security laws after September 11th, he said: The security packages were "knitted with a hot needle". “In some cases, the powers go too far for me, and they are not always efficient.” For example, he commented on the War on Terror in 3sat in 2005 : “You simply forgot to take into account that [you], when you fight terrorism, must remain true to his own principles, otherwise the fight against terrorism is not worthwhile if you completely question your own values. "Regarding the then known CIA secret flights he said in 2005:" There are some reasons to doubt the legality of many Activities. It's not just about the flights, it's also about kidnappings, kidnappings even from European soil. "

At the invitation of the Federal Agency for Civic Education (BPB), he participated in 2003 in the Internet and book publication Expert Forum: Anti-Terror Policy in Germany .

In 2004 he organized for the GKND in cooperation with the BPB and the Evangelical Academy in Berlin the high-ranking international conference on confidentiality and transparency under the patronage of Bundestag President Wolfgang Thierse in the Berlin Environment Forum . He performed with Ulrike Poppe , with whom he later published the conference results as a book. Dieter Kühn's novel, the secret agent Marlowe (Frankfurt am Main 2007), is based in part on information from Wolbert Smidt.

Fonts

  • Monograph: Intelligence services in the field of tension of democracy, insights from the inside of international secret service work , Lit-Verlag, Münster - Berlin 2018.
  • Contributions in: Andrea Szukula (Ed.): Anti-Terror-Policy in Germany . (PDF) Cologne: Chair of International Politics 2003 (working papers on international politics and foreign policy, AIPA 4/2003), see also Federal Agency for Civic Education : Expert Forum: Antiterrorpolitik in Deutschland , bpb.de
  • “Did the services fail before 9/11/2001 and during the investigation of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?” In: Volker Foertsch , Klaus Lange (Ed.): Islamist Terrorism: Inventory and Combat Options . Hanns Seidel Foundation , Munich, 2005, pp. 82–98, pp. 172–184 (PDF; 75 kB)
  • Do we need an intelligence culture? Facts, questions, demands . In: Volker Foertsch, Klaus Lange (ed.): Islamist terrorism and means of mass destruction (= arguments and materials on current events, 50). Hanns Seidel Foundation , Munich, 2006, pp. 29–41 (PDF; 1.3 MB)
  • Wolfgang Krieger, Ulrike Poppe , Wolbert K. Smidt, Helmut Müller-Enbergs (eds.): Secrecy and transparency, democratic control of secret services in international comparison (= democracy and secret services, 1). Lit-Verlag, Münster, 2007.
  • Hans-Georg Wieck , Wolbert Smidt: Sécurité intérieure et extérieure de l'Europe: actions à mener . 2005
  • Systems of parliamentary control of secret services - attempt of comparison . In: Wolbert K. Smidt, Ulrike Poppe, Wolfgang Krieger, Helmut Müller-Enbergs (eds.): Secrecy and transparency. Democratic control of the secret services in an international comparison . Lit-Verlag, Berlin 2007, pp. 235-256.

Interviews

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Obituary notice: Wolbert Klaus Smidt. Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 3, 2016, accessed on February 4, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b Otto Langels: Beyond James Bond - From the life of a secret service agent . SWR2 Eckpunkt, June 22, 2004, 10:05 a.m. ( manuscript ( memento of February 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )).
  3. ↑ 2004 Interview for the Ev. Academy in Berlin
  4. ↑ Expert Forum: Anti-Terror Policy in Germany: Participants . ( Memento from May 20, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) Federal Agency for Political Education, May 20, 2003, accessed on February 6, 2016.
  5. ↑ Evangelical Academy in Berlin The almighty secret service: A relic of the past? 8th-9th October 2010
  6. ↑ For example: together with Eva Horn , German Society for Foreign Policy: Terror in the name of God? Islamic violence and the view of the intelligence services . Information Service Science and Young Academy at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, December 9, 2005.
    European intelligence services: Transformation and democratic control . Friedrich Ebert Foundation Berlin, April 8, 2008 (pdf; 84 kB).
  7. ↑ For example IIHA Annual Conference 2002 , Transatlantic Intelligence Cooperation: Past and Future , Strausberg (Berlin), May 31 - June 2, 2002.
    Block seminar “Democratic foreign policy and secret services: a contradiction?”  (     Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Technical University of Dresden, 2006 (pdf). Parliamentary control of the intelligence services in a democratic constitutional state . Conference of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation , Berlin, October 10, 2007.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / web-redaktion.tu-dresden.de  
  8. ↑ Interview in the ZDF program Frontal21 on falsified evidence to justify the Iraq war, 2003: False evidence: scandal over secret service documents . Reports on the program: The conflict between the UN and Iraq: Message from ZDF on March 13, 2003: False evidence: Scandal over secret service documents . krisen-und-konfligte.de, accessed on April 6, 2016. Erwin Leder: Frontal21 of March 11, 2003: False evidence - scandal over secret service documents . ( Memento of July 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) April 16, 2003.
  9. ^ Conference on Security and Citizenship in Europe , Evangelical Academy Berlin, 25.-27. November 2005
    Sarah Kramer: Politics: “Strengthening trust in the secret services” . Interview in Tagesspiegel , August 28, 2006.
  10. ↑ 3sat.de
  11. ↑ CIA affair: Paris is examining evidence of secret flights . Spiegel Online , December 2, 2005.
  12. ↑ See the internet presentation and the publication http://www.politik.uni-koeln.de/jaeger/downloads/aipa0403.pdf
  13. ↑ Cooperation conference in cooperation with the Evangelical Academy, the BPB and others: "Secrecy and transparency, democratic control of the secret services in international comparison": Conference "Secrecy and transparency: Democratic control of secret services in international comparison" . Evangelische Akademie zu Berlin, accessed on February 6, 2016. Secrecy and transparency: Democratic control of the secret services in an international comparison March 26–28, 2004 . Federal Agency for Civic Education, accessed on February 6, 2016 (pdf; 270 kB).
  14. ↑ [1]
  15. ↑ page of the publisher on the book ; see also: 2006 for book publication AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes # 39-06 dated 2 October 2006 .
  16. ↑ see also: 2007 MDR1 Radio Thuringia on RAF terrorists in the GDR, Discovered! - What did the west know?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / 193.22.36.128  
personal data
SURNAME Smidt, Wolbert Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smidt, Wolbert K .; Smidt, Wolbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German secret service agent, diplomat and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilhelmshaven , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 2016
Place of death Hamburg , Germany