Wolf-Heinrich Prellwitz

Wolf-Heinrich Prellwitz (born November 2, 1933 - February 19, 2016 ), code name "Rödel", was a German spy , unofficial employee of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) and employee in the Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg).

Life

Prellwitz had been an office assistant since 1961 and later an employee in the registry for classified information of the sub-department Rü IV (military material air) of the main armament department in the BMVg. In 1968, during the Cologne Carnival , he met a male who posed as an employee of a French lobby group in the armaments sector. Prellwitz had previously been typed by an unknown employee of Department XV of the Karl-Marx-Stadt district administration of the MfS. He was recruited under a false flag and has been listed as an unofficial employee since 1968 . Prellwitz became the top source of the MfS in the BMVg after Lothar Lutze was arrested in 1979.

Financial hardship and the pursuit of profit were the only motives for Prellwitz's activity as an agent. He revealed 55,000 individual documents, including the Tornado fighter aircraft , the Leopard 2 main battle tank and an anti-tank helicopter . For this he received 820,000 DM, the highest known agent wage paid by the MfS. To bounce wit 'camouflage wearing his modest appearance and inconspicuous existence as a father of a family of four in Alfter - Witterschlick , its simple single-family house , his old Ford Taunus , its membership in the local male voice choir and his municipal political commitment to the FDP in.

After a former employee of the MfS had revealed himself to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the course of the fall of the Wall , the Military Counter-Intelligence Service searched specifically for a spy with the code name Röder in the BMVg. He was finally identified as Prellwitz and arrested on April 15, 1991. Prellwitz was in on 21 May 1992 by the State Security Division of the Higher Regional Court Dusseldorf sentenced to ten years in prison and the forfeiture of assets of its agents wages. Even if he never knew that he was working for the Stasi, he accepted it approvingly, according to the court.

Prellwitz died on February 19, 2016 and was buried in the Witterschlick cemetery.

See also

• List of German spies
• List of espionage cases in Germany

literature

• Klaus Wagner: Espionageprozesse: Espionage methods of the MfS (HVA) and Eastern (inter alia KGB) and Middle Eastern intelligence services in the years 1977–1990 (=  contributions to internal security . Volume 11 ). Federal University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration , Department for Public Safety, Brühl 2000, ISBN 978-3-930732-58-6 , p. 176-178 .
• Hundreds will follow . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1991, p. 16 ( online - with photo of Prellwitz).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Wolf-Heinrich Prellwitz obituary notice. In: General-Anzeiger (Bonn) . Retrieved April 8, 2020 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Helmut Müller-Enbergs : Inofficial employees of the Ministry for State Security - Part 1: Guidelines and implementing regulations . Ch. Links Verlag , Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86284-036-6 , p. 256 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Helmut R. Hammerich : "Always on the enemy!" - The Military Shield Service (MAD) 1956–1990 . 1st edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-525-36392-8 , pp. 317 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
4. ↑ Heribert Schwan: Spies in the center of power: how the Stasi has spied on all governments since Adenauer . Heyne, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-453-20286-3 , pp. 275 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).