Wolf, Markus 1923-2006

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born January 19, 1923, in Hechingen, Germany; died November 9, 2006, in Berlin, Germany. Spy, government official, and author. Wolf was the former head of East Germany’s spy agency, die Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (H.V.A.), part of the Ministry for State Security, or Stasi. Born to a Jewish family, he was the son of a physician who was a member of the Communist Party. Thus, when the Nazis rose to power in 1933, his family immigrated to Moscow. Here, Wolf attended the Soviet Comintern, where he was trained in propaganda and weapons use and nurtured to become a radio broadcaster for the Communist Party. While covering the Nuremburg trials after World War II, Wolf decided to join the Stasi, and by 1956 he was put in charge of the H.V.A. He proved to be a highly effective espionage chief for the East Germans during the Cold War. His operatives worked their way deep inside West German government offices, obtaining classified documents on a regular basis. One of Wolf’s most successful spies, Günter Guillaume, was credited with bringing down the Willy Brandt government. Wolf would later joke that the original plan had only been to discredit one of West Germany’s labor leaders, but Guillaume far exceeded the goal. One of his most effective tools, Wolf would come to explain, was the use of sex to obtain information. He would have operatives romance key officials and office personnel who had access to information, or he would lure Western officials to brothels or even arrange potential spouses for them in order to get their cooperation. When Mikhail Gorbechev took power in the Soviet Union and ushered in the era of glasnost and perestroika, Wolf saw changes coming and resigned his post in 1986. He had come out in support of the new Soviet policies of tolerance and freedom, but eventually realized it was time to leave. Before East and West Germany unified in 1990, he immigrated to Russia and then to Austria. He tried to find amnesty through the U.S. government, but because he refused to cooperate with the C.I.A. he was denied a visa. In his later years, he turned increasingly to writing. He released a novel, Die Troika, in 1989, as well as several nonfiction works. His autobiography, The Man without a Face (1997), got its title from the fact that Wolf remained little photographed throughout his years with the Stasi.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES

BOOKS

Wolf, Markus, The Man without a Face, Times Books (New York, NY), 1997.

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, November 10, 2006, Section 3, p. 8.

Los Angeles Times, November 10, 2006, p. B9.

New York Times, November 10, 2006, p. A28.

Times (London, England), November 10, 2006, p. 69.

Washington Post, November 10, 2006, p. B6.