Great Spies of the 20th Century

department at the West German Foreign Ministry. She was approached by a photographer calling himself Sutterlin and after an idyllic romance the two married. At this time, her husband cleverly began to convince Lola of the dangers of the Cold War. He asked why the leaders in West Germany were building atomic shelters without any thought for the rest of the German population? His secret goal was to make her doubt the sincerity and honesty of the western leaders. But this was only the beginning. Sutterlin then revealed that there was a group of men who had been gathered together to try to prevent a nuclear war at any cost, before finally disclosing that he too was a part of this organisation. The naive Lola was thus caught, without knowing at any time that her husband was actually an East German agent.What makes the situation all the more sad is that Lola was sincere in her beliefs. A former officer in the West denounced the couple, who were then arrested. The truth was finally revealed: Sutterlin was a Romeo who had merely played at being in love. The shock was so hard for Lola that the poor woman committed suicide in her cell.

Luc Rosenzweig and Yacine Le Forestier

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While denying having cynically played with the fate of women burdened by loneliness, Markus Wolf now admits that this method was very effective: ‘The real reasons for this recruitment method were simple: a secretary or archivist at a ministry, or the

BND headquarters in NATO, was a thousand times more useful than their manager or someone else in the minister's entourage. Every document - notes, statements, confidential reports - passed through their hands and they were best placed to photograph or photocopy them. It was the same in the army, where its much preferable to recruit the adjutant who stamps the envelopes, rather than the colonel who, to my knowledge, only rarely does that sort of work.' In general, the story ended tragically for the seduced secretary, who was abandoned by her Romeo in the event of her being discovered, and left to face the rigors of justice alone.

And Gabriele Gast? Her case is more remarkable than it may appear at first glance. Born during the war and still alive today, she grew up in a rather conservative environment in West Germany. A brilliant political science student at Aix-la-Chapelle University, she remained faithful to the political ideas of her family and was a member of a student organisation similar to that of the Christian Democrats. It was here that she was spotted by an eminent professor, Klaus Mehnert, an expert on eastern countries and most likely a member of the BND, the intelligence agency ofWest Germany and heir to the Gehlen network.⁸⁰ Very soon, Gabriele (Gaby) became the professor’s assistant. As a talented political scientist, she had the potential to be an excellent addition to German intelligence.

In the mean time, Gaby had to finish her studies and write her thesis. It was Professor Mehnert who suggested the subject: the status of women in the GDR, and encouraged his protege to go there and investigate.

During the Cold War, Gaby Gast easily managed to gain the necessary permissions to quietly investigate life on the other side of the Iron Curtain. She was welcomed at an East German university in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now known as Chemnitz) and was promised that she would also have the opportunity to interview women in senior positions.

Did Markus Wolf and his department, who were particularly knowledgeable about anything that had to do with West Germany, know that this student was the assistant to a professor affiliated with the BND? It is clear that they must have done as they otherwise would not have given permission for her to travel to East Germany. Did Mehnert know of the risks that his protege was taking?

Now in East Germany, in 1968 Gabriele Gast began to interview women from the GDR for her thesis. After a few weeks she met a charming man called Karl Heinz Schmidt, who claimed to be a car mechanic. In contrast to the young lady, he was by no means an intellectual. Even though she knew she was at risk of being targeted, Gabriele Gast was completely unsuspecting. At the time, all Westerners who travelled beyond the Iron Curtain could expect to be recruitment targets for eastern intelligence agencies. This was particularly true for diplomats, military personnel, journalists and even businessmen. As an assistant to a specialist in eastern European countries, Gast must have been warned of this. Whatever the case, Schmidt was so charming, fun and attractive that she quickly fell into his arms, perhaps even out of boredom in such a gloomy country, and became the mechanic's mistress.

It was during a second visit to Karl-Marx-Stadt that things became clearer. One evening, Karliczek (a tender nickname Gaby had given to Schmidt), invited her to his house. He wanted her to meet one of his best friends, Gottard Schramm, who was introduced to Gaby as an important HVA agent. At the same time Gaby learned that

Karliczek was also an HVA agent. The two men did not try to hide their true identity as they knew that the young woman was already caught in the net. They said that as an assistant to Professor Mehnert, she was clearly working with the West-German BND and could be visiting East Germany to engage in espionage activities. In East Germany, just as in other countries, such accusations were not to be taken lightly and even if she was innocent, the authorities now had enough material to extract a confession, imaginary of course, but enough to ensure her imprisonment. This is what the two men threatened to do to Gabriele, but suggested that she could escape all of this by agreeing to work for them. Although still a student, she was close to a BND expert and a member of a very conservative student organisation, meaning she was certainly able to provide valuable policy information, not to