The SPD was made up of various trends: Guillaume, cleverly, joined the most rightwing group of the party, and thus the most anti-communist. The majority of other communist spies who had infiltrated the West would have done the same. Guillaume became the right-hand man of Georg Leer, a party deputy and a future minister of Willy Brandt. In the mean time, Christa climbed the ranks in the party administration. Their mission seemed to be progressing perfectly.
Always eager to progress further, Guillaume applied to be a technical advisor to the new chancellor, following the victory of Willy Brandt's Social Democrats during the 1969 elections. He came highly recommended by his current boss, Georg Leber, but first had to undergo a background check. He would certainly have already had one of these before entering West Germany, but it was still a matter of routine. The only difference this time was that Guillaume was applying for a very important position. Yet his CV hid a secret: after going through his records, the West German counterintelligence unit discovered a witness who claimed that Guillaume had previously travelled to West Germany while working for a publishing company that was known to be a nest of eastern spies. His superiors consequently ordered a more detailed investigation and advised the chancellery against his employment.
Guillaume quickly collected himself and showed great composure: when summoned before Willy Brandt's cabinet, he asked to confront the witness who had accused him. The Chief of Staff informed him that the person in question had died, so any confrontation was impossible. Consequently, Guillaume appeared to be exonerated, with the intelligence agency responsible for the case, the BfV, seeming to forget all about it - even though such agencies never really forget.
Yet in stopping their investigation, the German authorities were guilty of gross negligence. Apparently, the French had information on Gunther Guillaume and intelligence networks in Paris had long indentified him as someone who made regular visits to France. Admittedly, this was not enough to make someone a suspect, but the SDECE had recently discovered a mole in Willy Brandt's entourage and as a possible candidate, Guillaume was put under surveillance. The DST, who had now taken over from the SDECE, were almost certain that Guillaume was not visiting France as a tourist, but instead was going there to meet with his case officer or to send messages using the famous ‘dead letterbox' system. However, they had no evidence to prove this and so had to be content with keeping a watchful eye.
Markus Wolf's HVA network soon benefited from an extraordinary stroke of luck. Until 1972, Gunther Guillaume had only been one of many technical advisors to the German Chancellor, although it did allow him access to information regarding the GDR. This was the era of Ostpolitik: the East Germans and their Soviet big brother were on the alert and wanted to ensure that any negotiations were as beneficial to them as possible. But it never hurts to know in advance the intentions of one's opponents. In 1972, Willy Brandt's personal aide, who was responsible for his agenda and accompanied him everywhere, even on holiday, decided to enter into politics. The position was now open for Guillaume, who was encouraged by other members of Brandt's entourage to take the role. Although there were plenty of spies around Brandt, this was an unexpected coup for Markus Wolf, who now had one of his own men at the heart of the West German government.
Guillaume very quickly proved himself to be an excellent employee, a man who could be trusted and who showed the greatest discretion. However, just as he had been appointed Brandt's personal aide, a Soviet defector allowed the French authorities to confirm their suspicions. When shown a series of photographs of West German figures, the defector recognised Gunther Guillaume as a former classmate from the military training school in Kiev. The French immediately alerted their German counterparts, but Guillaume would not be arrested until a year later. Was the German intelligence agency negligent? Or did they knowingly dismiss the French information provided by the defector? If this was indeed the case, then what was the reasoning behind such a disastrous scheme?
Roger Faligot and Remi Kauffer
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Born in Berlin in 1937, this civil servant entered into the BfV (the West German counterintelligence unit) at the age of twenty-nine. His new duties allowed him to monitor developments in the Guillaume Affair between l973-74.Impeccable and appreciated by his superiors, Tiedge was appointed head of the service in 1979. His speciality was operations in East Germany. However, he mysteriously disappeared on 22 August 1985 before finding refuge in the GDR, leading to the resignation of Heribert Hellenbroich, the head of the BND (the German intelligence agency), on 27 August.
Was it this Tiedge who had hampered the investigations concerning Guillaume? Or should we put it down to the incompetence or negligence of an agency, which, at the time, had been infiltrated at the very highest levels?
Nevertheless, the BfV, the German intelligence agency who had long distrusted Guillaume, continued to lead their own investigations.They did so in the upmost secrecy as they were worried that they would be forced to stop their enquiries, just as they had been told to do in 1969. After all, attacking the German Chancellor's personal aide was hardly nothing! Furthermore, the intelligence officers suspected that there was someone at the head of the organisation that did not want the investigation into Guillaume to succeed. One of the officers had
