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PERSON FILE · 1 February 1927 – 10 April 1995

Günter Guillaume

East German intelligence officer who posed as a refugee, rose through the Social Democratic Party and became an aide to Chancellor Willy Brandt. Convicted of treason in 1975, he was returned to East Germany in 1981.

1927–1995

2 min read · 8 sources, 1 primary

Günter Karl Heinz Guillaume
Chancellor Willy Brandt with Günter Guillaume (right). Pelz. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

When West German officers arrested Günter Guillaume at his Bonn flat on 24 April 1974, he told them he was an officer of East Germany's National People's Army and an employee of its Ministry for State Security4,1. The trail to him was old. West German intelligence had intercepted and archived East German radio messages from the 1950s, among them birthday greetings to a "Georg" and, in 1957, congratulations on a second son; matched against the Guillaume family, they helped establish who he was7.

Making a refugee

Guillaume was born in Berlin on 1 February 1927, the only child of a musician who played in bars and cinemas. He was called up as an anti-aircraft auxiliary in 19448.

After the war, in East Germany, the Stasi's foreign intelligence service, the HV A, recruited him. Its registers list him as "Hansen" from 9 September 1954. With his wife Christel, registered as "Heinze" in 1958, he was trained as a would-be defector, and in 1956 the couple moved to Frankfurt am Main as refugees from the East1,8.

In 1957 both joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Günter became business manager of the party's Frankfurt sub-district and of its group on the city council, and built a name as a diligent organizer2,1. Formally he was an Offizier im besonderen Einsatz, an HV A officer on special assignment1.

The Chancellor's aide

In 1969 he worked for the re-election of Transport Minister Georg Leber, who recommended him to the Federal Chancellery. Security checks raised doubts at the Federal Criminal Police and the BND, but he talked his way through an interview with the Chancellery chief, Horst Ehmke, and was hired with effect from 1 January 1970 as liaison to the trade unions. In 1972 he became Willy Brandt's party aide2,1.

The registers that survived the destruction of the HV A's files record his output: from 30 July 1969 to 8 April 1974, 23 reports on internal SPD matters, 12 on government policy and nine on trade unions1. That is a narrower picture than later press accounts, which credited him with access to NATO secrets6. Counterintelligence suspicion of him was raised with Brandt at the end of May 1973, but he was left in his post under observation for almost a year, with continued access to classified papers2. The full story is told in the Guillaume affair.

Verdict

Brandt resigned on 6 May 19743. Guillaume's trial before the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court, at which Brandt gave evidence, ended on 15 December 1975 with a sentence of 13 years for treason; Christel received eight2,1.

Back in the East

In 1981 both were released early and returned to East Germany. The Stasi honored them with a two-hour documentary, Auftrag erfüllt ("Mission accomplished"), and Guillaume lectured on his assignment at the Ministry's training school; the talks are documented in the Stasi Records Archive1. In 1988 he published a memoir, Die Aussage ("The Statement")8.

After unification he was called as a witness at Wolf's 1993 treason trial and, when questioned, mostly referred the court to his book. He died on 10 April 1995 in Eggersdorf, near Berlin8,1.

Key dates

  1. 9 September 1954 Registered by the HV A under the codename 'Hansen.'
  2. 1956 Moves to Frankfurt am Main with his wife Christel, posing as a refugee from the East.
  3. 1 January 1970 Hired by the Federal Chancellery despite security doubts.
  4. 1972 Becomes Willy Brandt's party aide.
  5. 24 April 1974 Arrested in Bonn; declares himself an East German officer.
  6. 15 December 1975 Sentenced by the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court to 13 years for treason.
  7. 1981 Released early and returned to East Germany.
  8. 10 April 1995 Dies at Eggersdorf near Berlin.

Sources

  1. Other Die Affäre Guillaume, Bundesarchiv, Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv.
  2. Other Günter Guillaume – der Spion, den niemand stoppte (Geschichtsgalerie), Bundesarchiv.
  3. FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–15, Part 2, Documents on Western Europe, 1973–1976, Document 280, US Department of State, Office of the Historian (1974-05).
  4. Other The Guillaume Affair (April/May 1974), German History in Documents and Images, German Historical Institute Washington.
  5. Other This Spymaster Never Came in From the Cold (review of Man Without a Face), Christian Science Monitor (1997-09-25).
  6. Other Former East German spy chief dies, BBC News (2006-11-09).
  7. Wikipedia Guillaume affair, Wikipedia.
  8. Wikipedia Günter Guillaume, Wikipedia.
  9. Wikipedia English Wikipedia article (used for cross-checking).

Elsewhere in the files

Read next

1956 – 6 May 1974 The Guillaume affair An East German intelligence officer, planted in the West in 1956, rose to become an aide to Chancellor Willy Brandt. His arrest in April 1974 was followed two weeks later by Brandt's resignation. 1923–2006 Markus Wolf Head of East Germany's foreign intelligence service, the HV A, for more than three decades. The West had no usable photograph of him until 1978. After unification he was convicted of treason, a verdict later quashed. East Germany · 1950–1990 Stasi (Ministry for State Security) East Germany's secret police and foreign intelligence service, 1950 to 1990: by the end 91,000 staff and 189,000 informers, answerable only to the ruling party, with a spy placed beside Willy Brandt. 1920s–1980s Illegals and legends Soviet officers who lived abroad as private citizens under borrowed identities, with no diplomatic protection. The Abel and Portland court records show how their legends were built and how they came apart. 1907–2000 Erich Mielke East Germany's minister for state security from 1957 to 1989, who built the Stasi into a vast surveillance machine. After unification he was convicted not for its crimes but for a 1931 police murder.