Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Photographs, Charts, and Table
- Abbreviations and Organizations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I HIGH-TECH
- 1 Agent Gorbachev
- 2 Stealing Secrets
- 3 Hero, Traitor, Playboy, Spy
- 4 The Crown Jewels
- 5 “Kid” and “Paul”
- 6 The Computer Fiasco
- PART II SPY-TECH
- Note on Archival Sources
- Notes
- Index
2 - Stealing Secrets
from PART I - HIGH-TECH
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Photographs, Charts, and Table
- Abbreviations and Organizations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I HIGH-TECH
- 1 Agent Gorbachev
- 2 Stealing Secrets
- 3 Hero, Traitor, Playboy, Spy
- 4 The Crown Jewels
- 5 “Kid” and “Paul”
- 6 The Computer Fiasco
- PART II SPY-TECH
- Note on Archival Sources
- Notes
- Index
Summary
White-haired, patrician, and proletarian, Heinrich Weiberg was a legend among foreign intelligence staff members and leaders. Until he retired, he rode his bicycle into work at the imposing, grey-stoned Normannenstrasse complex of buildings making up Stasi headquarters. He rarely joined the other major generals at their special dining room for lunch; instead, he preferred grabbing a sausage at the courtyard fast food kiosk, the Imbiss. He was the founder and leader of the department for stealing scientific secrets from the West, the Sector for Science and Technology (SWT).
Weiberg started working for the Ministry for State Security (MfS) in Berlin in 1951, a year that marked the beginning of a decade of spy-city status for the divided metropolis; it became a breeding ground for spies. Recruitment of agents was rampant on both sides, with the United States, France, and Britain exploiting their perch as occupying powers in the western sectors of an island city that lay in the waters of a communist-run eastern zone of Germany. Likewise, the Soviets used their status in East Berlin and East Germany as a frontline for the emerging espionage wars. The Berlin tunnel was completed by the CIA and British intelligence in 1954 and was exposed eleven months later by the East Germans and Soviets. Hundreds of secret agents were caught and tried in Berlin. Officials were defecting both ways, to the East and to the West.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Seduced by SecretsInside the Stasi's Spy-Tech World, pp. 20 - 50Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008