ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 35

July 2006
Articles, newsreports and Items of interest :enigma2000-owner@yahoogroups.com

ENIGMA 2000 Article - If it had not been for 15 minutes (4/6)

We continue with Thomas Wagner’s most interesting true story, with his full permission. Thanks Thomas,

If it had not been for 15 minutes (4/6)

A park in Berlin On the 28th of August 1978, a mere month after the initial dead letter drop exchange, the Stasi got incredibly lucky. As part of the Stasi's examination of letters that went to the West, they came across one of Werner and Mom's very first letters. It got caught because the West German supplied pre-addressed envelopes listed an address that seemed suspicious to the East. Bingo! Jackpot! Within hours Kratsch had a report on his desk, issued by the Chemists of Section 34 in his division, that this letter included secret writings. The secret communication, found between the lines of the hand (pre) written letter entailed 129 groups of 5 number sequences, all encrypted.

The Stasi opened a file on this case. Over the years, even after our defection, all the way until the fall of East Germany the file, code named "Borste" (bristle) would continue to grow. The Stasi never stopped looking for us, all the way until the very end in 1989/90 - not so long ago when you think about it.
One way the Stasi was able to quickly catch on is the fact that the BND's cover addresses in the West were generally all located within the same geographical area. The Stasi was aware of this area, as well as an arrangement between the BND and the Bundespost (West German Postal Service) to forward to Pullach all correspondence sent to the cover addresses. Lastly, Stiller's and moms letters were all directed to only go to cover addresses, thus greatly increasing the Stasi's chances of an intercept.

Post office in Berlin near the Stasi Safehouse Kratsch orders Major Johannes Schroeder on the job. His top spy catcher, Schroeder is equipped with the necessary warrants to even order the at-will collection of the contents of certain mailboxes for analysis. Schroeders main goal at this point was to find the mailbox used by mom and Stiller and thus to narrow down the geographic region where we lived.

In the four months between August and November of 1978 the Stasi successfully intercepted eight seperate letters in this manner. Each was opened, analyzed, documented and then sent on to keep up appearances. Schroeder thought he had narrowed the mailboxes in question down to one particular box located at the Alexanderplatz in Berlin. He ordered clandestine camera equipment to be installed in the area and every single person who approached this box was filmed. Time passed without a successful capture. Kratsch had to make daily reports to the Minister of State Security Erich Mielke. And every day the same questions from Mielke: "How is it going? Where are they? Have you found them? Are really working the case? Do you need additional personnel? Whatever the case maybe do not under any circumstances allow for anything to befall the German Democratic Republic !"

It seemed to take forever to convince the West German intelligence service about the validity of our proposal. Ideally, they really would have liked Stiller to hand over the names of his top agents. He wasn't about to do that. Why give away his best playing cards. He did manage to steal (or produce) several rolls of microfilm that contained all sorts of data about agents in the West.

A handwriting comparison between the previously intercepted letters and the telegram In order to convince the BND, a small "taste" of what was to come with our defection would need to be sent to West Germany. The instructions from the BND entailed hiding some microfilms on a train that crossed East Germany on its way to Denmark. Mom was supposed to find a specific train car and hide the film in a specific toilet. Alas - no East German was allowed on this train without special paperwork.

Unable to fullfill her assignment she returned to Berlin on the very same day. In a desperate improvisation Werner and mom sent a telegram to one of the cover addresses in the West. It read "Cannot fulfill your wishes. DDR residents were not given permission to enter. Please answer soon. Regards Gigi." No sooner had the telegram been sent that it landed on Guenther Kratsch's desk. The reason? Logisitics and German efficiency. The BND had an arrangement to forward letters that were directed to the cover addresses but NOT telegrams. Hence the West German postal service returned it as undeliverable! And of course the cover address being known to the Stasi it didn't take long at all for it to be found.
Mom had to unscrew the ceiling plate of the bathroom in order to hide the packet The BND suggested a fallback position. This time it was to be a train from Leipzig in the East to Moenchengladbach in the West. And this time mother was able to get aboard. She describes the situation in the toilet: "I had to stand on the toiletbowl and reach up to unscrew a ceiling plate. It was really dirty in there. In the right corner I could see several pipes running down. I fastened my small package to some nylon twine and let it slip into the pipe. Always hoping that I wouldn't drop it, I then fastened the nylon to the pipe and closed the ceiling back up. I also had to clean up all the dust that had accumulated all over everything as a result of my activities. Finally I cleaned myself up and left the train in Erfurt."
Again, Stiller and mom sent a telegram. This time only 500 meters away from the Stasi safehouse that they were still using undetected ! And once again it fell into the wrong hands. Immediatly Kratsch ordered the investigation of all mail in and out of Berlin - a month before Christmas. The Stasi was faced with over 460,000 pieces of mail!

In November 1978 my mother began to send her entire prized collection of crystal vases piece by piece to her brother in West Germany. Unbeknownst to her, she was providing the direct link between the previously intercepted letters and telegrams and our home address. Since the crystal was being sent to the West, the packages were of course opened and the address information noted. Her handwriting provided the Stasi with the necessary link to determine who was really behind the espionage letters being sent from East Germany.

Time was running out and circumstances were quickly spinning out of control.

Stillers wife Erzebet tracked down my mother and called her. "How do you feel about wrecking my marriage ?" she asked. Mother replied "I had absolutely no idea!" After a moment of quiet Erzebet sighed "I understand. He has simply lied once again."

When Stiller found out about the phone conversation between the two women he became highly agitated. His beautiful plan of defection was in danger! Immediatly he contacted my mother and once again playing upon the affection of a person who loved him he managed to sweet talk her by saying things like "I can live without all the things and people in my life but I can't live without you".

I've learned that agents, much like actors, have to be internally convinced of the lies and double roles they are playing. So I have no doubt that Stiller, or a part of Stiller, completely meant what he said. He had to in order to successfully continue the lie.

Unbeknownst to Stiller, Major Johannes Schroeder had been investigating him very quietly. He found a note in Stillers file documenting a supervisory counseling conversation that took place after Horst Vogel, the leader of Stiller section, accidentally found out about his dalliance with my mother while Vogel was visiting Oberhof. To make matters worse, while it seemed as though mom was placated for the time being, Erzebet was raising hell. She once again threatened to go to Stiller's bosses. Werner needed to keep the peace so he made it appear as though his affair was over. In his own words "I was afraid. But its a funny thing, after a while you can get used to fear."

Erzebet also noticed that her husband was stressed out. "He was a complete bundle of nerves" she recalled "he drank considerably more alcohol and was withdrawn. Who knows, perhaps he might have had second thoughts about his family, friends, siblings and parents."

The situation continued to worsen.

At the beginning of December, according to Major Schroeders investigation, Stiller and wife Erzebet attended a party at a Berlin restaurant. Stiller approached another women and started to flirt. Erzebet slapped him in public, whereupon Stiller at the earliest moment of privacy proceeded to brutally beat Erzebet to such a degree that she would not leave the house for 2 weeks. When interviewed in 1991 Erzebet rationalized Stillers behavior like a typical abused wife might do. I was suprised that she continued to enable his behavior even after several years had passed, She rationalized that Stiller needed to behave in this despicable manner because he wanted to drive her away so that she would not be in danger while he planned the defection.

The BND, in response to our urging, began the final steps necessary to bring us into the West.

The first attempt was set for the middle of December 1978. It was a no-go because the false passports that had been left at the dead letter drop listed Stillers eye color as blue, which was wrong and would have caused our discovery if we had used them.

The dragnet that had been thrown out by the STASI was beginning to tighten. On December 19th Major Schroeder was contacted by the agents assigned to comb through the mail leaving the country and especially Berlin. It appears that the handwriting on several packages with crystal vases was identical to the handwriting sample in Schroeders case. And of course these packages, sent by my mom via regular postal mail, had our return address in Oberhof. The STASI had a positive ID. The sender was one Helga Michnowski, employed as a waitress in the Hotel Panorama in Oberhof.

Kratsch wants to be 100% certain in the case he is building and refers the handwriting samples to Colonel Dr. Hegewald, a "Diplomkriminalist" - a specialist. Hegewald needed two weeks to come back with a report that indicated that both sets of handwriting samples came "most likely from the same author". It was Chrsitmas 1978 and Kratsch was ready to make his move.

A crystal clear cold Winter day in Oberhof I remember to this day the incredible cold front that hammered East-Germany at Christmas 1978. This was especially noticable in the mountains at 1000m altitude.

Our small town literally stopped working. The entire country was on energy conservation alert. Tourists could not fulfill their plans and the town became very quiet. It took all the way until January 11th before Kratsch was able to dispatch anyone to Oberhof. (No winter tires for the cars was his explanation in 1991).

A STASI agent by the name of Nowack was sent to investigate Helga Michnowski, to obtain additional handwriting samples and if possible to find out what secret relation Ms. Michnowski has in Berlin.

Nowack arrives in Oberhof only to find the entire hotel is closed. During the New Year celebration of 1979 the heating system of the hotel collapsed under the immense cold front that was pummeling our town. -25 degree Celsius was cold even for a mountain boy like myself. All personnel had been sent on vacation until January 21. Nowack conducts his investigation in a sloppy manner. He is told that Helga Michnowski is in Berlin and took that information at face value without checking our residence.

Nowack returned to Berlin pretty much empty handed. Since he reported that mom was thought to be in Berlin, Kratsch ordered the photographic surveillance of the Berlin-Meiningen train, which is the one she has to catch on her way home, in hopes of finding the unknown person that mom was visiting in Berlin

We decided that we could not wait any longer. I don't recall how, but a new date had been set for the escape : January 14. 1979

And here is were events start to take place in two seperate paths but parallel paths. Werner Stiller would organize his own escape and ours would take place with the help of the West German government.

Many years later we discovered yet another one of the miraculous circumstances that made our defection a completely amazing story. The certified unbreakable cryptographic code that had been used by us in deciphering the radio messages from the West was compromised and broken by the Stasi in the early fall of 1979. Therefore, if the West had sent the defection instructions in a radio message we would have been caught immediatly. The fact that the West used a dead letter drop was another one in a series of amazing circumstances.

As I understand it, the Stasi got a hold of the cyphers in the following manner: A West German agent took a flight that crossed East-Germany and had a layover in East-Berlin. The Stasi took that opportunity to arrange for the plane to experience some "mechanical difficulties" which gave them all the time needed to rifle throught the baggage in the plane. I don't know why this agent was carrying the microfilm cypher set and who knows what else in his baggage. The bottom line is that it was found and proved to be instrumental in the code being broken. As of approximately Sept 1979, four months prior to our defection, none of the West German messages were completely secure. Perhaps this was one of the contributing factors to the discovery of another defector approximately 1.5 years after we left. This unfortunate officer, Colonel Teske, was summarily executed. The fact that the Stasi knew where to look, and which plane to delay only goes to show how thoroughly compromised the West German intelligence service was at that point.

Our ultimately succesful defection, in my opinion, is largely due to circumstances beyond human control. Call it Fate, call it Guardian Angels, call it Higher Being or call it God - I truly believe that after one examines the evidence, one has a very hard time in making a case against that opinion. Something or someone watched over us. Time and time again the Stasi was on to us and time and time again the BND screwed up. Its amazing we made it out alive.

Monday, January 14th 1979

The cold front had lessened a little. Instead of -25 it was now about -10 degree Celsius. Still cold. With our bags packed the night before, Mom ordered a taxi and with one last look around we left the apartment that she had worked so hard to make into a special place. My heart was beating a tad bit faster and mom was just a little nervous but we couldn't let on that this was anything other than a normal trip. The taxi made its way down the mountain to the Oberhof train station where we caught a 10 AM train to Berlin.

15 minutes after we left in the taxi, Kratsch's henchmen were knocking on our door with an arrest warrant. If it had not been for those 15 minutes we would not be here today.

An international train bound for Warsaw The ride to Berlin was uneventful. We took a taxi to the Stasi safe apartment, snuck very quietly up three floors and spent the night there. Early the next morning we bought tickets to Warsaw, Poland, and made our way onto the Paris-Moscow long distance train. I still remember feeling somewhat more nervous when we crossed the border, although having been to Poland twice a teenager I knew that traffic leaving East-Germany in that direction was not checked as thoroughly as trains going West from the Soviet Union or Poland.

The Hotel Syrena in Warsaw After a 12 hour train ride we arrived at the Hotel "Syrena" in Warsaw. The way my mother explains it, my signature was found as late as 1991 by researchers who followed our trail for a West German television show. Funny, I don't even remember signing us in.....

What I do remember was the custom of Polish people to order hard liquor with their meals. Anytime we had lunch or dinner and looked at the table of the other hotel guests we saw people ordering full, half or even quarter bottles of vodka with their meal.

Tuesday January 16th 1979

Back in Berlin Kratsch knew that my mother was involved but he still did not know who the inside man was. Was it a diplomat? Perhaps a high ranking member of the Free German Youth Organization? Little did he know that the man he was after worked for the same department of the government as he did. Somehow his researchers determined that the suspect drove a Lada and based on the mail dragnet, lived in the general area of the Marienburger street (which is the address of the safehouse). Kratsch issues an order to find all owners of Lada cars in the general area of Marienburger street.

Stiller - who had been driving a Lada - was now driving a Wartburg and was not interviewed.

Part 5 next time…………………………….