BERLIN, Nov 9: Markus Wolf, the shadowy spy-master of communist East Germany and one of the legendary figures of the Cold War, died Thursday, his family said. He was 83.
Dubbed “The Man Without a Face” because Western intelligence services long lacked even a picture of him, Wolf directed one of the world's most formidable espionage networks for nearly three decades.
He died in his sleep overnight at his home, his daughter-in-law said, on the 17th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
A legend in his own lifetime, Wolf successfully ran more than 4,000 spies across the Iron Curtain during his tenure at the foreign intelligence division of the Stasi secret police from 1958 to 1987, infiltrating countless “moles”deep into the West German government administration.
One of them, Guenter Guillaume, caused the downfall of Chancellor Willy Brandt.
Wolf even recruited the head of West German counter-espionage, Hans-Joachim Tiedge, as a double agent.
His spies were said to be so effective that East German head of state Erich Honecker regularly got to read the weekly intelligence digest of West German espionage before the West German chancellor.
Former East German dissidents said they would shed no tears for the man who reputedly inspired the Machiavellian East German spy chief in John Le Carre's novel “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold”.
“I do not have a high opinion of him,” conservative pastor Rainer Eppelmann said.
Lothar Bisky, the head of the former communist Left Party, said he embodied the extremes of the turbulent 20th century.
“He was a fighter against the Nazi regime, head of intelligence for state security and a writer -- in other words, full of contradictions,” he said.Known by the Russian nickname of “Misha”, Wolf charmed many of those who had sworn bitter hatred of him.
Tall, dressed in elegant Western-style suits and wire-framed glasses and good-looking, Wolf was dubbed “the Paul Newman of spying” by the West German tabloid press.
Wolf was born in 1923 in Hechingen, western Germany. His father Friedrich was a well-known Jewish communist writer, and his brother Konrad became a famous film director.—AFP
