Günter Guillaume

Günter Guillaume ( February 1, 1927 in Berlin, † 10 April 1995 Egger village as Günter Bröhl ), was OibE (officer on special assignment ) of the Ministry of State Security and DDR Agent in the Federal Chancellery eponym of the Guillaume affair. His unmasking was the largest espionage case in the history of the Federal Republic and the occasion, but probably not the sole reason for the resignation of Chancellor Willy Brandt, whose personal assistant he was from 1972 until 1974.

Life

Childhood

1927 Guillaume was born as the son of a musician in Berlin. 1944/45, he was Flakhelfer in World War II. The Berliner Zeitung reported in July 2007, citing the historian Götz Aly, that Guillaume was a Hitler Youth in 1944 has also become a party member. When he returned in 1945 to Berlin, he initially worked there as a photographer.

Recruitment by the Stasi and relocation in the Federal Republic

In 1950, Guillaume editor in people and knowledge publishing house in East Berlin. Between 1950 and 1956, Guillaume was recruited by the Ministry for State Security ( Stasi) and train for his future conspiratorial task in the Federal Republic. In 1951 he married the secretary Christel boom, which was also formed by the Stasi as an agent. From the marriage of their son Pierre boom emerged. In the SED Guillaume joined in 1952. In 1956 he moved on behalf of the Stasi into the Federal Republic to Frankfurt am Main and operating the boom here at the cathedral, a coffee shop.

Entry into the SPD and espionage activities in the Federal Chancellery

In 1957 he joined the SPD. Christel Guillaume was a secretary at the office party the SPD Hessen- Süd. Since 1964, Guillaume was working as a full-time party official for the SPD, initially as Managing Director of the SPD sub-district in Frankfurt am Main and from 1968 the SPD faction in the city council. In the same year he was also elected to the city council. 1969 Guillaume headed the campaign of the Federal Minister of Transport Georg Leber in his constituency in Frankfurt and convincingly proving his talent for organization, what the minister brought a very high number of first votes. From him Guillaume was finally conveyed after the election as speaker in the Department of Economic, financial and social policy of the Federal Chancellery, where he gained the confidence of his superiors. In 1972 he rose because of its large labor input and his organizational skills to the personal assistant of Chancellor Willy Brandt. Here he was given access to secret files and the discussions in the narrower circle around the Chancellor. Moreover, Guillaume had insight into the privacy of Willy Brandt.

Arrest and conviction of the couple Guillaume

Although since the middle of the West German security services existed in 1973 evidence for the activities of agents of the spouses Guillaume, passed almost a year until their arrest. The starting point was that its agents the Stasi sent encrypted birthday telegrams to the west in the 50s. The combination of the birth data, it was not until after years, to confirm the suspicion against Guillaume, the court probative value was negligible. On April 24, 1974 Guillaume was arrested in Bonn under suspicion of espionage. Upon his arrest Guillaume said: "I am an officer of the National People's Army of the GDR and employees of the Ministry of State Security. I ask you to respect my officer's honor. " This set was an essential and court recyclable aspect, who spoke against him, as to his confession, the evidence was relatively thin. The unmasking was the beginning of the eponymous Guillaume affair. She pulled in the Federal Republic from a severe internal crisis, the resignation of Willy Brandt at whose end on 7 May 1974 as Chancellor. On June 6, 1974, the Bundestag decided that a parliamentary committee of inquiry to investigate the affair, which revealed serious defects surveillance of security agencies at the request of the opposition.

In December 1975, Günter Guillaume, was convicted of treason to thirteen, his wife of eight years in prison. Guillaume sat the prison sentence in part on in the prison Rhine river.

Given the current knowledge of the Stasi files his activities as an agent is no longer classified as too much.

Early release and honors in the GDR

In 1981, the couple Guillaume returned within an agent exchanges back to East Germany, where he was officially called " Scouts of peace" celebrated. Both husband and wife were awarded the Karl- Marx- Orden; Günter Guillaume was promoted to colonel in the Stasi, his wife Christel to lieutenant colonel in the Stasi. Henceforth, Günter Guillaume joined the Stasi agent training as a " guest star " on. On January 28, 1985 gave the University of the Ministry of State Security in Potsdam Guillaume in " recognition of his outstanding service to the preservation of peace and the strengthening of the GDR" the title of " Doctor of Laws ( honorary ) ".

Divorce of the couple Guillaume, second marriage and death

Due to an affair that Günter Guillaume began his return to the GDR with the also working for the Stasi nurse Elke Bröhl day, Christel Guillaume got divorced on 16 December 1981 by her husband. In 1986 Günter Guillaume married the 15 years younger Elke Bröhl whose surname he officially for the last part of life now accepted ( cf. Hermann Schreiber, Chancellor fall). In the years 1986 and 1988 he published his memoirs The statement. On April 10, 1995 Günter Guillaume died of metastatic renal cancer in Peter / Eggersdorf, near Berlin, as Günter Bröhl.

Departure of son Pierre in the Federal Republic of Germany, Christel death of Guillaume

The son of Mr. and Mrs. Guillaume, Pierre ( b. 1957 ), went to the arrest of his parents in 1975 in East Germany, where he trained as a photojournalist. In 1988 he turned to leave the country and moved with his family in the same year in the Federal Republic. Because the Stasi did not want to let his departure under the name Guillaume, he took his mother's maiden name and called himself Pierre boom. In 2004, he published his memoirs under the title The strange father.

Günter Guillaume's ex-wife died as Christel Boom on 20 March 2004 of a heart condition.