Complete list of informers

CIA hands over files on all Stasi employees to Germany

Yesterday there were reports that the CIA had transferred files with the names of 50 thousand employees of the main intelligence department of the GDR MGB (Stasi) to the German authorities. This action will make the hearts of previously unofficially undisclosed former non-staff Stasi employees, sitting, for example, in the Bundestag or in public service, beat faster. Both were ordered from former Stasi employees, including, of course, amateur informers. In Erich Mielke’s department they were called informal employees and were designated in documents with the letters IM.

Marianne Birtler, the federal government's commissioner for documentation of the former MGB of the GDR, does not even rule out that CIA materials will help expose former employees of the East German state security even in her department.

A file with the names of about 200 thousand inhabitants of both parts of Germany was maintained by East German intelligence under the code name “Rosenholz”. Immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, under unclear circumstances, it ended up in the hands of the “friendly” CIA, whose employees literally flooded the German capital during those months. All those listed in the file were related to espionage activities carried out by the Stasi mainly in the “western direction”. However, three-quarters of this list consists of relatives, close friends, etc. who did not directly participate in such actions. active "vestment agents".

In 1993, German authorities were allowed for the first time (albeit with great restrictions) to look into the East German intelligence files located overseas. American partners handed over to the German office for the protection of the constitution the names of 2,000 thousand spies who worked until the last days of the GDR.

The current “hot list” of 50 thousand names consists of those who worked either as an “instructor” or a “courier”, that is, they were informal and non-staff intelligence officers. Such people were usually used (or intended to be used) in espionage operations against West Germany. They became available to German authorities after the CIA began handing over CD-ROM copies of the Rosenholz documents to the Germans in April 2000.

The Rosenholz card file consists of three large sections - F16, F22 and the so-called mobilization card file. The first part contains the true names and surnames of informal GRU employees, including those who were of particular interest to intelligence: IM, “target persons” or “operational interesting persons.” F22 contains data on the activities of agents, but they themselves go by nicknames. When both parts are combined, a complete and true picture of the espionage activities of the “instructors” and “couriers” emerges. The “mobile file cabinet” additionally collects personal information about amateur spies from among the citizens of the GDR: character, passions, hobbies, possible life difficulties, etc.

There is no threat of legal prosecution for exposed informal Stasi employees: the statute of limitations has expired, and service in East German intelligence itself was not illegal according to current standards. Former amateur informers from the former GDR, in the worst case scenario, could lose a prestigious seat in the federal or state parliament, or be “suspended” from the civil service. With the payment, of course, of all required unemployment benefits.

Yuri Shpakov, Berlin