Post by stevep on Oct 28, 2021 8:45:26 GMT
The Second Secretary accredited to the East German Embassy in Dublin had for several years been regarded by Britain’s MI-6 as ‘un-friendable’. Twice they had put people close to her to try and get in her good graces, maybe later her confidence, but neither time, using at first a man and then later a woman, had that worked. She was too cold, too uninterested in anyone else. The officers who tried took it on the chin rather than let their self-esteem be knocked because it wasn’t as if the Second Secretary was palling up with everyone else but them. They had pretended to be Irish citizens and she seemingly had no interest in such people to spend her time with. All she did was work, read or travel: all of that alone. The travelling bit interested MI-6 a great deal. That hobby of hers, which was suspected to be no such thing, was what convinced them more than anything else that she was an active Stasi/HVA agent operating under official diplomatic cover within the Republic of Ireland. On her travels around the country she was clearly up to no good. It was suspected, but never proved ahead of July 1995, that the Second Secretary had slipped over the border into Ulster while travelling around the Irish Republic too. There were a lot of eyes on her at times but she could rarely be properly watched because there had never been any progress made with her to justify that. The Second Secretary was someone that MI-5 paid attention to too. Both intelligence services shared (some) information about her and others at the DDR’s diplomatic compound in Dublin due to the connections with Irish terrorism that East Germany had for some time been involved in. No proof could be found by MI-5 either that the Second Secretary was an active agent and that she had been inside the UK territory which was Ulster, talking to terror group members when there, either yet they had a strong inkling that she was caught up in all of that. There was a lot of smoke, just not enough fire.
The embassy was a hive of activity the day that Margot Honecker was shot and Wolfgang Schwanitz took over the leadership of the DDR. While the Irish authorities were keeping tabs on the East Germans – to make sure that their diplomatic status remained tied the neutrality of the Republic of Ireland – the British were the ones really paying attention. MI-6 watchers observed two officials leave the embassy and the city too with one of them being the Second Secretary. She took a drive in her car with that trip being one where she was tailed. Further British operatives were called upon to assist in a growing operation and a call was not long afterwards made from the MI-6 station in Dublin (inside the UK embassy) to Belfast and the MI-5 office there. The Second Secretary was heading for Northern Ireland. Near to the border town of Dundalk that evening, she parked her car outside a pub and went inside. A woman who looked nothing like her left by a rear entrance some time later and went into a different vehicle, meeting a man who was seemingly picking her up. The disguise fooled no one: it was the second Secretary from the embassy. To the border and then through it she was watched going. MI-6 handed off the physical observation when she made that crossing to MI-5 officers. A joint team was already in-place concerning East German activity within Ulster using the Republic of Ireland as a base of operations. The Second Secretary, who’d tried slipping in unnoticed using a completely false identity (as an Irish national), went to the top of their list. She was followed with a whole lot of people tracking her every movement.
Her entry into Ulster to presumably make contact with terror group representatives was something discussed that night, and then the following morning in London too right at the highest level. The latter conversations where the Prime Minister himself was briefed about her came about after there were suspected ties between those East German commandos who had attacked the American communications intercept set-up at Menwith Hill Station and IRA sympathisers who seemed likely to have provided safehouses and transport. The conversation between Heseltine, his Home Secretary and security & intelligence figures had been about possibly detaining her. She had diplomatic cover when in the Republic of Ireland but had chose to leave that behind when crossing over into Ulster. Snatching her and holding her in secret where efforts would be made to make her talk was something considered. However, MI-5 didn’t want to do that at that time. Down the line, they wanted to see that done but their director convinced the PM and one of his top ministers that the best approach was to trail her and see what she was up to. There was something going on, something important, and it was judged best to see how that developed rather than rushing in. Time would tell what the Second Secretary was up to and how that linked into the long-established HVA-IRA ties. When discovered, the intention was to smash all of that apart and to not just gain a temporary victory but a real, damaging win against both.
West Germany was governed by the CDU/CSU alliance of those two entwined centre-right parties. The SPD had won second place in the last federal election with that centre-left party forming the opposition to Chancellor Schäuble’s government. Coming in third, ahead of the usually third & centralist FDP, had been the Greens. They were a left-wing party with (naturally) a major environmentalist bend to their politics. On many occasions, the Greens themselves, plus sections of the media, called them the ‘real opposition’. That was part in criticism to the leadership of the SDP being regarded as weak but also the vocal, active opposition to Schäuble that the Greens provided. The opposition had been there right from the start when it came to the American-led military conflict with East Germany. Ignoring accusations that they were beholden to the DDR, fighting back against that with allegations of their own against those who said such a thing, the Greens stated that they opposed the war because they didn’t want to see fellow Germans die. The message there was simple. Other causes for opposition, such as being against what was regarded as US neo-Imperialism and also the alliance formed to make the Coalition, were secondary. West German civilians by their millions, so many of them who wouldn’t vote for the Greens in an election, shared that view: their fellow Germans shouldn’t face death via American bombs. Other political opposition from parts of the SDP, most of the FDP and even portions out of the CDU/CSU alliance was drowned out by the Greens. They led the fight and took all of the attention.
For a long time, allegations had been made that the Greens were a creature of the Soviets and then later on that they had East German ties. That was something rejected over and over again by leading Greens, plus supporters too, but the attack lines against them never went away. When the Greens ignited the West German opposition to Operation Allied Sword – long before that was anywhere near really getting going too –, it was said domestically and internationally that a good chuck of the Greens’ activities in opposing the conflict with the DDR was because they shared the interests of the Honecker regime. There was a long history of association even if a lot of that had been disproved. People did believe that the Greens had strong ties to the East Germans, even unwitting ones, and that did colour a lot of the thinking on where to stand among many West Germans when it came to supporting the anti-war activities led by the Greens. For a lot of West Germans, they were fundamentally against the Coalition’s actions yet didn’t want to be associated with what they saw as the pro-DDR Greens. To outside observers looking in at West Germany, all of the anti-war opposition seen was regarded as being part of what the Greens were doing. They were the ones fronting the major anti-war marches and supporting the mass of non-violent civil disobedience that took place across portions of the country. Politicians from the Greens attacked Schäuble’s government repeatedly where they continentally accused him of working with the Americans, the British and the French to aid in the killing of fellow Germans across the geo-political divide that was the Inner-German Border. Schäuble fought back though standing in the way of all of the mud slung was quite an ordeal. What the Greens took themselves where they were accused of being tied to the East Germans, that was what they threw back with just as much gusto but towards Schäuble instead.
Neither Gert Bastian, Joschka Fischer nor Petra Kelly were in the top leadership roles of the Greens. The three of them though were high-profile leaders of the anti-war effort. Bastian was a former Bundeswehr general who, back in the 1980s, had been one of the key figures in the Soviet-backed ‘Generals for Peace’ where former NATO generals (most of them West Germans) had publicly opposed Pershing missile deployments in Europe. Bastian had survived attacks on his character and loyalties many times. Fischer was a famous former young left-wing militant. His career had seen him gain a national profile as a leading member of the Greens where he, more than anyone else, was one of those people seen before the Coalition clashed with the DDR as part of the real opposition in the country to Schäuble. Finally, there was Kelly. She was in a long-term relationship with Bastian. Often the face of so many protests launched by the Greens, and subject to foreign attention because she was a woman so active in politics, Kelly had just as much profile as Bastian and Fischer. She went to the marches which took place outside the American airbases in the Rhineland and then also visited the ‘occupied’ Geilenkirchen AB after it had been stormed by peaceful protesters who refused to leave that NATO base on West German soil.
The Americans turned up the heat against that trio. There had been deniable actions undertaken to discredit Bastian, Fischer & Kelly by portions of the US Intelligence Community already yet that was stepped into a higher gear. Sources within the West German media were contacted by CIA and NSA contacts with information given to them. The influential national publication Bild had for some time been a pro-American outlet though that had been tested during the crisis with the Coalition fighting the East Germans. American information on Bastian’s continued ties to the Stasi (proof provided to that affect) was given to journalists there so they would publish it. Kelly was to be tied to that through guilt by association. As to Fischer, he had some contacts of his own with far-left figures within West Germany who had been instrumental in engaging in the violent portions of the anti-war activity. While none of what the Americans handed over to their media contacts was in anyway firm proof that Fischer had any real links to that, that didn’t matter. The aim was to get the insinuation made, to nudge the thinking on that. This was all done as part of a concentrated effort to try and undermine the anti-war movement within West Germany. The focus on the personalities of that trio of leading figures was something that certain voices back in Washington had questioned the wisdom of doing, but they had been overruled. Whether West Germans would stop backing the protest movements because some bad things were said about the public faces of that was something that those behind the media attacks sought to see work.
As they say politics is a dirty business and many people are throwing mud in all sorts of directions. 
