The Red Brothel in Bonn

The resident fraulein of the house at 91 Koblenzerstrasse in the Bonn suburb of Bad Godesberg had received an inordinate number of male visitors for three years. Inexplicably, her neighbors down the street were unaware that sex was for sale at the white villa. As were officers of West Germany's federal criminal police, who were mortified to learn that the Soviet intelligence agency, the KGB, had been operating a brothel around the corner from their local headquarters.

The news of the Federal Republic's latest spy scandal was contained in the annual report of the Interior Ministry. It identified the hooker as Marta Haas, 60, a red-haired former gymnastics instructor who was arrested in May 1978 after a security search of her premises turned up some otherwise unexplained "intelligence material," along with listening devices and concealed cameras. Haas, who claimed that she had stopped working for the KGB in 1972, told her West German interrogators that she had been recruited by the Russians during a group tour of the Soviet Union in 1969. Her mission for the KGB: to set up a brothel close to the Bonn political and diplomatic scene, and, in the words of the Interior Ministry, "to report on interesting customers and to procure compromising material about them," The price Haas charged for each session of fun and gab was a hefty $60.

The Interior Ministry report also disclosed that 17 people had been arrested on espionage charges last year. Most of these were suspected East German agents. Six, including Haas, were KGB operatives. A pair of Soviet agents based in Frankfurt were charged with stealing the plans for the firing mechanism of the West German Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks.

The new cases underscored West German worries that not only East Berlin but also Moscow is interested in data as diverse as sophisticated military systems and sexual peccadilloes.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.