Communists: A Spymaster Returns Home

By Daniel Benjamin/Bonn

If statistics were kept for such things, Markus Wolf might be said to have had the longest winning streak in the annals of espionage. For more than three decades before his retirement in 1987, he ran a succession of agents in the nerve centers of the West, and nowhere more effectively than in West Germany. Yet last week, that rampage through the history of spycraft appeared to have ended in bright morning sunshine at the village of Bayerisch Gmain on the Austrian border. There, nearly a year after German unification, Markus Wolf, now 68, surrendered.

Thus ended a Wanderjahr in which Wolf fled through central Europe to the Soviet Union shortly before unification, then trekked backward because his continued sanctuary in Moscow seemed risky in the aftermath of the failed August coup. In Austria, his last stop before turning himself in, Wolf appeared to be teasing Bonn with impunity for three weeks. He applied for political asylum, counting on the international legal practice prohibiting extradition of individuals to countries where they are wanted for political crimes.

But Austria's avowed desire to have the unwanted guest leave -- and the refusal of Sweden and possibly other countries to which the fugitive spook applied for asylum -- limited his options. Returning to the Soviet Union was an unappealing choice; after all, the presence there of former East German leader Erich Honecker continues to be a sore spot in Moscow's relations with Bonn. According to the German Foreign Ministry, Honecker himself is considering returning to Germany.

Wolf evidently decided that it was better to risk serving time in Germany than to reign as a hero in a remaining communist bastion such as China, Cuba or North Korea -- and he may be right. Whisked from the border by German Justice Ministry officials, who met him there by prearrangement with his attorney, Wolf was driven to Karlsruhe, seat of the country's high courts. There he was booked for espionage but, astonishingly, was released by a magistrate on $30,000 bail. The magistrate's reasoning: that since Wolf had turned himself in, there was little likelihood that he would try to flee the country. The ruling was promptly appealed by Germany's chief prosecutor, Alexander von Stahl, and Wolf was put in investigative custody. A ruling on the appeal could come this week and set Wolf free.

Even if the court does release him on his own recognizance, it seems unlikely that Wolf will spend much time in jail. Germany's Constitutional Court is now deliberating over whether former East German spies and intelligence officials can be prosecuted for simply having done their jobs. The issue was brought before the court in July when a Berlin judge suspended proceedings against Werner Grossmann, Wolf's successor as chief of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklarung, the foreign-intelligence department of the Stasi secret police. It would be a violation of the German constitutional guarantee of equal treatment, the judge contended, to convict an eastern German spy for something that western German spies continue to do legally. Both a former chief of West German intelligence and a former Constitutional Court judge have echoed that argument; a ruling by the court is expected by January.

The vagaries of postunification law are not the only factors working in favor of Wolf, who told the magazine Der Spiegel that he only wants to live quietly in his Berlin home and write a children's book. He has extensive knowledge that Bonn's intelligence officials would like to tap. There are estimates that as many as 400 former spies from his old organization remain under cover in Germany and may be working for the KGB or other intelligence agencies. Wolf has sworn in recent interviews -- and he is already adept in Western ways, reportedly charging tens of thousands of dollars for each session -- that he will not be turning anyone in. But even if the spymaster's "principles" prevent him from making a deal, he also commands a trove of damaging information about the private lives of many German politicians and + public figures. Justice officials promise that they will prosecute Wolf without reservation. But no one is yet counting out the Houdini of European espionage.