The Berlin Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  Schäfer poured himself another cup, finishing off his cigarette as he did so. ‘In 1953 I was in Moscow. When I looked at the list of people I was due to see, there was Wilhelm Richter’s name. Now,’ he took another sip of tea, ‘if there’s one thing I’m an expert on it is who’s a Nazi and who isn’t. No-one has more experience of the bastards than I do, even you Viktor.

  ‘I know you were in and out of Berlin in the ’30s and operated behind enemy lines during the war, but I was here the whole time. I’d known them since they first crawled out of the gutter in the ’20s and I worked with them for more than a dozen years. I had to pretend to be one of them. I learned the difference between the true Nazis – the fanatics, the believers – and those who went along with it as part of the crowd, you know the type. And in all that time, I doubt I met a more committed and fanatical Nazi than Wilhelm Richter. He was a fanatic among the fanatics, one of the few who genuinely believed Germany was going to win the war, right until the end. But, according to the file I saw in Moscow, as soon as he’d been arrested, in Poznan in 1945, he told anyone who’d listen that he was really a Communist and wanted to work for the Soviet Union.

  ‘He was persuasive enough to be treated as a prisoner of war, rather than as a war crimes suspect. His youth certainly helped. He’d managed to convince them that he was just a very junior officer, obeying orders – the standard defence. But there were always doubts about him. For a start, he wasn’t very convincing as a Communist: he had no understanding of Marxism and hadn’t even heard of Engels. And then there was his sheer nastiness. He was always informing on fellow prisoners. All of the prisoners who were being considered as agents had to undergo psychological testing and he was, unsurprisingly, diagnosed as having psychopathic tendencies: an absence of feeling for other people and a heightened readiness to use violence, usually gratuitous and quite sadistic. But that was not in itself a drawback to being one of our agents. It could even be an advantage. He was sent to the camp near Kazan you mentioned. They decided to monitor him for a while longer, as they didn’t think he was ready.

  ‘A few years later, he was put on my list. I couldn’t believe it when I first saw his name: Wilhelm Richter, the Nazi, wanting to be a Soviet agent? It was impossible. But then I had an idea and I spoke to the people in Moscow. Richter, I told them, was a Nazi: of that there was no question. He was desperate to be a Soviet agent because he saw that as a way of saving his skin. I had no doubt, I said, that as soon as he was in the Federal Republic he’d betray us. Well, the reaction in Moscow was as you’d expect – “shoot him now” – but I persuaded them that we could be clever: we should harness his fanaticism and get him to work for us, without him realising it of course.

  ‘When I met with him he was naturally shocked to see me, but I told him I was still a Nazi, and had infiltrated Soviet intelligence. I managed to convince him that it was all part of the plan, that I was still running the clandestine unit from East Berlin which was gathering intelligence to serve the Nazi cause, and it was just a matter of time before we were called to action. And he believed me, he lapped it all up. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, he wanted to believe me, he was desperate to become an active Nazi once again And secondly, he was so used to doing what he was told that he just accepted my instructions.

  ‘We continued his training, got him into the Federal Republic as ‘Heinz Fleischhauer’ in early ’54, and within a year he was working for the BfV in Cologne. Incidentally, his route into the BfV,’ another pause while he finished his tea, ‘was courtesy of the British. Their network in the Federal Republic was poor, and they were desperate for agents. We gave Fleischhauer a stream of low-grade Soviet intel to pass on to the British and they lapped it up, thought they’d recruited a top agent. They sang his praises to the BfV and that’s how he got in there.’

  Schäfer leaned back in his chair, looking for all the world as if he’d been enjoying reminiscing with friends. It was Viktor’s opportunity to respond.

  ‘He’s been in the BfV since what – ’55? And in over twenty years, he’s not become at all suspicious? He still really believes he’s part of some Nazi plot? I mean… in that time, even the most diehard Nazi would realise there was no chance of them being anything other than on the margins. It’s hard to believe…’

  ‘It would be hard to believe with a normal person Viktor, but Richter does not come into that category. I told you how his assessment showed he was psychopathic, didn’t I? Once he’d been in the Federal Republic for a year or so, this tendency came out. He got married and divorced within a year, and his wife reported him to the police more than once for cruelty. Then he got into debt, got a fifteen-year-old girl pregnant, defaulted on a loan, remarried… I could spend a day telling you about the trouble Richter has got into over the years. He’s been married three times now; his last divorce was in 1968. We constantly have to bail him out. We fund him – to clear his debts, to pay off the people complaining about him. We’ve paid for four abortions at the last count.

  ‘The last thing we want is for the BfV to see him as so unstable they sack him, so we do what we can to keep a lid on all his problems. It takes up a lot of our resources in the west, I can tell you. But if it wasn’t for us he’d have been in very serious trouble a long time ago. He needs us and he knows it: the last thing he’s going to do is question things.’ The German clapped his hands. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.

  ‘There you have it Viktor Leonidovich!’ Kozlov had sprung up from his chair with a suddenness that surprised both Viktor and Schäfer, his voice as loud as ever. ‘Comrade Schäfer has told you what an important agent Richter is. He may be a Nazi but he’s working for us, and his material goes straight to Andropov himself. That’s good enough for me and it should be good enough for you. From now on, we will hear no more of it; you can forget this nonsense about a Nazi plot here at the embassy. I’ll overlook what happened last night, but only if you accept your time here in Berlin has come to its natural end. Go back to your office while I think things over.’

  ***

  Viktor had gone to his own office at the rear of the embassy and just sat at his desk, gazing out of the window over Behrenstrasse while trying to collect his thoughts. The meeting in Kozlov’s office had ended far too abruptly: something was not right. Schäfer was too smart to let him off the hook like that. He’d told him too much and not asked enough questions in return. Viktor would have expected him to push him harder on how he knew about Goalkeeper. Maybe they were saving that for Moscow. And as for Kozlov saying he was prepared to overlook what had happened, and that his time in Berlin had come to a natural end… all Viktor could think was that he surely didn’t look that gullible.

  He was an old man: he hadn’t handled Schäfer with anything like his usual guile –either this morning or especially the previous night. He had been outmanoeuvred, allowing the German to gain the upper hand in a situation he ought to have been in control of. If he really was to return to Moscow, allowed to retire, to spend the rest of his days at his dacha along with Irma, that would be fine. But he somehow doubted a rural idyll was what Kozlov had in mind. Maybe everything Schäfer had said was true after all: Goalkeeper was a top agent, and all Viktor had done was put him at risk.

  At ten o’clock Viktor walked quietly over to the door, opening it just enough to be able to check the corridor. Apart from a clerk moving from one room to another it was empty. Neither Giorgi nor Dmitry were hanging around as he’d feared they might be. He’d get hold of Irma in her lunch break. He’d given her an excellent set of Federal Republic papers for her, a really first-class identity. She could cross the border later in the afternoon at Bornholmer Strasse, before it closed. Then he would attempt to get out the next morning, through Friedrichstrasse station. He’d get word to Edgar, who’d help him.

  Viktor’s door opened silently, and the short figure of Schäfer slipped into the room. Without acknowledging Viktor he moved to the front of the desk and pulled up a chair. Hi
s eyes darted around the room, checking that all was in order: no sign of bags packed or of imminent flight. When Schäfer finally spoke it was just one word. ‘Kozlov.’

  That had to suffice for a while, as if it explained everything.

  ‘There’s a lot that Kozlov just doesn’t need to know. And I will give you the benefit of the doubt Viktor: you declined to tell me how you know so much because you felt inhibited in front of Kozlov. Is that correct?’

  ‘You were going to tell me about Winger and Defender?’

  ‘Well, let’s see. Somehow you’ve managed to pick up a few bits of intelligence, but by no means the whole story. I don’t know how you’ve managed even that. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. In this case, it is more dangerous than you perhaps realise: the fact you even know about Goalkeeper puts one of our most important agents in the west in danger. He’s on the verge of a major intelligence coup. When I tell you the whole story perhaps you’ll appreciate how important this is, and then you’ll drop everything. If you stop now, at least you’ll have done so before any major damage is done. If I tell you who Winger and Defender are, in return you tell me everything, you understand? ’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘And when I’ve finished, you tell me what you’ve done with the information you’ve chanced upon?’

  Viktor nodded very slowly.

  ‘As an added incentive Viktor, consider this: at the moment, I’m all that’s stopping you being sent back to Moscow this afternoon. I’ve told Kozlov I need you here… for the time being. I hope you understand that.’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘Very well then. You’ve asked who Winger and Defender are. I told you last night about Arthur Bevan, the British prisoner of war known as Captain Canterbury: the man who helped train the recruits. He is Defender. Not surprisingly, he was arrested and court-martialled by the British after the war. More surprisingly, he wasn’t executed, though he was sent to prison for quite a while. London Station kept an eye on him, so when he was released I went over to meet him. He was never in any doubt that I was still part of the Nazi mission and was picking up where we’d left off. As with Richter, it wasn’t hard to persuade him to believe me – he was desperate to do so. That’s the measure of a fanatic: you tell them what they want to hear and they lap it up like a thirsty dog.

  ‘My overriding concern was to protect Richter. He’d been with the BfV for a year by then and we could not risk anything about his background coming out, even though he was operating under a different name. So we funded him, and used London Station to give Bevan and his wife new identities. He became Dennis Field and, to all intents and purposes, disappeared. He had one job: to keep an eye on the four recruits in England. They were leading very ordinary lives, and it was essential that things stayed that way. Canterbury never questioned why the mission wasn’t taking place: whenever he moaned, we just gave him more money.’

  ‘But if your priority was to protect Richter then wouldn’t it have made more sense to dispose of them – and of Canterbury for that matter?’

  ‘In hindsight, yes. As you know Viktor, we’re certainly not averse to measures like that. But disposing of them ran the risk of alerting people. If their deaths were investigated it was always possible something would be discovered which could have led to Goalkeeper. We felt that as long as none of the four in England, nor Canterbury, were causing any trouble it would be safer to leave them alone.’

  ‘How did you keep in touch with Canterbury?’

  ‘At first it was through London Station, dead letter drops and the like. But that wasn’t satisfactory. Then we recruited another agent, and his main job has been to be my link with Defender, who believes this man is a fellow Nazi.’

  ‘This is Winger?’

  ‘Yes – and don’t forget, Viktor, in a moment you are going to tell me how you came to find out about Goalkeeper, Defender and Winger. I recruited Winger myself, in 1964. He was a student at Oxford University and was spending a term here in East Berlin at Humboldt University, studying linguistics. He was more or less a walk-in: he asked one of his lecturers if there was any way he could help the Soviet Union. Apparently he’d discovered he was a Marxist, which is not an uncommon occurrence with the English middle class – one of our English agents told me it’s what happens to them in between losing their virginity and getting a mortgage. This lecturer naturally reported the contact and fortunately came to us rather than the Stasi. I met with the student. He was bright, though I did have some doubts about him. He was very impulsive, and talked too much, and I’m always sceptical about walk-ins; but he passed all our checks and so we recruited him, steered him towards the Foreign Office and he ended up in MI6. He’s run by London Station of course, but I retain an interest in him – his main role is to watch Defender, Captain Canterbury. As far as I was concerned, if Defender was doing his job making sure the four recruits weren’t causing trouble, then Goalkeeper was safe. That’s before you came charging in, of course.’

  ‘Winger is in MI6 and that’s all you’re using him for? Bit of a waste, eh?’

  ‘It may seem like that, but in fact we also think he’ll be useful as a sleeper. So we want him not too active for us in terms of providing intelligence, to keep as clean as possible in that respect, and then we’ll wait until he gets higher up the organisation. He’s still young, only in his thirties.’

  Viktor was beginning to experience a sense of dread, a realisation of being in the wrong, of having badly messed something up. Throughout all his time as an agent – in the field, in Nazi-occupied Europe, in Stalin’s post-war Soviet Union, which was almost as dangerous, and then in the DDR – he had never made a serious mistake. That was how he survived: by being brighter than the rest, more intuitive and certainly one step ahead of them. He’d been convinced he’d discovered a Nazi plot in the Soviet Embassy. Last night he became unsure. And now he was realising he’d made a serious mistake, and the consequences were too terrible to contemplate. Not only was there no Nazi plot, but he could be inadvertently helping to destroy a KBG spy ring. If he had one hour he could try to contact Edgar, and maybe stop any damage being done – but he sensed it was too late.

  ‘What is it Viktor? You look worried. Are you not pleased that I’ve been able to clarify matters and reassure you?’

  ‘I am going to be frank with you Schäfer. I heard about Goalkeeper on the grapevine and then chanced upon Richter’s name in some old files of yours in Registry, and was able to make the connection. On reflection, of course I should have approached you, but I was convinced Richter was the Nazi war criminal I had been looking for. After all these years, I still think he should face justice. I contacted a source of mine, a man who had connections in the past with British Intelligence. He…’

  ‘Hang on…’

  ‘Let me finish. Through this man I obtained the testimony of Otto Schröder. He had lived as Bernhard Krause since the war and died in Frankfurt in 1969. In his papers, he…’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me Viktor. I read it in 1969.’

  ‘How did you get hold of it? It went straight to MI6.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘Winger?’

  ‘Viktor, this is…’

  ‘What is Winger’s name?’

  ‘After all this, you expect me to tell you the name of a key agent?’

  ‘Schäfer, I fear I may have been indiscreet. If we are to protect Goalkeeper, we have to tell each other everything.’

  ‘Hugh Lassiter.’ Schäfer stared at the ceiling, as if it was about to cave in.

  Viktor gripped the arm of his chair tightly. He felt unwell: it was beginning to dawn on him that he could well have compromised Soviet intelligence. He was unable to think of a response, he had no idea what to say, of how to break it to Schäfer. The German sensed this. Like Viktor, he’d conducted enough interrogations to know when the subject realises the game is up and needs a few moments to compose themselves before confessing. A good interrogator allows the
m time, as Schäfer was doing now.

  And then Viktor told him almost everything: about Edgar, about Georg Stern in West Berlin, about how his intentions had been good, but… Schäfer listened patiently. He kept any anger he was feeling under control. He was almost friendly. He knew he had to tease every last shred of information from Viktor.

  As Viktor talked he noted that Schäfer repeatedly but almost imperceptibly shook his head, signalling his resignation to the situation – because he believed that Goalkeeper was still safe. The Russian realised he was keeping back just enough from his account to allow the German to believe this was indeed the case.

  He told Schäfer how, after finding out about Richter, he had approached Edgar to see if he had any information, and how Edgar had produced Bernhard Krause’s testimony. He admitted that both he and Edgar had, for reasons of nostalgia as much as anything else, been intrigued by the case.

  But he omitted to tell him how they had continued to pursue it; how Edgar had found out the names of the other recruits, and how Lassiter was on his trail. And nor did Viktor tell Schäfer how he and Edgar had met quite recently in Vienna, where under the protection afforded by the giant shadows in the cathedral the two old adversaries had agreed a plan: that Viktor would go to West Berlin to seek out Georg Stern. And how Edgar had returned to England to find out what he could there, and how Edgar knew that Richter’s new identity was Heinz Fleischhauer. And that Edgar would wait for word from Viktor, but that the Englishman would not wait too long before travelling to Bonn. And in Bonn, he’d tell the authorities about Goalkeeper, before no doubt heading to Cologne.

  But, glancing once more at his wristwatch, Viktor was resigned to the fact that it was probably too late. Edgar would be on his way to Bonn by now, if he was not there already. Viktor had been too slow; he had made too many mistakes. It would be his fault that the KGB’s main agent in the Federal Republic was about to be exposed. Of course he could admit all this to Schäfer, they would probably pull Richter in. But then the damage would be irrevocably done, and if he admitted his mistakes then Viktor himself would in Schönefeld within the hour – if he made it that far. Alternatively, if he could find an hour’s grace from somewhere… somehow… then he could muster all his skill and cunning for one last time and endeavour to get himself and Irma to safety.