Felfe, Heinz Pauljohann

(1918– )

   After joining the Gestapo, Felfe served in the Netherlands, working against the Dutch underground during World War II. Following the war, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) recruited Felfe as their agent to identify communists and former Nazis in the British zone of occupied West Germany. Felfe was quite effective and was allowed to join the nascent German intelligence organization run by Reinhard Gehlen. In 1955 Felfe followed Gehlen into the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the West German intelligence service.

   Felfe was recruited in 1951 by the KGB, which was able to supply money to maintain his lavish lifestyle. Over 10 years, he was paid 178,000 marks ($44,500). The KGB also played on Felfe’s hatred of the United States for its bombing of his home town, Dresden, in 1945. For 10 years Felfe was an important intelligence source for Moscow, providing information on NATO operations in Eastern Europe. He provided the KGB with over 15,000 pages of classified documents, as well as 20 audiotapes of classified meetings. His position in the BND allowed the KGB to manipulate the German service’s operations. He was betrayed by Michael Goleniewski and arrested in 1961. In 1963 he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He was ex-changed six years later for 21 men and women, three who had served as American and West German agents, and 18 East German political prisoners.

   The Felfe case shows the KGB at its best. Felfe and two confederates were targeted by the Soviet services because of their previous service in the SS and their common hatred for the American bombing of Dresden. As agents they were given excellent training in avoiding surveillance and were supplied with money and equipment. Felfe received messages inside jars of baby food, supposedly bought for an infant child. Moreover, the KGB realized that when Felfe was finally caught, the news would cripple the BND and poison relations between Bonn and Washington.