It worked closely with the Ministry of State Security of the GDR and had a huge center in Berlin-Karlshorst, which controlled and coordinated KGB activities throughout Europe.
The main targets of Russian espionage include digital, military and other critical infrastructure, as well as politics, business, society and science.
[3] The resistance fighters of the Red Orchestra were considered by the Gestapo to be controlled by the Soviet Union, but were in fact more of a loose and decentralized group.
After the arrest of Leopold Trepper by the Gestapo in 1942, Radó's group became the most effective part of the Red Orchestra's spy network.
Most importantly, Radó was probably also connected to the Lucy spy ring, which had very valuable contacts within Germany and was linked to British intelligence.
In the 1950s, the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) was founded in the GDR, which was set up by the NKVD or KGB and significantly expanded after the East German uprising of 1953.
The close subordination was loosened in 1957 when the Soviets wanted to establish East Germany (German Democratic Republic, GDR) as an independent state.
[11] At the same time, the KGB monitored events in Berlin very closely and also spied on the GDR leadership, bypassing the Stasi, as it wanted to pre-empt any deviation from the political line set by the Soviets.
The KGB is said to have recruited dozens of former Nazis into the FRG civil service in the post-war period, partly because they often had anti-American attitudes or were susceptible to blackmail.
[13] On October 22, 1967, thanks to the help of its agents Manfred Ramminger, Josef Linowski and Wolf-Diethard Knoppe, the KGB succeeded in stealing a combat-ready Sidewinder air-to-air missile from the Neuburg airbase.
For example, a lieutenant captain in the German army named Erhard Müller was seduced by a Soviet agent and revealed military secrets.
[1 In a similar way, the KGB tried to recruit female secretaries in Bonn ministries through male agents (Romeo trap).
The British journalist Catherine Belton linked Putin's activities to Soviet support for the West German terrorist group RAF.
According to Oleg Gordievsky, there were still between 500 and 700 KGB agents in Germany towards the end of the 1980s, who were mainly active in the Cologne/Bonn, Berlin and Hamburg areas.
In August 1999, Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister by Boris Yeltsin and soon after he was elected president he consolidated and centralized power.
After the end of the Cold War, counterintelligence capacities in Germany were significantly reduced due to underfunding and staff cuts.
The Head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Thomas Haldenwang announced in 2022 that Russian espionage had reached the "level of the Cold War".
[24] Due to inadequate counterintelligence, Germany was described as a "paradise for Russian spies" and fears were expressed that foreign services would therefore no longer want to share important secret information with the FRG.
After losing a large part of its espionage network, Russia increasingly sent agents with fake identities ("illegals") into the country and tried to recruit among German Russians.
The discussion took place via the Bundeswehr 's internal communications system and was later published by the Russian state broadcaster Russia Today.
The two are said to have planned sabotage attacks on military infrastructure, defense plants and industrial sites to obstruct German aid to Ukraine and to have selected US bases in Germany.
[33] A total of six suspected Russian spies were arrested in April, with Interior Minister Nancy Faeser announcing the "massive strengthening of counterintelligence".
[34] During the 2024 European Parliament elections, AfD candidate Maximilian Krah was accused of being close to pro-Russian oligarchs and intelligence service circles in May 2024.