If it had not been for 15 minutes... Chapter 9

You are on Chapter 9. You can read chapter 8 here.

Continuing with the story of how my mother and I became de-facto spies and participated in the biggest defection case in the 50 year history of the former East-Germany......

It seemed to take forever to convince the  West German intelligence service about the validity of our proposal. Ideally, they really would have liked Stiller to hand over the names of his top agents. He wasn't about to do that. Why give away his best playing cards. He did manage to steal (or produce) several rolls of microfilm that contained all sorts of data about agents in the West.

In order to convince the BND, a small "taste" of what was to come with our defection would need to be sent to West Germany.  The instructions from the BND entailed hiding some microfilms on a train that crossed East Germany on its way to Denmark. Mom was supposed to find a specific train car and hide the film in a specific toilet. Alas - no East German was allowed on this train without special paperwork.

Unable to fullfill her assignment she returned to Berlin on the very same day. In a desperate improvisation Werner and mom sent a telegram to one of the cover addresses in the West.  It read " Cannot fulfill your wishes. DDR residents were not given permission to enter. Please answer soon. Regards Gigi. " No sooner had the telegram been sent that it landed on Guenther Kratsch's desk. The reason? Logisitics and German efficiency. The BND had an arrangement to forward letters that were directed to the cover addresses but NOT telegrams. Hence the West German postal service returned it as undeliverable! And of course the cover address being known to the Stasi it didn't take long at all for it to be found.

The BND suggested a fallback position. This time it was to be a train from Leipzig in the East to Moenchengladbach in the West. And this time mother was able to get aboard. She describes the situation in the toilet: " I had to stand on the toiletbowl and reach up to unscrew a ceiling plate. It was really dirty in there. In the right corner I could see several pipes running down. I fastened my small package to some nylon twine and let it slip into the pipe. Always hoping that I wouldn't drop it, I then fastened the nylon to the pipe and closed the ceiling back up. I also had to clean up all the dust that had accumulated all over everything as a result of my activities. Finally I cleaned myself up and left the train in Erfurt. "

Again, Stiller and mom sent a telegram. This time only 500 meters away from the Stasi safehouse that they were still using undetected ! And once again it fell into the wrong hands. Immediatly Kratsch ordered the investigation of all mail in and out of Berlin - a month before Christmas. The Stasi was faced with over 460,000 pieces of mail!

In November 1978 my mother began to send her entire prized collection of crystal vases piece by piece to her brother in West Germany. Unbeknownst to her, she was providing the direct link between the previously intercepted letters and telegrams and our home address. Since the crystal was being sent to the West, the packages were of course opened and the address information noted. Her handwriting provided the Stasi with the necessary link to determine who was really behind the espionage letters being sent from East Germany.

Time was running out and circumstances were quickly spinning out of control.

Stillers wife Erzebet tracked down my mother and called her. "How do you feel about wrecking my marriage ? " she asked. Mother replied " I had absolutely no idea! " After a moment of quiet Erzebet sighed " I understand.  He has simply lied once again."

When Stiller found out about the phone conversation between the two woman he became highly agitated. His beautiful plan of defection was in danger! Immediatly he contacted my mother and once again playing upon the affection of a person who loved him he managed to sweet talk her by saying things like " I can live without all the things and people in my life but I can't live without you ".

I've learned that agents, much like actors, have to be internally convinced of the lies and double roles they are playing. So I have no doubt that Stiller, or a part of Stiller, completely meant what he said. He had to in order to successfully continue the lie.

Unbeknownst to Stiller, Major Johannes Schroeder had been investigating him very quietly. He found a note in Stillers file documenting a supervisory counseling conversation that took place after Horst Vogel, the leader of Stiller section, accidentally found out about his dalliance with my mother while Vogel was visiting Oberhof. To make matters worse, while it seemed as though mom was placated for the time being, Erzebet was raising hell. She once again threatened to go to Stiller's bosses. Werner needed to keep the peace so he made it appear as though his affair was over. In his own words " I was afraid. But its a funny thing, after a while you can get used to fear."

Erzebet also noticed that her husband was stressed out. " He was a complete bundle of nerves" she recalled " he drank considerably more alcohol and was withdrawn. Who knows, perhaps he might have had second thoughts about his family, friends, siblings and parents."

The situation continued to worsen.

At the beginning of December, according to Major Schroeders investigation, Stiller and wife Erzebet attended a party at a Berlin restaurant. Stiller approached another women and started to flirt. Erzebet slapped him in public, whereupon Stiller at the earliest moment of privacy proceeded to brutally beat Erzebet to such a degree that she would not leave the house for 2 weeks. When interviewed in 1991 Erzebet rationalized Stillers behavior like a typical abused wife might do. I was suprised that she continued to enable his behavior even after several years had passed, She rationalized that Stiller needed to behave in this despicable manner because he wanted to drive her away so that she would not be in danger while he planned the defection.

The BND, in response to our urging, began the final steps necessary to bring us into the West.

The first attempt was set for the middle of December 1978. It was a no-go because the false passports that had been left at the dead letter drop listed Stillers eye color as blue, which was wrong and would have caused our discovery if we had used them.

The dragnet that had been thrown out by the STASI was beginning to tighten. On December 19th Major Schroeder was contacted by the agents assigned to comb through the mail leaving the country and especially Berlin. It appears that the handwriting on several packages with crystal vases was identical to the handwriting sample in Schroeders case. And of course these packages, sent by my mom via regular postal mail, had our return address in Oberhof. The STASI had a positive ID. The sender was one Helga Michnowski, employed as a waitress in the Hotel Panorama in Oberhof.

Kratsch wants to be 100% certain in the case he is building and refers the handwriting samples to Colonel Dr. Hegewald, a "Diplomkriminalist" - a specialist. Hegewald needed two weeks to come back with a report that indicated that both sets of handwriting samples came "most likely from the same author". It was Chrsitmas 1978 and Kratsch was ready to make his move. 

I remember to this day the incredible cold front that hammered East-Germany at Christmas 1978.  This was especially noticable in the mountains at 1000m altitude. 

Our small town literally stopped working. The entire country was on energy conservation alert. Tourists could not fulfill their plans and the town became very quiet. It took all the way until January 11th before Kratsch was able to dispatch anyone to Oberhof. (No winter tires for the cars was his explanation in 1991).

A STASI agent by the name of Nowack was sent to investigate Helga Michnowski, to obtain additional handwriting samples and if possible to find out what secret relation Ms. Michnowski has in Berlin. 

Nowack arrives in Oberhof only to find the entire hotel is closed. During the New Year celebration of 1979 the heating system of the hotel collapsed under the immense cold front that was pummeling our town. -25 degree Celsius was cold even for a mountain boy like myself. All personnel had been sent on vacation until January 21. Nowack conducts his investigation in a sloppy manner. He is told that Helga Michnowski is in Berlin and took that information at face value without checking our residence.

Nowack returned to Berlin pretty much empty handed. Since he reported that mom was thought to be in Berlin, Kratsch ordered the photographic surveillance of the Berlin-Meiningen train, which is the one she has to catch on her way home, in hopes of finding the unknown person that mom was visiting in Berlin

We decided that we could not wait any longer. I don't recall how, but a new date had been set for the escape : January 14. 1979

And here is were events start to take place in two seperate paths but parallel paths. Werner Stiller would organize his own escape and ours would take place with the help of the West German government.  

Continue to Chapter 10

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