GDR spy Günter Guillaume brings down Willy Brandt

In April 1974, Willy Brandt's personal assistant Günter Guillaume was arrested as a GDR spy. The chancellor was no match for the media campaign that followed and resigned.

by Dirk Hempel

When Willy Brandt returned from a state visit to Cairo at noon on April 24, 1974, Interior Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher was already waiting for him at the airport. Chancellor Secretary Günter Guillaume has been arrested as a spy. At 6:32 a.m., officers from the Federal Criminal Police Office broke into his house in Bad Godesberg with submachine guns at his fingertips. When he was arrested, Guillaume solemnly declared:"I am an officer in the National People's Army of the GDR and an employee of the Ministry for State Security. Please respect my honor as an officer."

One of the most important espionage scandals in Germany takes its course. Willy Brandt recognizes the dimensions too late. Two weeks later he will step down as Federal Chancellor.

The Stasi sends Günter Guillaume to the West

Günter Guillaume, former editor of the publishing house "Volk und Wissens", and his wife Christel, who later takes her maiden name Boom again, come to West Germany in May 1956. As refugees, as they claim. In fact, however, the main administration for reconnaissance of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) sent them. After a stopover in the Giessen emergency center, they settled in Frankfurt am Main. The SED member Guillaume opens a writing and copying office, then a coffee shop on the orders of the MfS. He is supposed to spy on the SPD, seeks contact with comrades and soon delivers reports that are productive for GDR security policy.

Guillaume makes a career in the SPD

He joins the SPD, makes a small party career in Frankfurt, rises from deputy chairman of the local association to sub-district secretary and becomes managing director of the Frankfurt SPD city council group. His wife works as a secretary in the Hesse-South party office.

Then Georg Leber, SPD federal transport minister in the cabinet of the grand coalition, appointed him campaign manager. Guillaume reported his reports from the Kiesinger/Brandt government to East Berlin, via radio and dead mailboxes. He is soon indispensable for the Stasi. Spy boss Markus Wolf gives him the advice:"Don't push anyone, let everything come to you."

Günter Guillaume - The Spy in the Chancellery

And the opportunity comes. After Brandt's election victory in 1969 and the formation of a social-liberal coalition with the FDP, a party colleague recommended him to the head of human resources at the Chancellery. After 20 years of CDU government, he is looking for loyal supporters for the new chancellor in view of the numerous conservative employees in the Palais Schaumburg. Guillaume, 42, is hired as a desk officer in the economic policy department. The GDR now has a spy in the center of power.

Brandt and his closest associate Egon Bahr are seen as guarantors of a new East German policy. In relation to the Warsaw Pact states, they are counting on détente, on "change through rapprochement". In fact, in the coming years they will also negotiate transit and transport agreements with the GDR and conclude a basic treaty that is intended to regulate relations between the two German states.

The GDR will also prevent the constructive vote of no confidence against Brandt in April 1972 by buying votes. Nevertheless, Brandt remains a head of government of "imperialist foreign countries", as the head of the State Council, Erich Honecker, calls the Federal Republic. And while the GDR is negotiating with the SPD government, it is fighting calls for reform in the country as "social democracy". A spy in the Chancellery is just what the Stasi needs.

The security services are failing

But Guillaume only makes it to the top because the West German security services are failing. The inconsistencies in Guillaume's escape story are not noticed either by the security officer at the chancellery or by the officers for the protection of the constitution who examine Guillaume's employment papers. Only when the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) found suspicious facts against Guillaume, which vaguely point to former agent activity, does the security officer stop the recruitment process for the time being and inform the Chancellery Minister Horst Ehmke.

Conversation with Horst Ehmke

At the beginning of January 1970 he called Guillaume for an interview. When he denies the allegations, Ehmke passes the hiring papers on to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. There, however, one fails to turn on the counterintelligence department. The investigating officials don't find out what the counter-intelligence has known for years:Guillaume's former GDR employer, the publishing house "Volk und Knowledge", is considered a recruitment agency for agents. And since the end of the 1950s, the counter-intelligence has been looking for a spy "G" who is spying on the SPD in the Federal Republic.

Guillaume gets an insight into Brandt's private life

The constitutional protection officers came to the final verdict that there were no findings that spoke against a cessation and against the handling of secret files. After Georg Leber "puts his hand in the fire" for his former campaign organizer, Guillaume is hired at the end of January. He has connections to business associations and trade unions, and later contacts to parliament, parties, churches and associations. He also made a career here, and in December 1972, after Brandt had won re-election, he became his advisor for party issues. Now works closely with the chancellor, supports him in talks in office, at meetings of the SPD board, the parliamentary group. And gets insights into Brandt's private life.

Nixon letter on vacation in Norway

In the summer of 1973 he accompanies the chancellor's family on a four-week vacation in Norway. The log cabin is in the middle of the forest. Brandt fishes, collects mushrooms. The telex center is located some distance away in a youth hostel, from where Guillaume collects the decoded messages and brings them to the chancellor. He hides copies in his linen closet. Here he gets his hands on what is probably the most important secret document of his agent work, a letter from US President Richard Nixon to the Chancellor.

Guillaume's exposure follows suspicion

Ironically, the BND officials employed in the telex center handed it over to him, afterwards praising the good cooperation with the party officer in a report. They don't know anything about Guillaume's double life. But the chancellor has known for a long time. His allegedly so loyal advisor is probably in the pay of the East German state security service. By chance, he came under suspicion a few months earlier. In March 1973 his name appeared several times in connection with arrested East German spies. Perhaps Guillaume is "a crooked dog" after all, as an attentive intelligence officer now suspects, even the "G" who has been wanted for years and who is assigned to the SPD?

The Stasi itself confirmed the burgeoning suspicion by being careless:years earlier, on February 1st, they sent encoded birthday greetings to "G." sent. What the agents don't suspect is that West German counterintelligence cracked the numerical code and archived the messages. When the constitutional protection officers now check the Guillaume file again, the first thing they see is the date of birth:It is February 1, 1927. After further investigations in May 1973 it seems clear:"Guillaume is an agent."

Willy Brandt as a decoy

Now the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Günther Nollau, informs his employer, the Minister of the Interior, Hans-Dietrich Genscher. On the evening of May 29, 1973, he briefed the Federal Chancellor on the sidelines of a coalition dinner, but apparently allayed the suspicion and passed on Nollau's advice:the head of government shouldn't show anything and should keep Guillaume at his post. Because the evidence is insufficient, the Chancellor becomes a decoy for counterintelligence. He also has to play this role during his vacation in Norway in the summer, even if, as later in the Chancellery, the officer is not monitored. Brandt should not be targeted by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Observation only after hours

That's why Guillaume is only observed in Bonn after work. The investigation dragged on for another eight months. It was not until March 1, 1974 that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution presented a final report, but was unable to fully convince either the Chancellor of the guilt of his employee or the Attorney General. He did not issue an arrest warrant until six weeks later, when fears that the alleged spy would escape. The fact that Guillaume immediately identified himself as a Stasi agent upon his arrest finally removed the investigators' last doubts. The evidence alone would still not have been enough for a trial.

Revelations about Brandt

Public outrage is great. Guillaume and his wife spied for the GDR for 18 years without being recognized. However, Brandt initially misjudges the seriousness of the situation and continues to follow his usual appointments:the opening of the Hanover Trade Fair, birthday greetings for former Chancellor Kiesinger. The opposition parties are now also trying to link the Eastern treaties with Guillaume. And the scandal is perfected when the newspapers publish revelations about Brandt's private life. Legends are formed, about love affairs and alcohol consumption. It is said that Guillaume “brought women” to Brandt.

Investigators are now also gathering information about Brandt. Because constitutional protection officer Nollau and BKA President Horst Herold fear that Guillaume's knowledge could make the Federal Republic susceptible to blackmail by the GDR. Brandt is depressed and suffers from toothache. For the Lower Saxony SPD he has to go into the election campaign these days. On an icy spring day, he visits Helgoland, where the comrades finally want to discuss and celebrate with the chancellor.

Guillaume affair leads to Willy Brandt's resignation

In Bonn, Nollau is apparently pushing for the head of government to resign. Herbert Wehner, SPD parliamentary group leader and connected to Nollau, is supposed to organize it. But the FDP stands by Brandt. "We'll ride it out in one piece," its chairman, Walter Scheel, assured the chancellor. But suddenly everything happens very quickly.

Since May 4, the SPD leadership and trade unions have been discussing economic issues in the Kurt Schumacher Academy in Bad Münstereifel. Brandt and Wehner have an intensive one-on-one conversation there. On the evening of May 6, 1974, Brandt resigns as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. Because of "negligence in connection with the Guillaume agent affair", as he writes to the Federal President.

Helmut Schmidt becomes Federal Chancellor

Ten days later, the Bundestag elects Helmut Schmidt as his successor as head of government. In June, Parliament appoints a committee of inquiry into the affair. Günter and Christel Guillaume are sentenced to long prison terms for serious treason in December 1975, and are deported to the GDR six years later as part of an agent exchange. The MfS promotes its deserving officers and awards them with medals.

Brandt's real reasons for his resignation remain unclear. Was it the lack of support from the SPD leadership around Wehner and Schmidt? Or was it health problems or depression that robbed Brandt of the courage to fight the media campaign? He will later claim that the final tipping point was a statement from his wife that after all someone had to take responsibility.