18 September 2000
Source: http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence/readme/371INT

Intelligence, N. 371 (former n.121), 11 September 2000, p. 52


GERMANY

MAD GETTING MADDER AT EX-AGENT


A former agent of the German military intelligence service, the
Militarische Abschirmdienst (MAD), who identifies himself only
as "Michael P.", has threatened to post classified internal
reports relating to MAD covert operations against neo-Nazi
organizations on the Internet unless the German military
authorities take measures to protect and compensate him and his
family against threats of violence by neo-Nazi sympathizers.
The conflict between Michael P. and the German authorities
dates back to 1989 when he was recruited by MAD to infiltrate
the Nationalistische Front (NF), an extreme right-wing group
which based it propaganda on xenophobia, national self-reliance
and hostility towards the European Community. Michael P. was a
member of the Federal Armed Forces Parachute Regiment and
claims he agreed to the undercover assignment because of his
"military convictions and a sense of duty". He became a close
confidant of NF boss, Meinolf Schonborn, and supplied MAD with
detailed information about the group's membership,
infrastructure and links to the extreme-right network in
France, Belgium, Spain, England and the United States.

He also learned of plans to form "direct action cells" called
"national employment commands" using Syrian-trained "front-line
comrades" to target politicians, democratic institutions and
asylum applicants. In a proposal similar to Adolf Hitler's
elimination of Captain Ernst Rohm in June 1934, Michael P. told
his intelligence handlers that Schonborn was planning to murder
senior members of the NF, an operation Schonborn referred to as
"the night of long measures". More significantly for Michael
P.'s future, however, was the discovery that a German army
officer, serving as personal secretary to a brigade commander
of the Federal Armed Forces, maintained close contact with the
NF. Despite the fact that the officer had access to sensitive
data about covert operations against neo-Nazi groups, an
internal MAD assessment concluded his relationship with the NF
leadership was "not political but personal". Nonetheless, to
avoid the embarrassment of having its undercover operation or
its agent compromised, a 1991 report recommended that Michael
P. be transferred to Canada. The following year, after a
dramatic increase in racist attacks throughout Germany, the
Interior Minister, Rudolf Seiters, banned the NF.

In the mid-1990s, after four years with the Canadian Special
Forces, Michael P. was transferred to the US, serving as
assistant to the German Army's liaison officer, Lieutenant
Colonel Guenther Guderian, based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Lt. Col. Guderian is the grandson of Panzer General Heinz
Guderian, a Hitler-loyalist who fought on the Eastern Front. In
a 1995 interview with the local Fayettville Observer Times
newspaper, Guderian said he was proud of his grandfather's
military record. However, his liaison assistant, Michael P,
complained to the military authorities in Bonn that Lt. Col.
Guderian kept a portrait of his grandfather wearing a swastika
in his office, pointing out that this was a "display of
unconstitutional symbols" banned under German law. An internal
investigation was carried out during which Guderian stated that
he was not concerned with the "ideological beliefs of national
socialism". The authorities in Bonn rejected Michael P.'s
complaint, describing Guderian as an officer "maintaining the
military tradition of his family".

By mid-1995, following the jailing of Meinholf Schonborn for
the unlawful use of neo-Nazi symbols, MAD downgraded the threat
of racial violence from the NF. In December 1997, Vice-Admiral
Hans Frank informed Michael P. that "endangerment
considerations" were being withdrawn from him and his family,
despite an increase in racist incidents within the German armed
forces, which were inadequately investigated by a Bundestag
committee that refused to take evidence from Micael P. The ex-
Para was given an honorable discharge in 1998. He currently
lives in the US with his wife and two children, on a three-year
severance allowance. The German military authorities have
refused to comment, stating that "in principle" no information
is released about military intelligence matters.

COMMENT  --  The Militarische Abschirmdienst (MAD) has a
history of incompetence dating back to the Cold War period from
the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s when the service was repeatedly
criticized for failing to uncover KGB and Stasi agents within
the ranks of the West German armed forces. In the 1970s, MAD
was the focus of widespread media attention after admitting it
had bugged the offices of senior Defence staff in Bonn without
warrants and accused several ranking military officers of
spying without sufficient evidence. In 1982, the West German
government's data protection agency carried out an
investigation of MAD operations and ordered that 500,000 card
registrations on West German citizens be destroyed. The figure
included 15,000 to 20,000 cards on people who were over 75 or
under 10 years-of-age, people who had signed petitions against
Fascism, taken part in anti-nuclear demonstrations or had been
photographed in the vicinity of anti-conscription
demonstrations. In 1990-1991, when Michael P. was active, MAD
had a staff of 1,834 and an annual "black" budget estimated at
DM 145 to 150 million.

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