Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 19, Number 6, February 7, 1992 Report from Bonn by Rainer Apel East German 'dirty networks' survived I cape arrest by Weist German anti-ter- The case of'Tageszeitung' editor Till Meyer is a real eye-opener rorism search squ~ds. Well-placed in­ on continuing terrorist contacts with the Stasi after unification. formants for thF Stasi in West Germany had provided crucial infor­ mation about ong~ing or planned po­ lice operations, giving early warning to the RAF group. Atxmt 75% of the daily news in Ger­ to 15 years of jail, not expecting re­ This takes us back to Till Meyer. many is presently absorbed by new rev­ lease earlier than the early 1990s. But Released early frCllm prison in 1986, elations about the depth of penetration in early 1978, a team of RAF terrorists Meyer became an!editor at the Berlin that the Stasi, the East German secret led by Inge Viett liberated him from semi-underground daily, Tageszei­ police, had within its own population the Berlin Moabit prison, escaped to tung. His job was ito monitor new de­ and within select West German institu­ East Berlin, and traveled on to Bulgar­ velopments in the police and in count­ tions. A special law, put into effect on ia. All of that occurred with the explic­ erterrorism, and security matters in Jan. 1, gives German citizens access to it approval of the Stasi, which main­ general, where hel was able to spread the millions of file-cards and other data tained a special channel of a lot of disinforma~ion about the RAFt of the Stasi, so that they can read what communication with Viett. Baader Meinhof, i saying they were was written about them, who spied on Several months later, Meyer was hiding out in the Mideast when they them, and who authorized such spying spotted and arrested in Bulgaria by a were in East Gef$any, preparing for operations. West German police squad, with the another round of terrorist attacks. Rumors that there are personal consent of the Bulgarian government. Meyer also passed on useful informa­ data on 6 million former East Ger­ The exact circumstances of that police tion to the Stasi onihow much counter­ mans-of a total population of 17 mil­ operation remain rather mysterious to terrorism experts !knew in the West lion-may be exaggerated, but there this day. Inge Viett, however, a mem­ about core members of the RAF are many files, indeed. The Stasi even ber of the hard-core of the RAF who group, like Inge Viett and Christian had informants among families: Chil­ should have been arrested, was al­ Klar, who had withdrawn from active dren spied on their parents, husbands lowed by Bulgaria's authorities to es­ terrorism and "retired" in East Germa­ on their wives, etc. cape to Czechoslovakia and from ny. His disinfohnation prevented The western aspect of this story is there back to East Germany. Viett was many counter-terrprism experts from also extremely interesting: It is on the finally arrested along with Christian recognizing that a new generation of public record now that senior mem­ Klar and other RAF members on east the RAF "command-level" had re­ bers of churches, the scientific institu­ German territory during the German placed the core arc!mnd Viett and Klar tions, political parties, and especially reunification process in 1990. in the mid-1980s.: the media were on the payroll of the The East Germans safehoused Stasi Lt. HelI1lut Voigt, in charge Stasi, some for many years. The case Viett and her core group in late 1978, of operative contacts to the terrorist of Till Meyer, a leading journalist at and allowed them to redeploy to the scene in and outside Europe, was the the leftist Berlin daily Tageszeitung, West via the Mideast, sometime in one receiving M¢yer's information. whose identity as a longtime Stasi in­ early 1979. The whole group was Voigt oversaw the combat training of former was made known in mid-J anu­ back in its various hideouts outside select RAF memb¢rs in machineguns, ary, is particularly revealing. (Meyer Germany (France, Belgium, and the explosives, and the Soviet-made has meanwhile admitted he had Netherlands) in 1980 and began to RPG-7 anti-tank I missile (that type worked for the East Germans "out of map out another series of spectacular was used against General Kroesen political conviction.") terrorist attacks on senior NATO of­ near Heidelberg a;year later!) at a re­ A co-founder of the 1967 "June ficials and German politicians. Assas­ mote East Germah Army camp near 2nd Movement" in West Berlin, a sination attempts against Gen. Alex­ the Polish borderin 1981. He disap­ forerunner to the terrorist RAFtBaad­ ander Haig and Gen. Frederick peared from view! after the events of er Meinhof gang, Meyer was involved Kroesen failed, fortunately. November 1989, and is said to have in the 1975 abduction of Berlin CDU During the entire period, Viett joined those "out-of-work intelli­ politician Jiirgen Lorenz. He was ar­ maintained close contact with the gence agents" who work with terror­ rested for the kidnaping and sentenced Stasi, and this also enabled her to es- ists underground. EIR February 7, 1992 International 55 © 1992 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited..