GEHEIM (“SECRET”) is West Germany’s representative in the international stable of state research publications. Geheim has appeared three or four times a year since 1983, and its editors are experienced state research journalists in the Federal Republic – Rudolf Gossner, author (with Geheim contributor Uwe Herzog) of an exhaustive work on the undercover activities of the German police, Jurgen Roth and Michael Opperskalski, co-author of three books on the CIA (1).
Geheim sets out to expose both the secret side of the German state and foreign clandestine operations in West Germany, and the most recent issue (No2, 1987) is certainly no disappointment. Articles on German activities cover participation by the German Army in the Afghan War, security measures of the Berlin police for VIP visits, the condemnation by the ILO of the German state’s practice of excluding “extremists” from public employment (Berufsverbot); and, amongst the three contributions from members of the Green Party (two evaluating the recent census boycott campaign), a detailed expose of a regional branch of the Verfassungsschutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s MI5). Using his former position as Green representative in the Baden-Wurtemberg regional parliament to prepare an in-depth account of the Verfassungsschutz, Thilo Weichert gives names, addresses, telephone numbers, staffing levels and budgets in such detail as to remind British readers how secretive their own security service is.
Not surprisingly, Geheim devotes a fair amount of space to the CIA: five articles in this issue. Barbara Muller continues the listing (begun in issue No1/87) of American intelligence bases in Germany. She lists over 100 locations in Central and Northern Germany used by either the CIA or US Military Intelligence. Michael Opperskalski presents a comprehensive list of US and UK diplomats expelled from various countries for “spying activities” since 1980; and, in a second article, describes the power struggle between the CIA, Pentagon and State Department over the NSC and its new head, Frank Carlucci. Two other articles on American parapolitics are reprinted from American publications – on Vernon Walters from Covert Action Information Bulletin, and on John Singlaub from National Reporter (formerly Counterspy).
Perhaps the most interesting article is “Gunning for Libya – anti-Libyan operations in West Berlin” by Peter Niggl. Niggl investigates Mossad involvement in assassinations of Libyan officials and in operations designed to ensure that terrorism remains on the front page of the Western media, thus souring Arab-European relations. He refers specifically to operations aimed at incriminating Syria and Libya in terrorist activities, such as the case of Hassan el Harti, a Palestinian and Mossad agent provocateur, who was arrested in 1979, with six accomplices, on bomb charges, then allowed bail and given back his passport.
The article describes a trio of shady individuals involved in anti-Libyan operations: Rageb M. Zatout, a Libyan exile and member of the Libyan National Salvation Army; Hilmar Hein, a German scaffolding contractor with links to the underworld and who claims to have met John Poindexter and colonel Oliver North in Bangkok in 1983; and Moshe Ben Ari, an Israeli alleged to be head of the ‘Third Eye of Zion’, a group which carries out Mossad’s dirty work in West Berlin. Niggl recounts in considerable detail (passport numbers, car number plates, telephone conversations, extracts from British and German police reports) how, between them, Zatout, Hein and Ben Ari organised the assassination of Libyan officials in London, Rome and Vienna; planned the assassination of Gadhafi in the attack on his Tripoli barracks in May 1984; and had a hand in the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in April 1984 in London.
Niggl also sees the Nesar Hindawi case as a Mossad operation designed to disrupt Syria’s relations with Europe. He points out that Hindawi’s father, a long-time employee of the Jordanian Embassy in London, was sentenced to death in absentia by the Jordanians for being a Mossad agent, and that Nesar’s brother Hasi, arrested after the Berlin night-club bombing that served to justify the American bombing of Libya, underwent a sudden change of heart about making a statement after receiving a prison visit from two Arab-speaking ‘Englishmen’, accompanied by German security official Norbert Boer. This statement came at the time when the Western media were at the peak of their campaign to portray Syria as the sponsor of world terrorism. It is perhaps significant that at his trial Hasi did not stick to his previous declarations and states that one of the ‘Englishmen’ had presented himself in Arabic as an Egyptian, and could have been from Israel. Peter Niggl has opened up the subject: it is certainly worth further investigation.
Geheim is a well-documented and wide-ranging source of information on covert activities with reference to Germany. The only snag is that it is only published in German. Perhaps its editors could be persuaded, like Le Monde de Renseignement (Intelligence/Parapolitics), to produce an English-language version. But for those who can cope with the German, not to be missed.
David Teacher
Notes
- Im Schatten des Rechts, Gossner and Herzog, Kiepenheur and Witsch, 1984. Also see their earlier work Der Apparat, Kiepenheur and Witsch, 1982, updated 1984.CIA im Iran (including Teheran Embassy documents), CIA im Westeuropa (including US Army procedures in event of war in Europe), and CIA im Mittelamerika – all by Gunter Neuberger and Michael Opperskalski available from:
Geheim Lutticherstr 14, 500 Koln 1, West Germany.