The Spying Game: Tales from the Cold War

Some just counted tanks, others stole blueprints for bombs. The Cold War was the battleground for thousands of spies and spotters. Even the Allied Military Missions in Germany doubled as covert observers in the spying game. Whether military observers, spies or traitors – they all acted as suppliers of intelligence for their masters in Washington or Moscow. Many of them risked their lives, and quite a few lost it. Yet, did the spying game really contribute to keep the Cold War cold in the end?

During the Cold War, tensions between East and West mount alarmingly. In consequence, western intelligence services shift their focus on East Germany as the Warsaw Pact’s major deployment zone. Nowhere else did western services get as close to Soviet military equipment. Their prime targets are missiles, nuclear depots and airbases. At the same time, the KGB, as well as Soviet military intelligence, were sending their spies to reconnoitre NATO forces in the West. The game of spies was in full swing.

At the end of the 80s, the Soviet army is being universally modernized, observed closely by western military intelligence in East Germany. Weapons-scouts in the field are constantly on duty, as are agents in high command or in intelligence service stations, for instance in the autumn of 1983, as NATO is practicing new procedures of nuclear release. Moscow is concerned the exercise could be the beginning of a nuclear first strike. It takes a double agent to clear up this dangerous misunderstanding.