Kidnapping of Gottllieb Burghardt in Cold War Berlin ©

Cold War Frequencies: CIA’s Clandestine Radio Broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

 

Chapter Eight (excerpt)

 

Kidnapping of Gottlieb Burghardt 

 

On 15 December 15, 1956 at 7 p.m, Gottlieb Burghardt went to keep an operational contact meeting with DDR contact Waltraud RICHTER. The next day Ilse Burghardt reported that her husband was missing. CIA could not understand Burghardt’s failure to take the necessary precautions in going to a night meeting alone with a suspect contact.

A short second page article in the East Berlin Newspaper Berliner Zeitung on December 18, 1956, mentioned that Burghardt was reportedly seized on an East Berlin street by pedestrians, when he was molesting them. He also was alleged to be drunk and carrying a pistol. 

The story was viewed by CIA as an East Germany MFS or Soviet KGB effort to cover the kidnapping in event that Burghardt was to be used publicly later in which case his presence in East Berlin would have to be explained. 

Ilse Burghardt wrote a letter to famed Attorney Wolfgang Vogel on January 2, 1957, asking him for his help in the case. He agreed and they met for the first time on January 30, 1957. Subsequently, Wolfgang Vogel reportedly stated he had learned from DDR authorities that Burghardt was kidnapped and he was to be tried under Article 6 of the DDR Constitution which includes espionage activities.

The West Berlin police took an active part in the investigation and put four people in custody, who allegedly formed a MFS kidnap team that was originally given the assignment by the MFS to kidnap Burghardt. Another team was organized and given the assignment according to the testimony of one of the people in custody.  

CIA’s Berlin Operations Base tried to do all it could to aid Burghardt, e.g., “No psychological / propaganda activity was undertaken pending determination of the best tactics to be utilized in the case: a. a statement that Burghardt kidnapped made at time of incident and we in fact have nothing more to say now,
and b. on balance we feel strong play this stage would force DDR court to throw book at Burghardt in self-justification…[W]e are attempting via police keep lid on previous kidnap plot. plan use this as counter blast …this might catch them off balance and upset prearranged plans thus benefit.”

The trial of Gottlieb Burghardt began at the end of June 1957. He was charged with working for the American intelligence service from 1951-1953 and then for TsOPE against the DDR. The trial lasted three days and was not open to the public. He was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. Burghardt reportedly admitted that he had at least 35 active agents in the DDR. Vogel’s pro-forma appeals of the sentence were for naught. After the trial, Vogel again met with Ilse Burghardt. An unidentified TsOPE member was also there and ask Vogel if he could arrange for a prisoner exchange. Vogel did bring up the possibility with the DDR but in April 1958, this was declined. 

He was finally released from prison in August 1964, when he was among the first 70 prisoners released by the DDR in exchange for money from West Germany. Vogel personally drove Burghardt to West Berlin; the other ex-prisoners were taken in three buses to West Germany. Burghardt’s fate afterwards is not known.