Guillaume affair

Exposure

Guillaume was exposed due to congratulations sent to the Guillaume couple by the HVA in the 1950s. On February 1, 1956, birthday greetings were sent to “Georg” via agent radio, on October 6, 1956, birthday greetings were sent to “Chr.,” and in mid-April 1957, the message “Congratulations on your second son!” (referring to his newborn son Pierre). The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) was able to decipher these radio messages and archived them. Based on these records, Guillaume's identity was later established beyond doubt, as was his former work for the HVA. In February 1973, senior civil servant Heinrich Schoregge from the Cologne Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) was dealing with three espionage cases in which Guillaume was involved.

Brandt resignation

Brandt was succeeded as Chancellor by fellow Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt, who, unlike Brandt, belonged to the right wing of his party. For the rest of his life, Brandt remained suspicious that his fellow Social Democrat and longtime rival Herbert Wehner had been scheming for his downfall, but evidence for this seems scant.

Aside from internecine intrigue within the Social Democrats, the finger of blame for Brandt's fall was also pointed at the East German leadership. Some speculated that the East German regime under Erich Honecker had intentionally used Guillaume to engineer Brandt's downfall. Brandt's policy of Ostpolitik had made him a hero and symbol of hope for national and family reunification in the East. Therefore, from Honecker's view, Brandt's popularity in East Germany represented a threat to the regime. In his memoirs, Brandt noted Honecker's denial of complicity in his downfall, adding "whatever one may think of that." However Stasi-head Markus Wolf stated after German reunification that the resignation of Brandt had never been intended, and that the affair had been one of the biggest mistakes of the East German secret service.

The affair is widely considered to have been a trigger for Brandt's resignation, not a fundamental cause. Instead, Brandt, dogged by scandal relating to serial adultery, and struggling with alcohol and depression, as well as the economic fallout of the 1973 oil crisis, seemed prepared to step down. As Brandt himself later said, "I was exhausted, for reasons which had nothing to do with the process going on at the time."

Aftermath and depictions in popular culture

Guillaume was eventually released and sent to East Germany in 1981 in exchange for Western intelligence agents caught by the Eastern Bloc. Back in East Germany, Guillaume was celebrated as a hero, and given a job in the training of spies. He published his autobiography, Die Aussage (The Statement) in 1988.

The story of Brandt and Guillaume is told in the play Democracy, by Michael Frayn. The play follows Brandt's career, from his election to Guillaume's imprisonment. It examines Guillaume's dual identity as trusted personal assistant to the West German chancellor and Stasi spy and examines his conflict as his duty to West Germany's enemies clashes with his genuine love and admiration for the chancellor.

In 2003, Willy Brandt's son, Matthias Brandt, took the part of Guillaume in the film ** ("In the Shadow of Power") by German filmmaker . The film deals with the Guillaume affair and Brandt's resignation. Matthias Brandt caused a minor controversy in Germany when it was publicized that he would take the part of the man who betrayed his father and made him resign in 1974. Earlier in 1974 – when the Brandts and the Guillaumes took a vacation to Norway together – it was Matthias, then twelve years old, who was the first to discover that Guillaume and his wife 'were typing mysterious things on typewriters the whole night through'.

References

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References

1. Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, Basic Books (1999), hardcover, {{ISBN. 0-465-00310-9; trade paperback (September, 2000), {{ISBN. 0-465-00312-5
2. (Brandt, ''My Life'')
3. [http://www.bwbs.de/Beitraege/130.html Talk by Hans-Jochen Vogel] {{Webarchive. link. (2009-09-01 on 21 October 2002)
4. Gregor Schöllgen: ''Willy Brandt. Die Biographie.'' Propyläen, Berlin 2001. {{ISBN. 3-549-07142-6
5. link. (2009-01-13 ''Die Zeit'' Vol. 40, (September 25, 2003))
6. Henrike Thomsen, [http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,270988,00.html "Kanzlersohn Matthias Brandt: Guillaume war eine komplett unerzählte Figur"] {{Webarchive. link. (2004-03-18 ''[[Der Spiegel). Spiegel]]'' Online, official website. (October 23, 2003) Retrieved December 3, 2010 {{in lang. de