(dramatic music)
Some just count tanks.
Others steal blueprints for nuclear bombs.
The cold war is the battleground
for thousands of spies and spotters.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Both sides collected intelligence
in order to avert what was considered to be
a looming war.
The secret services have few scruples
when it comes to procuring intelligence.
They pay for acts of treason
which may spell death for those exposed.
Do I have an awareness of blood guilt? No.
No, I didn't.
They were spooks with a license to spy.
The men of the allied military liaison missions in Germany
were at the forefront of the intelligence war
between east and west.
Yet, even today, hardly anything is known
about their feats.
No other western intelligence service
got as close to Soviet military equipment.
But where there are secrets,
there's danger too.
We knew that Soviet sentries were trigger happy.
They tended to shoot first and ask questions later,
if at all.
Kalashnikov stuck in my neck,
okay, so you don't move, okay.
The risks were pretty enormous.
In fact, how on Earth I'm still alive,
in fact, how on Earth any of us are still alive,
I have no idea.
They were friends,
and I understand what it takes to lose a friend.
A close friend in this manner.
(dramatic music)
East Germany in the 1980s.
It's the deployment zone for 20,000 tanks.
Another one, another one, another one.
Since an army's heavy equipment
is usually transported by rail,
military snoopers turn into train spotters.
Their brief: to count tanks and to identify units.
The men of the western military missions,
like Lawrence G. Kelly, Nigel Dunkley, and Jean-Paul Staub,
often lie in wait for days on end.
The military missions had been established
to sort out problems between the occupying powers
in post-war Germany.
Their members enjoy the status of diplomatic couriers,
yet they soon use their privileges
to spy on their opponents.
The Soviets are touring West Germany,
while Americans, French and Brits
roam the territory of the German Democratic Republic
in the East.
Their main objectives: the other side's battle tanks.
A rail track north of Magdeburg.
(speaking a foreign language)
As the memories come back,
Kelly, Dunkley and Staub
decide to steer their veteran off-roader
to the nearby town of Barleben.
Once this was a perfect spot for spies.
(speaking in a foreign language)
On some days, you could easily watch
half-a-dozen trains going by
as an armored division was either
leaving for an exercise or returning.
To western snoopers,
Barleben was a key location.
From here the trail track leads directly
to Letzlinger Heide.
Back then, this was the most important training area
for Soviet units in Eastern Germany.
Out of bounds for western military missions.
They could merely look on
as the trains entered the restricted area,
always under the eyes of the State Security or Stasi,
and the VoPo, the notorious people's police.
Sometimes we only had perhaps 20 minutes,
or perhaps 30 minutes at the most,
before the VoPo would be along.
And of course it was like a cat and mouse game.
On most occasions they get away.
But not always.
A propaganda video shot by the State Security in 1978.
(speaking in a foreign language)
A team of American snoopers is caught in the act.
A tarpaulin across the windshield blinds the driver.
(dramatic music)
A Soviet jeep cuts off the retreat of the mission car.
It's occupants surrender.
The license plate of their car is recorded,
and their spy tools are displayed for the camera.
The missions are a nuisance for the East German government.
Walter Ulbricht, the chairman of the state council,
accuses them of espionage.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Look here, this camera,
it's 92 centimeters long.
Not exactly an amateur device.
To Ulbricht, it's evident,
the missions are reconnoitering targets
for an offensive war.
At least that is his interpretation
of the maps they have seized.
(speaking in a foreign language)
This merely confirms
that the representatives of the U.S. mission
were especially interested in the areas
of their envisaged military thrust.
No state enjoys being spied upon,
yet in this case, there is no way to prevent it.
(speaking in a foreign language)
The rules were based
on the joint jurisdiction
for all allied occupation zones in Germany.
Therefore Ulbricht had to accept
that East Germany couldn't act
as a sovereign state in these matters,
and had no legal authority to prohibit
this kind of espionage.
In 1960, espionage is but one problem
for the East German state.
There is a virtual exodus of its citizens
towards the West.
The very existence of communist Germany is at stake.
(speaking in a foreign language)
In 1961, its leaders decide to stop the blood-letting
by erecting a wall.
They don't care about the human suffering
that will be caused by the partition of Germany.
The western powers accept the wall as unavoidable.
In 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy
visits West Berlin.
Nine months before, the Cuban missile crisis
had brought both sides to the brink
of a nuclear confrontation.
But the most perilous days of the cold war
seem to be over.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Kennedy pledges to defend Europe's freedom
with nuclear weapons if need be.
East and West alike, expand their strike potential.
There is no defense against intercontinental missiles
launched from silos or submarines.
And if this were not enough,
there are now several thousand tactical nuclear warheads
deployed in both parts of Germany.
(jet engine whining)
(missile roaring)
Rod Saar, a Royal Air Force officer
with the British military mission,
lies hidden in the dark
when a pair of headlights approach.
It's a jeep.
It stops.
A Soviet soldier is checking the barbed wire.
The slightest noise may give Saar away.
Saar is waiting for Soviet fighter jets,
which are scheduled to appear in a few hours
for practice attacks with live ammunition.
He hopes to get some revealing photographs.
Back then, in the early '70s,
Saar has a reputation as a cool, calculating daredevil.
The challenge was really to get to these targets
without being interfered with
by the Stasi or the Soviets in particular.
To be able to get in close.
So those were the kind of challenges you faced,
but experience was an issue,
so it took time to gain confidence
and understanding of the terrain.
Saar and his companion
intend to hide directly beneath the jet's lane of approach.
At daybreak, their cover must be perfect.
Soviet firing ranges and bombing practice areas
are prime locations for western military snoopers.
They are out to spot new types of planes,
and their armaments,
and to assess their strike potential.
A Stasi guard has detected unwelcome spectators
from the West.
An interference Saar would rather avoid.
You would sit under the flight line,
because the Stasi would not come under the flight line.
They didn't want to have bombs dropped on their heads,
so they avoided that.
So that was a kind of different strategy. (laughs)
Rod Saar, well camouflaged
under the approach lane.
To him, as an Air Force man,
flight maneuvers are highly revealing.
In 1971, he is watching an SU-17,
NATO codenamed Fitter.
When it's pilot suddenly performs a steep climb,
an unusual maneuver for dropping a bomb.
What's behind it?
(bomb blasts)
Astonished, Saar continues to observe the plane.
So the aircraft flew in at about 400 feet, low level,
and then it goes into a steep climb,
up to sort of two to 3000 feet,
and then towards the top of the climb,
it releases the bomb,
which actually then is thrown forward,
it then, in fact, in the end rolls out,
and flies off at high speed.
So it was simulating a tactical nuclear attack.
And here, actually, is the simulated nuclear weapon
underneath the aircraft.
It was the first time that we had seen that
and it indicated the capability
for tactical nuclear
strike by the Soviets.
Even when the target practice is over,
the range itself can be full of interesting finds.
Parts of projectiles may indicate their caliber,
or the use of new metals.
One day, Saar comes across a bomb in the shrubs.
A dud.
Obviously, the propellor of the detonator had malfunctioned.
On the tour, I had two RAF corporals,
and in a democratic sense, I said to these two guys,
are you happy that we take this unexploded bomb,
it was about this big,
back to Berlin?
And they said, "Yep, fine."
Yet, it's a long haul to Berlin.
Will the bomb be stable enough
to withstand one and a half hours
on the notoriously cobbled roads of East Germany.
In the end, they make it back in one piece,
and present their prey to their superiors.
The brigadier suddenly was there
and he said, "What have you got there, Rod?"
'cause we had a tarpaulin.
"Unexploded bomb, sir."
"Oh," he said.
So we went into the Air Force operations room,
we laid it on the, on a long table,
we took the tarpaulin off,
and all my colleagues went. (laughs)
So, then the ordinance people came,
they took the bomb away.
I had, I was then going on holiday.
I said, "Okay, dismantle the bomb,
"I want to take photograph," which I did.
When I came back, they told me,
"Well, this bomb was unstable,
"and please don't bring back any more unexploded bombs."
End of story.
I wouldn't do it today, by the way (laughs).
Saar doesn't think of himself as a spy.
They were mere collectors of military intelligence, he says,
with the occasional foray into diplomacy.
As in April 1966,
when a Soviet jet crashes into a lake
in the British sector of West Berlin.
It's a Yak-28.
Back then, the most modern supersonic interceptor
of the Soviet Air Force.
To western intelligence,
it's an opportunity not to be missed.
The Yak had taken off in Finowfurt near Eberswalde.
At the local Air Force Museum,
there is still one on display.
Klaus-Peter Kobbe has dug into the story
behind the crash.
It was the starting point
of an ingenious intelligence operation.
(speaking in a foreign language)
The British began analyzing
the wreck straight away.
The parts still visible above the surface
told them exactly what they had before them.
And being experts, they realized immediately
that they should salvage parts of the jet engine,
and above all, retrieve the components
of the airborne radar.
So the Brits drag their feet.
The RAF experts need time to lift the secrets of the Yak.
The Soviets protest.
The British military mission is called in
to diffuse the tension.
As it gets dark, their stomachs are severely tested.
But the Brits gain precious time for their technicians.
I had to drink lots of East German brandy
with two Soviet Air Force Colonels in their jeep.
And then they said, "We must eat."
And from underneath the seat they pulled out
this dirty cardboard box,
which had cold liver and garlic (laughs).
And I had to eat and drink this dreadful stuff.
The stalling tactics pay off.
Meanwhile, an elaborate effort has been launched
to recover the Yak's vital components from the crash site.
The divers floated them under water,
the engines and the radar,
for about two miles round
where they were taken out of the water
and flown back to England for evaluation.
Having had them evaluated,
they were flown back,
and the divers floated them back in,
and one came up and said, "We found the engines." (laughs)
A whole week passes
before the engines are returned.
As for the airborne radar,
the British claim that they couldn't find it.
The Soviets do not believe them.
Moscow is said to have ordered the replacement
of all modules of their
friend, foe identification electronics,
as well as all relevant codes throughout their Air Force.
It's an immense effort, yet unavoidable.
Since the Yak pilot didn't push the button
that would've ignited an explosive cartridge.
This would've destroyed the radar set,
and the coding block.
(speaking in a foreign language)
We asked the people at the factory
who had developed those components
what might've happened if the crew had survived the crash.
They told us that they would
probably have faced a court martial,
which might well have resulted in a death sentence.
Since the crew perished with their plane,
they escape any legal consequences of their failure.
They're even declared heroes.
According to the official version,
they had given their lives
to prevent their jet crashing into a housing area.
Boris Kapustin and Victor Janow
are buried with full military honors.
Up until then, the only thing that mattered
had been to get hold of the Yak's secret equipment.
The surroundings of Potsdam
have always been considered prime locations.
A fact that the military missions were well aware of.
Images of the Villa Colonel, filmed in the 1980s,
when it was the seat
of the French military mission in East Germany.
(speaking in a foreign language)
To us, the villa was a corner of France.
A place where you could feel comparatively safe.
Today, it is used by the ambassador of Ecuador.
The missions of the western allies worked closely together,
and there were official receptions where everyone met.
Like here, during a reception staged by the French
to celebrate the 14th of July,
their national holiday.
Events like these are reserved for diplomatic small talk,
and celebrating peaceful relations.
(speaking in a foreign language)
It was interesting to observe the Soviets
from up close.
I was very impressed by how much they could drink.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Summer parties at the villa
are considerably more relaxed affairs.
There is a barbecue and the members of the missions
have brought their families along.
Scenes of an easy-going life at the shores of a lake.
No one would suspect that these men are savvy collectors
of military intelligence,
who in no time could switch from diplomatic niceties
to covert action, hot on the trail of their enemy.
Sigurd Weber and her brother, Yence,
are retracing their personal history.
The banks of the Alba River, near Magdeburg,
had been their childhood playground,
and it was at this very spot,
that Sigurd Weber did coolly approach a Soviet soldier
to sound him out about pontoon bridges.
That's now almost half a century ago,
when Sigurd was a so called travel spy
for the BND, West Germany's foreign intelligence service.
(speaking in a foreign language)
I knew exactly what information
I was looking for.
I said, "Kuda?" meaning where to?
He looked at me and then he explained
what they were doing.
Storta, what this was all about.
He was really quite naive,
he just explained everything to me.
Bridge-laying trucks
figure prominently in the BND's handbook for spies.
Engineer units of the Soviet army
are a prime target for western reconnaissance.
How quickly they can cross a river
is valuable strategic information.
It helps to assess the potential rate of advance
of the Warsaw Pact's armored forces.
Sigurd Weber, her late husband, and her brother, Yence,
were amateur spies.
They were not in it for the money,
but had chosen to do their bit
to overcome a state which kept its citizens
locked behind an iron curtain.
In 1954, Sigurd Weber and her future husband
left East Germany and settled in Hamburg.
In the mid-60s, they were approached by the BND
and asked whether they would reconnoiter
military installations in the GDR
when visiting their relatives back home in Magdeburg.
Sigurd's brother has stayed behind in the East
and is by now thoroughly frustrated.
In 1971, his sister talks him
into joining their tiny spy ring.
Travel spies were the BND's go-to solution
after the building of the wall.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Up until then,
the BND had recruited stationary watchers.
These were citizens of East Germany
who lived close to barracks or training areas,
and would therefore have some insights
into what was going on there.
They would document their observations
and relay them in secret letters,
or sometimes directly to operatives of the BND.
The building of the wall
puts an end to this practice.
1961 is a bad year for West German intelligence anyway.
In November, Heinz Felfe,
the head of the BND's counter-intelligence department
is exposed as a KGB mole.
It's a colossal embarrassment.
(speaking in a foreign language)
The damage was enormous,
since the BND's counter-espionage
was practically wiped out at a stroke.
It took years to rebuild the counter-intelligence department
to something even approaching a reliable working order.
Felfe, who by 1945 was a lieutenant in the SS,
ends up in the spy trade
after his release from British captivity.
He soon belongs to the inner circle
around Reinhard Gehlen.
World War II had barely ended when the former head
of the Wehrmacht Foreign Armies East section
offered his expertise to the Americans,
who by now, were keen to establish
an anti-Soviet intelligence service
in their zone of occupation.
In December 1947, the so called Gehlen Organization
sets up camp at Pullach, near Munich.
Funded at first by the U.S. army,
and finally, by the CIA, it's the nucleus of the later BND.
Its recruits include former Wehrmacht officers,
SS men, and even die hards of the Gestapo.
It's an old boys' network
and security checks are mostly dispensed with.
(speaking in a foreign language)
These people took their bread
from anyone who would offer it.
Their lives have been uprooted.
Most of them were unable to build a career
in the new post-war society.
Those who had been professional soldiers
had no future at all.
There was no German army anymore,
and according to the prevailing view,
there should never be one again.
So they took any offers that came their way.
Retracking Felfe's activities
reveals treason on an alarming scale.
The damage is far worse than initially suspected.
(speaking in a foreign language)
In their post-fact analysis,
the CIA estimated that Felfe
had blown the cover of about 100 of their agents.
As well as 94 German informers of the BND.
In 1963, Felfe is sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Barely six years later, during a spy swap,
he is sent back to East Germany.
Once there, he is resettled by his masters,
becoming a highly respected professor of criminology.
East German propaganda portrays him as a staunch activist
for world peace
and as someone who joined the right cause
after an inner conversion.
(speaking in a foreign language)
I had to act the way I did.
For me, it was about learning the lessons of the past.
I had to join the side which, as was my conviction,
could never be the cause of another war in Europe.
As self-justification with scant awareness
or regrets for the agents he left exposed,
and who the KGB may well have liquidated.
To historians, Felfe remains a contradiction
and an opportunist of the highest order.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Presumably he just sold himself
to the highest bidder.
He was a classic turncoat.
To him, status was immensely important,
the recognition he got,
so his motives were neither purely financial,
nor purely ideological.
A cynical master of deception and betrayal.
A man who never queries the actions
of his masters in Moscow.
Not even as Soviet tanks roll in to crush the Prague Spring.
In August 1968, Moscow smashes any hopes
of socialism with a human face in Czechoslovakia.
Western intelligence services are caught by surprise.
CIA memos had doubted
Moscow's willingness to risk an invasion.
Nearly 100 Czechs and Slovaks,
as well as 50 soldiers, are killed.
The message is clear.
Moscow will tolerate neither reform nor opposition.
An armored recovery vehicle of the East German army
built on a chassis of a T-72.
Time for some tank nostalgia
on the grounds of former Soviet barracks near Magdeburg.
An armored personnel carrier,
the type Lawrence G. Kelly, Nigel Dunkley,
and Jean-Paul Staub once spotted by the hundreds.
In the middle of the 1980s,
NATO could probably only have responded
to an all out offensive by Warsaw Pact Forces
with a nuclear counterstrike.
The new T-80 was a formidable weapon,
a prime target for military snoopers.
And a most dangerous one.
Somebody had the clever idea
that we should find out the chemical properties
of the new armor on such vehicles as T-80.
Simple. Simple. Simple?
They just said, "It's okay, just scrape the paint away,
"and then take a diamond cutter," I still have one,
I still have mine, sorry about that, I still have mine.
"Take a diamond cutter, and then scrape a sliver
"of the metal away
"from the front glassless plate of the tank,
"and then put it in a container,
"and then take it home."
In theory at least, yet then as now,
fortune favors the bold.
A British soldier on a Soviet tank.
A photograph displaying secret technology
with an apple showing its comparative size.
A T-80 with a new kind of reactive armor.
Small boxes containing explosives,
which were intended to blow up any oncoming projectiles
before they impacted.
One of our exceptional tour NCOs,
displaying a great deal of presence of mind and decisiveness
clamored onto the train,
removed a small box of explosive reactive armor from a T-80,
then quickly dismounted, re-entered the vehicle,
and the tour sped off to West Berlin.
It's a significant coup
in the arms race between east and west.
1970, a military parade in Magdeburg.
Yence Lich and Sigurd Weber
are on a mission from the BND,
counting military equipment.
(speaking in a foreign language)
We'd been told
to be on the lookout for missile vehicles.
There weren't many to be seen,
but we managed to spot some.
They were all track vehicles with different configurations.
We'd been trained to register if they were old or new,
what type of tracks they had,
or how many axles.
Monitoring the strength
of the other side's forces is cold war routine.
Yet, numbers alone won't do
when assessing the potential enemy's capabilities.
To get a clear picture of his combat readiness,
it takes observers on the ground.
The city of Magdeburg is of special interest
for western intelligence.
It's the headquarters of the Third Soviet Army.
For travel spies,
a ride on Magdeburg's streetcars
is one of the safer ways to get a glimpse
into Soviet barracks.
That's line six.
I told you.
It's still running.
Line six.
The line is still operating.
The barracks have long since been demolished.
(speaking in a foreign language)
There was just a short stretch
at the turning bay up there,
where you could look inside,
but only if you were standing.
The Webers have been thoroughly trained
for this kind of covert observation.
They're not to take any notes.
One of them will inconspicuously observe
what's happening inside the barracks
while the other keeps watch
for any security officers among the passengers.
An ever-present risk back then.
(speaking in a foreign language)
The State Security, Stasi for short,
had planted a ring of unofficial informers
around any military object.
They would count, photograph, or film whatever went on.
Anything that might be suspicious
is recorded, even if it is only a car
with a western license plate.
Taking photographs near military installations
is strictly prohibited.
Even passers-by are scrutinized.
A mother with her buggy might be a spy.
Or a daughter taking a walk with her father
while on a visit from the West.
(speaking in a foreign language)
This way, dozens of travel spies
were caught in the act.
Sigurd Weber and her brother, Yence,
are arrested in April 1978.
Her husband didn't come along this time
and is spared the ordeal.
It has never been precisely established
how their cover was blown.
Sigurd Weber suspects a mole
within the federal intelligence service.
Her brother presumes that the State Security
had cracked the address they had used
to keep in secret contact with their controller at the BND.
(speaking in a foreign language)
The day we intended to leave,
my car was damaged.
So I drove to the police headquarters
to get a complaint for my insurance company in Hamburg.
When I was stopped on the way,
I naturally thought it was because of the damage to my car.
Some windows were broken,
the side mirror had been ripped off,
so I thought they had stopped me because of that.
I had to leave my car and hand over my keys.
I was coaxed into a Wartburg, the doors were locked at once.
And there I was, sitting between two female constables.
I refused to believe it at first.
But then I thought, this is it.
Days of interrogation follow.
There is no use denying the charges.
The Stasi already has proof.
For Sigurd Weber it suddenly becomes clear,
her controller's assurances
that they need not expect any trouble
had been nothing more than words.
(speaking in a foreign language)
When my brother got 15 years,
I said, "Well, that'll be life for me."
but my interrogator said, "No, we also chop off heads."
Sigurd is spared the worst.
Yet even a life sentence comes as a shock.
She is unaware of any agent swaps,
and must face the prospect of life in prison.
(ominous music)
(speaking in a foreign language)
Everything was bad.
But the isolation really hit me.
And the loneliness is terror.
In retrospect, that was really the worst.
There was no one to communicate with.
I was always alone in solitary confinement.
And they knew that you could break
a person's psyche like that.
She is released after three years,
thanks to another spy swap.
The following year, her brother is sent back to the West.
The Webers were hunting for the tiniest parts
of the overall puzzle,
mere ants in the vast world of global espionage.
But there are times when a single agent
can undermine the security
of a whole nation.
The treason committed by John Anthony Walker
is considered to be so devastating that after his exposure,
he spends the rest of his life in prison.
He dies in 2014 in the 30th year of his confinement.
Walker begins his career in the U.S. Navy,
and is trained as a wireless operator.
He is then posted to the headquarters
of the Strategic Submarine Fleet.
While he is only a tiny cog in the communication network
of the world's most powerful navy,
he now has access to the most sensitive information.
(engine roaring)
(dramatic music)
He is working in the field of communication technology
and cipher codes.
In 1967, Petty Officer Walker begins to cash in
on this highly confidential information.
(dramatic music)
(speaking in a foreign language)
To him, it was a business.
He was solely out for money,
and there was no political or ideological motivation.
He wanted money and he knew
that he could demand a high price.
Walker's approach is as direct as possible.
He copies some secret documents,
drives to Washington, D.C.,
walks into the Soviet embassy
and offers the KGB a deal.
Money in exchange for secret codes
used by the U.S. Navy to encipher their communication.
(dramatic music)
(bomb exploding)
To the Soviets, it's a gold mine.
They will be able to trace exercises
of the U.S. Navy units, analyze overall strategies,
and collect data about weapon systems on board.
(bomb exploding)
From now on, the Soviets will be listening in.
And what's more, Walker also enables Moscow
to pry into the holy grail
of the Americans' nuclear arsenal.
The operations of their strategic submarines
who are prowling the depths of the oceans
along secret routes, ready to launch their nuclear missiles.
(speaking in a foreign language)
A submarine is a lone wolf.
Silently moving under water
without anyone knowing its whereabouts.
That is its protection,
and of course, also an essential element
of nuclear deterrence.
If this secrecy is compromised,
that is, if an enemy penetrates the communications systems
of your own submarine fleet,
then all its movements would be disclosed,
and the fleet itself would be next to useless.
Walker escapes the radar
of American counter-espionage for almost two decades.
A man who sold the security of his nation solely for greed.
When he is finally exposed,
it's a revelation of nightmarish proportions.
(speaking in a foreign language)
What brought him down
was a purely private matter.
His ex-wife, they divorced in 1976,
feared that he would entangle their adult children
in his spy business, and so she rang the FBI.
To her it was bad enough
that her husband was such a nasty piece of work,
but as she said, "At least I won't let my children
"go to the dogs."
For her son, Michael, however, it's too late.
He's allowed himself to be lured
into his father's activities
and is sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Vietnam at the end of the 60s.
The U.S. Army is engaged in a war
against the communist North.
In its effort
to contain the spread of communism in East Asia,
the U.S. administration makes but poor use
of its intelligence services.
(guns blasting)
Memos on enemy strength and morale
are often nothing more than wishful thinking,
while reports tend to overestimate
the effect of American firepower in the jungle.
Even highly sophisticated spy jets
like the SR-71 Blackbird
did not bring about a decisive change.
Although their crews run the gauntlet almost daily
to reconnoit a North Vietnamese air defense
and to identify strategic targets.
(jet roaring)
The enemy defies any effort to bomb them into submission.
In the end, the superpower loses the war
which had claimed almost three million lives
and became overshadowed by atrocities and massacres.
The outcome is a bitter pill for an administration
which had misused their intelligence services
to supply its leaders with the information
they wanted to hear.
It's a busy day in the air above Welsow,
south of Cottbus, that's why Rod Saar is there,
along with his team.
It's early September 1972,
but the Brits aren't alone.
Corporal Calvin said there's somebody in there,
in this low pine, we were in low pine trees.
I said, "Fine, everybody in the car."
Car locked, equipment away, I went and investigated.
Saar suspects them to be operatives
of the Stasi, East Germany State Security Forces.
Usually the missions don't really care about them.
They may call in the Soviets,
but that would merely be a nuisance.
My tactic with the Stasi was always to chase them.
Aggressively.
So if I knew the Stasi were hiding,
I would run at them.
And I'd run, I'd charge, and I'd shout.
Standard aggressive tactic.
And this worked.
They would run, they would go.
But this time,
the men in the bushes aren't Stasi.
They are Soviet special forces.
They changed their tactic.
The used, each airfield in the end had Spetsnia platoons,
so special forces platoons,
and they would try and jump you.
And their aim, basically, was to be violent.
The Spetsnia, or Spetsnaz,
are among the toughest troops on either side.
Elite units trained not to back down.
At first, they merely observe the British
as they move about near the airbase.
Then, Rod Saar tries his usual tactic on them.
They rose up, I ran back too late.
They got me, Kalashnikov stuck in my neck.
Okay, so you don't move, okay.
Got to the car, smashed the car window,
knocked out Corporal Calvin, didn't touch the group captain,
but stole our equipment.
Rod Saar is declared persona non grata
by the Soviets.
It's the end of his forays into East Germany.
He has pushed his luck too far this time.
A powerful engine is a trump card
on the allied missions tours.
Superior speed helps to shake off any shadowers,
or if need be, to make a getaway,
be it on the road or rough terrain.
By stepping on the gas,
you could leave the State Security standing in the dust.
(dramatic music)
Burkhard Mielke was among those
who often came out on the losing end of such encounters.
During the 1980s, he works for East Germany's
directorate for counter-intelligence.
(speaking in a foreign language)
At times they were speeding along
at up to 220 kilometers per hour.
With our Wartburgs and Ladas, we didn't stand a chance.
The specially modified mission cars
have a range of a thousand kilometers,
whereas a Wartburg would have to refuel twice
to cover that distance.
The Stasi photographs of a mission tour filling up,
showing the size of the additional tank.
Cool and composed, these allied mission officers
channel the nonchalant spirit of the easy riders.
Protected by their status and horsepower,
while their eastern shadowers
record their activities on film.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Later on, we gave up chasing after them,
and set up reception committees instead.
The missions must now reckon
with Stasi units lying in wait along their tour.
Their opponents know from experience,
where and when the western snoopers
will most probably show up.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Every directorate
was trying to impress the ministry.
We said, "Today is the big day,
"we'll capture a mission car!
"Get hold of their equipment and teach them a lesson!"
Every unit wanted to be the first to achieve this,
and so we came up with a few ideas of our own.
It had been decided
that State Security should no longer
simply record the missions' activities,
but actually prevent them.
Unbeknownst to the men on the tours,
the rules of the game had been changed.
The driver's cab of a truck
still arouses painful memories for Jean-Paul Staub.
To this day, it reminds him of an incident
overshadowing his years as a tour officer
for the French military mission.
1984.
North of the City of Halle.
Three days before, a Ural,
a heavy truck of the East German Army,
took a position in a side road.
It is apparently waiting for the order to move.
Maintain your position.
Everything according to plan.
Roger.
At about 11 o'clock on March 22nd,
the Stasi prepares to strike.
(motor rumbles)
It's target: a car of the French military mission
on its way to observe a major exercise
of the Warsaw Pact Forces in East Germany.
Jean-Paul Staub is riding in the back.
(speaking in a foreign language)
We did notice an army jeep
coming up from behind.
It seemed like it was intending to chase us.
But we were in front, so we sped up a bit.
And under normal circumstances,
we would've got away.
But it's a trap.
Suddenly, there's a truck ahead of them.
It's the Ural.
(speaking in a foreign language)
And it's behaving in a most threatening manner.
(speaking in a foreign language)
I said to Warrant Officer Mariotti,
who was our driver, "Stop, we won't get past him!"
But I may not have been forceful enough.
Anyway, in critical situations,
it's the driver who knows best which decision to take.
Both drivers step on the gas.
The soldier in the Ural is determined
to block the French car, come what may.
(car crashing)
The result is a fatal crash.
Stills from the accident filed by State Security.
(speaking in a foreign language)
The truth is,
Mariotti nearly made it.
One or two seconds earlier,
and we would've got past the truck,
and sped off towards Halle.
But sadly, it wasn't to be.
Mariotti died on the spot.
I was severely injured and our third man,
Warrant Officer Blanchdant, had a broken shoulder.
The strike against the French
had been elaborately planned.
No less than three trucks had been positioned
ahead of the French vehicle,
with a view to catching them red-handed
in their elicit activities.
(dramatic music)
(speaking in a foreign language)
I'm no lawyer,
yet, to me the term negligent homicide
seems applicable here.
They obviously knew someone might get killed,
yet they went ahead regardless.
After all, the cars involved weren't little Trabants,
made of plastic, but heavy trucks.
Philippe Mariotti,
acted on his driver's instinct,
as he had done many times before.
For once, he misjudged the situation.
The French government tries to keep the incident
out of the headlines.
Both sides are pursuing a policy
of military de-escalation.
The death of a soldier must not get in the way
of international diplomacy.
(speaking in a foreign language)
He was buried discreetly
without military honors.
An ignominious end to the life of a soldier.
(speaking in a foreign language)
The garden of the former French
military mission in Potsdam.
In remembrance of Warrant Officer Mariotti,
a memorial stone has been laid.
His comrades leave their wreathes at the site of his death,
an act that, too, is duly recorded
by State Security cameramen.
(dramatic music)