Markus Wolf
German spyWikipedia
14
MENTIONS
6
EPISODES
6
PODCASTS
Search complete. 14 mentions across 6 episodes found for "Markus Wolf".
Nov 4, 2026
Patrick BuryGUEST
It was
Angus BlairHOST
like Markus Wolf and the stars of the East Germans realised the way to actually penetrate West Germany was via seducing secretaries.
Patrick BuryGUEST
Yeah, completely.
Patrick BuryGUEST
You just go for the point of contact, which is dealing with the mundane.
Gordon CoreraHOST
There's one particularly interesting trip, though, which is 1981.
Gordon CoreraHOST
He goes to East Germany and he meets there Markus Wolf, who is the head of the East German Foreign Intelligence Service.
Gordon CoreraHOST
So little known of him at the time in the West that he's known as the man without a face.
Gordon CoreraHOST
And it's there that he gets up on stage in front of the Stasi, introduced by Markus Wolf, to talk to the Stasi in a similar way as he talked to the KGB staff in 77.
Gordon CoreraHOST
And that's a tape which I discovered in the Stasi archives about 10 years ago.
Gordon CoreraHOST
And it is amazing because it is Philby talking about his career, the breadth of his career, about incidents from being recruited right through to that Beirut confrontation, which leads to him to Moscow.
Gordon CoreraHOST
So, yeah, I agree.
Gordon CoreraHOST
It's very interesting.
Thomas777GUEST
But, um, you know, I-- so, so I mean, again, obviously, I, I, I don't see like 19 to 25-year-old kids just like devising this, okay? Um, I, I know a lot of brilliant guys that age, don't get me wrong, but it's just not, it's...
Thomas777GUEST
This is something that very much came from somebody like Markus Wolf, who was, you know, the, um, kind of like the man behind-- He was like the real brains of the Stasi.
Thomas777GUEST
You know, Erich Mielke was a, was, was, was just, was, um, you know, was-- he wasn't a figurehead.
Thomas777GUEST
He was very hands-on, but he was, he was basically just like a thug cop.
21 MINS LATER
Thomas777GUEST
You know, like it had totally changed into something different.
Thomas777GUEST
You know, um, and it had become solidly in the Stalinist Warsaw Pact camp.
Thomas777GUEST
You know, um, which was a huge coup for Markus Wolf and the Minister of First Start, Sakura, to be able to do that.
Thomas777GUEST
In America, you know, the Soviets, true, after the common turn would like cease to exist formally.
ThomasGUEST
So, so I mean, again, obviously, I, I, I don't see, like, 19 to 25-year-old kids just, like, devising this, okay? Um, I, I know a lot of brilliant guys that age, don't get me wrong, but it's just not, it's...
ThomasGUEST
This is something that very much came from somebody like Markus Wolf, who was, you know, the, um, kinda like the man behind...
ThomasGUEST
He was like the real brains of the Stasi.
ThomasGUEST
You know, Erich Mielke was a, was, was, was just, was, um, uh, you know, was-- w- well, he wasn't a figurehead.
21 MINS LATER
ThomasGUEST
You know, like it had totally changed into something different.
ThomasGUEST
You know, um, and it had become solidly in the Stalinist Warsaw Pact camp.
ThomasGUEST
You know, um, which was a huge coup for Markus Wolf and the Minister for Staatssicherheit to be able to do that.
ThomasGUEST
In America, you know, the Soviets, true, after the Comintern was, like ceased to exist formally, okay, um, what replaced it was this aggregation above ground, you know, it was common form, which was basically, uh, kind of like the communist version of the G7, you know, or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization maybe is more a correct analogy.
Phil ThompsonHOST
Then there's the other side of the wall.
Phil ThompsonHOST
East Germany's Stasi and its foreign intelligence arm the HVA, under Markus Wolf, the so-called man with no face, ran rings around the west for decades.
Phil ThompsonHOST
I've done a full video on Markus Wolf so I won't go over it all again here, but the headline case is Gunther Guillaume.
Phil ThompsonHOST
He was an East German spy who worked his way up to become a close aide to Chancellor Willy Brandt.
Phil ThompsonHOST
Everyone's got a hard question