the Hungarian regent, Miklós Horthy, in Operation panzerfaust.
Foelkersam was killed in action near Hohensalza (now Inowro-
claw, Poland) on 21 January 1945 and posthumously promoted to
SS-Sturmbahnführer (captain).FOERTSCH, VOLKER (1934– ). A senior official of the Bundesnach-
richtendienst (BND) accused of working for Russian intelligence,
Volker Foertsch was the son of a Wehrmacht officer and a student of
economics at Hamburg and Munich from 1954 to 1957. Already af-
filiated with the Organisation Gehlen in 1953 (code names förster
and fleming), he made the transition to the BND and rose impres-
sively through the ranks. The zenith of his career occurred in 1989
with his appointment as head of collection, thus giving him knowl-
edge of all agent networks and current operations. Conflict with
BND-President Konrad Porzer led to his reappointment as director
of security in 1994.
Even more serious were the remarks in 1995 of a former Soviet
KGB officer, whose description of a mole within the BND appeared
to fit Foertsch. Further incriminating comments reached Pullach in
October 1997 from a source within the Russian army, code-named
rübezahl. Investigations by the BND, the Bundesamt für Verfas-
sungsschutz, and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office produced no con-
clusive evidence of Foertsch’s complicity. Adamantly denying the
charge and suspecting a disinformation campaign at work, he chose
to resign on 16 December 1998. Four years later, the BND officer re-
sponsible for obtaining the Rübezahl information, Norbert Juretzko,
was found guilty by a Munich court of falsifying documents, along
with financial transgressions. In 2004, Juretzko published his own
version of events, Bedingt Dienstbereit (Fit Only for Certain Duties),
which prompted further legal action by the BND.
FOMFERRA, HEINRICH (1895–1979). A veteran communist and
underground fighter who worked briefly for the Ministerium für
Staatssicherheit (MfS), Heinrich Fomferra was born in Essen on 19
November 1895, the son of a miner. A soldier during World War I, he
joined the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD) at its incep-
tion and was jailed on several occasions for his participation in insur-
gent activities. His training in Moscow in 1930 led to a position in the
110 • FOERTSCH, VOLKER