should he decide to defect to Czechoslovakia—Frenzel delivered
high-quality information related to the defense plans of both the FRG
and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In September 1959, the StB dispatched a new control officer, Jin-
drich Augustin, to the FRG under the assumed name Franz Altmann.
A year later, having been alerted to irregularities in his tax records,
the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz arrested Augustin at the
Cologne airport and found six rolls of film concealed in a baby-
powder can; the find also confirmed Frenzel’s complicity. On 18
April 1961, Frenzel was found guilty of treason and sentenced to
15 years in prison. In 1965, he was exchanged for four West Ger-
mans held in Czechoslovakia. He died on 23 July 1968. Augustin’s
five-year sentence had ended earlier in December 1961 due to a spy
exchange as well.FREUNDE. An East German referring to the Soviet Union and its
citizens, Freunde, or friends, was the expression frequently invoked
by members of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit for their col-
leagues in the KGB. Male members of the KGB were sometimes
referred to as Kolya.
FREYTAG-LORINGHOVEN, WESSEL BARON VON (1899–
1944). A member of the Abwehr conspiracy against Adolf Hitler,
Wessel Baron von Freytag-Loringhoven was born in Gross Born,
Courland (now Latvia), on 10 November 1899, an old Westphalian
noble family. In 1918, he enlisted in the Baltic-German Landeswehr
and, following the formation of an independent Latvia, became an in-
fantry officer. In 1922, he left Latvia to join the Reichswehr in Wei-
mar Germany. Despite an initial sympathy for the National Socialist
program, his disaffection began with the Night of the Long Knives
in 1934 and was further reinforced by the war crimes associated with
Operation barbarossa.
In August 1943, with the aid of Wilhelm Canaris, Freytag-Lor-
inghoven secured a position in the Abwehr as head of Department
II (sabotage and subversion). An active member of the anti-Hitler
resistance as well as a friend of Claus Count Schenk von Stauffen-
berg, he helped supply explosives from Abwehr booty for the at-
tempted assassination of the Führer on 20 July 1944. When the plot118 • FREUNDE