she remained strongly committed to her espionage career. After the
GDR’s collapse, she was arrested, having been exposed by a former
HVA officer, Karl-Christoph Grossmann. In 1991, a Bavarian court
sentenced her to six years and nine months imprisonment; she was re-
leased in 1994 and returned to Munich. Her memoirs, Kundschafterin
des Friedens: 17 Jahre Topspionin der DDR beim BND (Scout for
Peace: 17 Years the Top GDR Spy at the BND) appeared in 2000
and bitterly took issue with the unequal treatment of East and West
German spies following reunification. Gast appealed her protracted
trial to the European Human Rights Court, which ruled in 2000 that
no violation had occurred. See also ROMEO SPIES.GAUCK, JOACHIM (1940– ). The first head of the German govern-
ment agency charged with the management of the massive files of the
Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), Joachim Gauck was born
in Rostock on 24 January 1940, the son of sea captain. In 1951, his
father was arrested as a suspected Western spy and deported to Sibe-
ria but was released four years later. Soon thereafter, Gauck began his
theological studies in Rostock and, following his ordination, became
pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran church in Lüssow (Mecklenburg).
After returning to Rostock in 1971, he became a founding member
and spokesman of the dissident group New Forum. During fall 1989,
his weekly church services were also closely tied to the city’s mass
demonstrations against the ruling communist government.
Gauck’s selection the following year as a New Forum delegate to
the Volkskammer (People’s Chamber) of the German Democratic
Republic allowed him to introduce legislation that would safeguard
the extensive official records of the MfS that had survived the fall
of the Berlin Wall. Contrary to those who called for their destruc-
tion, Gauck wanted the files to be reassessed for their political,
legal, and historical meaning. On 3 October 1990, following an
almost unanimous vote by the Volkskammer, the president of the
Federal Republic of Germany appointed him Sonderbeauftragter
für die personenbezogenen Unterlagen des ehemaligen Staatssicher-
heitsdienstes der DDR (Special Commissioner for the Personal Files
of the Former State Security Service of the GDR). The agency he
headed—the Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen der Staatssi-
cherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen
GAUCK, JOACHIM • 125