GRIEBEL, IGNATZ (1899–?). An early Nazi spy active in the
United States, Ignatz Griebel served as an artillery officer during
World War I and emigrated from Munich in 1925 after complet-
ing his medical studies. He soon became a U.S. citizen as well as
a respected leader of the Yorkville German community in New
York City. Griebel’s ardent support for the new Nazi regime led
him to offer his services as a spy to Propaganda Minister Joseph
Goebbels in 1934. Initially connected to the Maritime Bureau of
the Gestapo, he received his main instructions from the Abwehr
substation in Wilhelmshaven headed by Erich Pfeiffer. In 1937,
Griebel met in Berlin with Wilhelm Canaris, Hans Piekenbrock,
and other senior intelligence officials.
Through his social network, Griebel recruited German-American
engineers to obtain technical information about the American defense
industry. The capture of Günther Rumrich in 1938, however, ended
his growing spy ring. Because of Griebel’s complete willingness to
divulge names and details when questioned by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, he was released, thereby giving him the opportunity to
flee the country on a North German Lloyd liner bound for Hamburg.
He relocated his medical practice to Vienna and apparently withdrew
from further undercover work.
GRÖNDAHL, KNUT (1941– ). A ranking figure in the chancellory
of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and an agent of the
Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA), Knut Gröndahl joined the
Ministry for All-German Affairs after completing his legal stud-
ies at Freiburg. Befriended and recruited by Wolfgang Hartmann
while a student, Gröndahl (code names töpfer and hanson) began
to deliver confidential information from his new post beginning in
- According to HVA chief Werner Grossmann, his quasi-
diplomatic appointment in 1986 to the office of the FRG’s perma-
nent representative to the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in
East Berlin forced a painful decision. So as not to jeopardize the
first visit of GDR leader Erich Honecker to the FRG, Gröndahl
was deemed operationally inactive. Unmasked in 1993, he was
sentenced in 1996 to a three-year prison term. The trial revealed
that his ideologically motivated espionage received no monetary
compensation from the GDR.
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