ment brought him to the helm of the BND on 1 August 1985. Later
that month, however, in one of the most serious defections in the
history of the Federal Republic of Germany, Hansjoachim Tiedge,
a senior counterintelligence official at the BfV, offered his services to
the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung. That Tiedge’s glaring personal
problems had been ignored by his former superior was “totally in-
comprehensible” to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and Hellenbroich was
removed immediately from the BND. He then worked as a private
security consultant until his retirement in 1998.HELLMUTH AFFAIR. The failed attempt to broker an arms sale to
Argentina during World War II, the Hellmuth Affair centered on
Osmar Alberto Hellmuth, the son of a German immigrant born in
Buenos Aires on 23 November 1908. A prosperous insurance sales-
man, Hellmuth was lured into becoming a secret intermediary by a
German agent, Hans Harnisch, who promised him a personal meeting
in Berlin with the head of the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service),
Walter Schellenberg, and possibly with Adolf Hitler. Because the
United States had refused to sell arms to Argentina in light of its de-
clared neutrality, the military government of Pedro Ramírez gave its
endorsement and devised a cover for Hellmuth as auxiliary consul in
Barcelona. The future Argentine dictator, Juan Perón, then minister
of war, also played a key role in formulating the final plan, which
involved the procurement of various arms and precision instruments
along with the guarantee of safe passage for a large tanker from
Greece.
Hellmuth sailed for Europe on the Cabo de Hornos but was re-
moved from the ship by the British in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on
29 October 1943. After he revealed the details of his mission under
interrogation at Camp 020 in Great Britain, authorities pressured the
Ramírez government to disown Hellmuth publicly as a German spy
and order the arrest of all other operatives in the country, including
Johannes Becker, thereby avoiding the greater embarrassment of a
full disclosure. The United States, however, desired even bolder ac-
tion and succeeded in forcing Argentina to break its diplomatic rela-
tions with the Axis on 26 January 1944. Realizing the extent of this
debacle for Germany, Adolf Hitler ordered a full-scale investigation,
but escalating problems on the eastern front caused the inquiry to be
HELLMUTH AFFAIR • 177