it was planned for the evening of 19 May 1956. Volunteering to
stand guard alone in the office, Hesse was joined there by two other
team members, and they removed two large Mosler safes containing
highly classified material. Their contents were then placed in duffel
bags for transport by car through the Helmstedt border crossing. Ten
days after Hesse and his colleagues arrived in the GDR, Premier Otto
Grotewohl announced that 137 American agents had been arrested.
Neues Deutschland, the official organ of the Sozialistiche Einheits-
partei Deutschlands, also warned East German citizens not to accept
free food packages from the West because of their use as a recruit-
ment device. The total number convicted of espionage, however, was
considerably lower, as many had only received recruitment packages
and not indicated any further interest.
Hesse held a press conference on 10 July and was later relocated
to Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz). Readmitted to the SED, he was
commissioned as a lieutenant in the East German police. In 1957,
his memoirs—Agentenfunkstelle Görzenberg Antwortet Nicht Mehr
(The Agent’s Wireless Station at Görzenberg Is No Longer Respond-
ing)—appeared, composed with the help of a ghostwriter. In 1962,
the feature film For Eyes Only: Streng Geheim (Strictly Secret) was
released. Based largely on Hesse’s exploits, it maintained—contrary
to all known evidence—that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
was planning a military attack on the GDR and thus attempted to sup-
ply a justification for the newly constructed Berlin Wall. Hesse died
at Schwedt an der Oder on 16 December 2006.HEYDRICH, REINHARD (1904–1942). The head of the Reichssi-
cherheitshauptamt (RSHA) and one of the chief architects of the
Final Solution, Reinhard Heydrich was born in Halle on 7 March
1904, the son of an actress and a musician. Joining the German navy
in March 1922, he came under the tutelage of Wilhelm Canaris, who
introduced him to intelligence work. An indiscretion with the daugh-
ter of a naval officer, however, led to his dishonorable discharge in
- With no job prospects at hand, he joined the Nazi Party and
was soon serving in the ranks of the SS. His initial assignment by
Heinrich Himmler was to form a counterintelligence unit within
the party—the forerunner of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security
Service).
188 • HEYDRICH, REINHARD