socialist state. Show trials and imprisonment followed, with more
than 2,000 members placed in confinement between 1950 and 1962.
This policy of strident confrontation evolved into a more subtle in-
filtration of their Bible study groups by agents of the Ministerium
für Staatssicherheit (MfS), as authorities remained convinced of
the group’s basic conspiratorial nature. Defectors from the Jehovah’s
Witnesses were also utilized by the MfS in the GDR’s larger an-
tireligious disinformation campaign. Their membership, however,
remained numerically constant throughout the period. See also
BERLIN-HOHENSCHÖNHAUSEN.JOHN, OTTO (1909–1997). A highly enigmatic counterintelligence
official of the early Cold War who was convicted of treason by the
Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), Otto John was born in Marburg
on 19 March 1909, the son of a land surveyor. After studying law in
Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, he joined the legal offices of the civil-
ian airline Lufthansa in 1937. He not only resisted joining the Nazi
Party but through the influence of his superior, Klaus Bonhoeffer,
became convinced of the necessity of toppling Adolf Hitler prior to
- During the war, John functioned as a liaison between the Ger-
man resistance and British and American diplomats in Madrid and
counted among those involved in the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate
Hitler. Although his younger brother was later shot by an SS com-
mando team, John escaped via Madrid and Lisbon to London, where
he became a collaborator with British intelligence, specializing in the
broadcast of propaganda to Germany over Soldatensender Calais.
At the end of the war, John assisted the British legal team at the Inter-
national Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and also in the prosecution
of other German military officers.
In December 1950, strongly endorsed by the British, he became the
first head of the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), although
some questioned his suitability for this key security post. In late July
1954, John, accompanied by his friend Wolfgang Wohlgemuth, a
flamboyant West Berlin gynecologist, made a mysterious trip to the
eastern sector and was taken to a KGB safe house in Karlshorst. He
confirmed his defection on 11 August at a major press conference
in East Berlin. His action, he explained, had been prompted by an
overriding desire for a reunited Germany, which was being thwarted
JOHN, OTTO • 211