the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands in 1931 but was forced to
immigrate to Holland, then Belgium, after a deadly street battle with
an SA group in 1933. After serving as an undercover courier, Klein-
jung fought in the Spanish Civil War, working closely with Soviet
counterintelligence officers, including Leonid Eitingon. His job as
a locksmith at a Gorky automobile factory came to an abrupt end
with the German invasion in 1941. Originally designated as a radio
operator for the Rote Kapelle in Berlin, Kleinjung instead received
further partisan training and, in September 1943, carried out the
order to eliminate Wilhelm Kube, the commissar general of White
Ruthenia. (Ironically, because of Kube’s recalcitrance regarding
the extermination of Jews, his death was enthusiastically greeted by
Heinrich Himmler.)
Following his return to Germany in 1946, Kleinjung held several
police-related positions during the Soviet occupation period before
joining the newly established MfS, first as head of the East Berlin
regional office and then as chief officer at the Soviet-East German
uranium mining installation Wismut. His longest tenure—from 1956
to his retirement in 1981—was as director of Main Division I, which
entailed the protection of the armed forces of the German Democratic
Republic (GDR). In 1996, Kleinjung was among those charged by
a Schwerin court with the April 1976 murder of dissident Michael
Gartenschläger by GDR border guards. A central issue revolved
around his 26 April 1975 memorandum urging the “Vernichtung”
(annihilation) of those causing “provocation” at the frontier, which
he rejected as implying intentional murder. Eventually cleared of all
charges, Kleinjung died in Berlin on 20 February 2003.KLOSE, HANS-HELMUT (1916–2003). A naval commander who
conducted clandestine missions for Great Britain during the early
Cold War, Hans-Helmut Klose joined the German Kriegsmarine in
- Because of his considerable experience with fast patrol boats
during World War II, MI6 enlisted Klose to assist with Operation
jungle—the insertion and exfiltration of Lithuanian, Estonian, Lat-
vian, and Polish agents in the Baltic region. Using a modernized fast
patrol boat from the old Kriegsmarine, he made his first drop of six
agents at Palanga, Lithuania, on 30 April 1949. Klose’s meticulous
planning and shrewd diversionary tactics help explain the success
234 • KLOSE, HANS-HELMUT