of his various assignments, which also came to include signals and
electronic intelligence raids. Beginning in March 1951, a plausible
cover was provided in the guise of the British Baltic Fishery Protec-
tion Service.
Nevertheless, suspicion grew that Soviet counterintelligence had
managed to penetrate the spy networks in the forests of Courland.
Because of the increasing loss of agents, MI6 suspended operations
after the last two landings on Saaremaa, Estonia, on 20 November
1954 and 21 April 1955. Klose was subsequently named the first
fast patrol boat commander of the new West German navy and later
commander in chief of the fleet before his retirement in 1978. His
undercover activities were a topic that he left undiscussed, although
a critical, propagandistic television docudrama was produced in the
German Democratic Republic in 1971.KLOSS, HERBERT SIEGMAR. A West German journalist who
targeted the Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD) on behalf of
the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA), Herbert Siegmar Kloss
was recruited in the late 1970s by Herbert Köhler and given the code
name siegbert. His most successful ploy, as devised by the HVA,
was to pose as an author conducting research for a book on the MAD,
the West German military counterintelligence service. Beginning in
early 1984, Kloss met with senior officials and even submitted parts
of his manuscript for their corrections and suggestions. Altogether
the HVA received information on nearly 200 MAD employees along
with details of the counterintelligence agency’s own security mea-
sures. In January 1992, following his exposure, Kloss was given a
prison sentence of three and a half years.
KNOCHEN, HELMUT (1910–2003). The senior officer of the Si-
cherheitspolizei and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in occupied France,
Helmut Knochen was born in Magdeburg on 14 March 1910, the son
of a schoolteacher. A student of history and English, he obtained a
doctorate from the University of Göttigen in 1935. Already a member
of the Nazi Party prior to its accession to power, Knochen abandoned
his desire to become a professor of literature and entered the SD in
1937, assuming the task of monitoring the refugee press in France
and the Low Countries for the next three years. His successful role in
KNOCHEN, HELMUT • 235