facility in Bad Ems and was posted afterward to Kiel. In 1968, when he
offered his services to the MfS, he met with some suspicion, but soon an
arrangement was reached under the direction of Günther Kratsch, who
was later replaced by Wolfgang Lohse as his control officer. Steady
promotions in the MAD hierarchy led to Krase’s appointment as deputy
director in 1980. With his easy access to highly confidential material,
he provided a wealth of information to the MfS, including details of
Poseidon missile sites and the location of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons
in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Despite his retirement
in 1984 owing to poor health, Krase continued his espionage while
visiting MAD installations throughout the FRG. His last meeting with
Lohse was in Salzburg, Austria, in 1987. It was not until after his death
by cancer in 1988 that his 18-year career as a mole became publicly
known. See also SELBSTANBIETER.KRAUS, GOTTHOLD (?–1997). The first East German defector to
the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Gotthold Kraus was a
banker by profession. In November 1951, he was hired by the Ger-
man Democratic Republic’s new Aussenpolitischer Nachrichten-
dienst (APN; Foreign Intelligence Service) to prepare the annual
budget for its cover operation, the Institute for Economic Research.
His superiors were impressed by his work, and he soon headed a de-
partment within the APN. Kraus, however, had offered his services
to the CIA’s Berlin Operations Base in September 1950 and began to
convey information to the Americans about the APN’s operations in
West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).
Although advised by the CIA to exercise greater caution and se-
lectivity so that his “semi-sleeper” status could be maintained, he
was highly anxious to leave the German Democratic Republic. When
Markus Wolf became head of the APN and instituted tighter security
measures, Kraus decided to cross over into the French zone of West
Berlin with his family on 3 April 1953. Because of the extensive in-
formation he brought—the identification of numerous staff officers
and other personnel, safe house locations, and the Soviet advisors
and their vehicles—the APN suffered a major setback in Operation
vulkan. After his debriefing, he and his family settled in the Wash-
ington, D.C., area, but he later returned to the FRG to testify in sev-
eral spy trials. In an unpublished memoir completed before his death,
246 • KRAUS, GOTTHOLD