significant classified information to the press, Hans Langemann served
with a reconnaissance unit on the eastern front during World War II
and studied law afterward. Recruited by the BND in 1957, Langemann
(code name sacher) scored an early success in Vienna by enabling the
defection of Heinz Kupfer, an officer of the Ministerium für Staatssi-
cherheit. A similar attempt (Operation snowball) under diplomatic
cover at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, ended
in ignominious failure, but Langemann recruited a prominent East Ger-
man at the Rome Summer Olympics. Several other enlistments in Rome
helped lay the foundation for Operation eva, which took shape two
years later under his direction. Moreover, as a key figure in the strategic
service division under Wolfgang Langkau, Langemann developed a
far-flung network of agents in France, Austria, Greece, Ethiopia, Hong
Kong, and South Vietnam.
In 1970, two years after the departure of Langkau, Langemann left
the BND for a new position as head of domestic security in the Bavarian
Interior Ministry. Major controversy, however, erupted in 1982 with his
revelations about Operation eva to the magazine Konkret. Langemann
also had plans for a roman à clef but was turned down by various pub-
lishers. Arrested and placed on trial, he was given a suspended sentence
of nine months in September 1984. The court’s leniency can be partially
attributed to medical testimony about his mental instability.LANGKAU, WOLFGANG. The founder of the strategic service divi-
sion of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Wolfgang Langkau
served in the Waffen-SS during World War II and joined the Or-
ganisation Gehlen afterward, becoming the head of its West Berlin
substation in 1953. With the official establishment of the BND three
years later came the opportunity to expand his influence through the
newly created strategic service division, which was directly respon-
sible to Reinhard Gehlen. Langkau (code names langendorf and
holten) especially prized his role as the BND liaison to Israel’s
Mossad and maintained a separate office in Munich, as the Israelis
feared a Soviet penetration of the Pullach headquarters. Close ties
also existed with the Japanese imperial house and the rulers of Taiwan
and South Korea. He additionally served as Gehlen’s principal contact
to the leading West German political parties. Yet the re-forms inau-
gurated in 1968 by Gehlen’s successor, Gerhard Wessel, included
LANGKAU, WOLFGANG • 259