LIEBETANZ, REINHARD (1936– ). An officer of the Bundesamt für
Verfassungsschutz (BfV) suspected of being a double agent, Reinhard
Liebetanz came under questioning when his colleague Hansjoachim
Tiedge defected to the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in August
- Liebetanz headed the BfV division responsible for investigating
neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists. In the wake of the Tiedge
scandal, Liebetanz charged his friend Eberhard Severin with applying
“massive pressure” to induce him to defect to the GDR as well during
a vacation trip in Austria. Among the threats was the revelation of Li-
ebetanz’s homosexuality. Liebetanz, however, reported the incident to
the Austrian police. Severin, in reality an agent of the Ministerium für
Staatssicherheit infiltrated during the mid-1960s, disappeared along
with another East German operative. Despite the absence of formal
charges, Liebetanz was removed from the BfV as a security risk and
transferred to another federal office.
LIKUS, RUDOLF (1892–?). A top aide and intelligence advisor to
Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Likus was a former
journalist and an early member of the Nazi Party. His appointment
to head a subdepartment in the Foreign Office in 1940 made him the
chief intelligence liaison with the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and
with various embassies, both German and foreign. Ribbentrop also
persuaded Heinrich Himmler to provide an SS commission to his
former schoolmate. Likus’s most notable achievement was the partial
penetration of the residency of the NKVD (Soviet People’s Commis-
sariat of Internal Affairs) in the Soviet embassy in Berlin through the
recruitment of Orest Berlings, a Latvian journalist. Likus also avidly
collected information about secret Vatican diplomacy. Too often
prey to the deceptions and rumors that circulated in neutral states, he
was soon eclipsed by Informationsstelle III following its creation
by Ribbentrop in 1941.
LINDNER, PAUL. See RUH, ANTON.
LINKE, KARL (1900–1961). The first head of East German military
intelligence and the target of a successful operation by the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), Karl Linke was born in Görsdorf (now
Hrádek, Czech Republic) on 10 January 1900, the son of working-class
LINKE, KARL • 265