Settling in Jena in 1991, Platzdasch established a career as a lawyer
and journalist. The following year, he attended the burial of Arthur
Franke, the former head of the VA, despite documented charges by
authorities in Frankfurt am Main of having committed treason.PLÖTZENSEE PRISON. A penal institution in Berlin dating from the
19th century, the Plötzensee Prison gained notoriety during the Third
Reich as the site of numerous executions of persons convicted of high
treason. Among them were two spies working for Poland, Benita von
Falkenhayn and Renate von Natzner, who were beheaded with the
ax in February 1935. Liselotte Herrmann and three accomplices
were guillotined there in June 1938. The number of executions in
Plötzensee escalated dramatically during World War II and included
members of the Rote Kapelle and 90 people involved in the conspir-
acy of 20 July 1944, among them Arthur Nebe. An estimated 2,890
people lost their lives at the Plötzensee for various crimes between
1933 and 1945. A memorial center exists today on the premises.
PLUTONIUM AFFAIR. A scandal centering on the Bundesnach-
richtendienst (BND), the Plutonium Affair began with the arrest of
three men—a Colombian and two Spaniards—at the Munich airport
on 10 August 1994. With the confiscation of 363 grams of plutonium
from a flight originating in Moscow, the Bavarian interior minister
proclaimed “a successful strike against the international nuclear
mafia.” Yet as more details emerged, the German media charged the
BND with ignoring safety precautions and endangering lives through
this sting operation (code name hades). In May 1995, a special
Bundestag committee investigated the matter, concluding that BND
officials in Munich and Madrid were not complicit and no procedural
irregularities had occurred. The precise origin of the plutonium was
never determined.
POKORNY, HERMANN (1882–1960). The leading Austro-Hungarian
cryptanalyst during World War I, Hermann Pokorny was born in Kre-
misier (now Kromeriz, Czech Republic). Raised with a knowledge of
German and Czech, he also came to master Polish, Bulgarian, and Rus-
sian in the course of his training as an army officer. At the beginning
of World War I, his main task was to monitor “alien conditions” for
POKORNY, HERMANN • 351