ABWEHRSTELLE (AST). A field unit responsible for Abwehr es-
pionage activities, an Abwehrstelle replicated the tripartite division
(intelligence, sabotage, and counterintelligence) of the Berlin head-
quarters. An Ast could be found in each of the 21 military districts of
Germany. The larger Asts had further subsidiary units: subposts, out-
posts, and report centers. Their work varied according to local condi-
tions as well as historical and geographical factors. Ast Hamburg, for
example, dealt principally with Great Britain and the United States,
while Ast Wiesbaden focused on France and the Low Countries.
During World War II, this system was introduced into the occupied
territories, bringing the total number of Asts to 33 by 1942, yet the
foreign units never attained the importance of their domestic equiva-
lents. On average, each Ast and its subsidiaries employed some 150
people, although there was often much variance in numbers (for ex-
ample, 382 in Paris and only three in Cherbourg), and they rose and
fell in rank during the war. While administratively attached to local
military authorities—and under the operational command of Abwehr
head Wilhelm Canaris—the Asts in practice tended to be largely
autonomous. This lack of coordination resulted in much inefficiency
of effort, but it made enemy penetration of one unit far less injurious
to the whole network. See also KRIEGSORGANISATION.
ACKERMANN, ANTON (1905–1973). A veteran communist and
head of the Aussenpolitischer Nachrichtendienst (APN), Anton
Ackermann was born Eugen Hanisch in Thalheim (Saxony) on 25
November 1905. A communist activist during his youth, he studied
at the International Lenin School in Moscow and spent the Nazi pe-
riod in exile in Czechoslovakia, France, Spain, and the Soviet Union.
Returning to Germany in 1945, Ackermann joined the new Sozialist-
ische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) and subsequently became a
Politburo member as well as the party’s chief ideologue.
His most notable appointment was as head of the APN, the new
political intelligence apparatus created in August 1951 under the
cover of the Institute for Economic Research. Ackermann, who came
into bitter conflict with Andrei Grauer, his mistrustful advisor from
the NKVD (Soviet People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs), was
dismissed by SED chief Walter Ulbricht in December 1952, ostensi-
bly for “reasons of health.” An even more serious setback occurred
ACKERMANN, ANTON • 5