citizens’ committee. It later became a museum that attempts to pre-
serve the original Stasi working environment.RUNGE, YEVGENY YEVGENIEVICH (1928– ). A KGB Illegaler
in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) who defected to the U.S.
Central Intelligence Bureau (CIA), Yevgeny Yevgenievich Runge
was born in eastern Ukraine as an ethnic German. After escaping the
forced evacuation to Central Asia at the outset of World War II, he
acquired German citizenship during the occupation of Ukraine and
was taken to German-controlled areas with the retreating Wehrmacht.
Following a brief period in an American prisoner of war camp,
Runge settled in East Berlin and received a degree from the Political
Economy Institute of Humboldt University in 1954. His contact with
a Soviet intelligence officer led to his recruitment as an Illegaler
and induction into the KGB as a junior lieutenant in 1955. The fol-
lowing year, at the KGB’s insistence, he married Valentina Rusch, a
Soviet agent working in the FRG. Settling in Cologne, they opened a
small business as cover. Two agents—a waiter at diplomatic recep-
tions and a steward at the French Military Liaison Mission in Bad
Godesberg—were soon operating under Runge’s direction.
As a security precaution, Runge was recalled briefly in January
1960 to East Berlin and later Moscow. By the fall, however, con-
vinced that his cover was still intact, the KGB reassigned him to
Frankfurt am Main. He was also given responsibility for handling a
new agent, Heinz Sütterlin, a photographer who had been recruited
by the MfS and then transferred to the KGB. Sütterlin (code name
walter) courted and married Leonore Heinz (code name lola), a
secretary in the Foreign Office in Bonn. The voluminous documents
she provided, however, were only of marginal value. Moreover,
when Runge began to suspect hostile surveillance of her husband, the
KGB recalled him once again to Moscow in early 1967. Against his
protestations, not only was Runge’s operation in the FRG terminated
but he was now suspected of being a double agent for West German
counterintelligence.
Despite the resolution of these security concerns, Runge along
with his wife and son defected to the CIA in October. His testi-
mony revealed the intensive activities of KGB illegals in West
Berlin, despite the erection of the Wall, and led to the arrest and
RUNGE, YEVGENY YEVGENIEVICH • 383