in office saw some notable successes, and his long tenure ended as
a result of the 1848 revolution. He died in Baden near Vienna on 24
June 1855.SEEADLER. A plan to pit the Irish Republican Army (IRA) against
Great Britain during World War II, Operation seeadler (Sea Eagle)
was originally devised by Edmund Veesenmayer in spring 1941. Its
goals included acts of terrorism in Northern Ireland that would neces-
sitate the deployment of British troops, the establishment of an Irish
underground resistance in the event of British or American attacks,
and the transmission to Germany of relevant intelligence. To convey
a financial subsidy of £40,000 to the IRA, Veesenmayer designated
Helmut Clissmann, a member of the Abwehr and former exchange
student at Trinity College in Dublin who was well versed in the lan-
guage and possessed numerous local contacts. Bruno Rieger, another
member of the Abwehr, was selected as the radio operator. The final
proposal of 24 August 1941 also involved IRA activist Frank Ryan,
who would explore a possible reconciliation between his group and
the government of Eamon de Valera.
Although Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop raised no
objections to the plan, Adolf Hitler withheld his endorsement, much
to the disappointment of Veesenmayer. Convinced that a German
victory in the east was imminent and would dramatically alter the
political configuration in Western Europe, the Führer preferred to put
the plan on hold. Veesenmayer’s entreaties for immediate implemen-
tation proved in vain, and the plan was never revived.
SEIDOWSKY, HANS-JOACHIM (1932– ). A key agent of the Min-
isterium für Staatssicherheit (MfS) with a multifaceted career in the
German Democratic Republic (GDR), Hans-Joachim Seidowsky was
born near Leipzig, the son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. A stu-
dent of philosophy at Humboldt University in East Berlin after World
War II, he completed a doctorate on the relationship between the Vati-
can and the Kremlin during the interwar period. In 1952, he obtained a
position in the governmental department on church affairs and became
an agent of the MfS (code names gerhard and jochen). His tactic for
infiltrating both Protestant and Catholic religious circles was to pose as
an idealistic Marxist critical of the current regime.
414 • SEEADLER