klaus), Gerhard Arnold (code name sturm), Rolf Dobbertin (code
name sperber), and most important of all, Karl Hauffe (code name
fellow). In addition, Stiller identified Markus Wolf from a pho-
tograph taken earlier in Stockholm, thus giving Western officials
their first confirmation of the HVA chief’s physical appearance.
Wolf, who characterized Stiller as the “only outright winner in one
of the sorrier sagas of my career,” instituted a series of stringent
counterintelligence measures within his agency. A further reper-
cussion was the arrest and execution of Stiller’s SWT colleague
Werner Teske in June 1981.
While the GDR’s highest military court sentenced him to death
in absentia, Stiller, equipped with a new identity as Klaus-Peter
Fischer, completed a business administration degree at Washington
University in St. Louis in 1983. He subsequently worked as an
investment banker in New York, London, and Frankfurt am Main
before becoming an entrepreneur in Hungary. Written with the as-
sistance of the BND, Stiller’s memoirs, Im Zentrum der Spionage
(Beyond the Wall: Memoirs of an East and West German Spy),
appeared in 1984. To cause further disarray in the HVA, the book
purposely exaggerated the length of Stiller’s secret relationship
with the BND.STÖBE, ILSE (1911–1942). A journalist and Soviet agent, Ilse Stöbe
was born in Berlin on 17 May 1911, the daughter of a carpenter. After
joining the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands in 1929 and serving
as secretary to the editor of the Berliner Tageblatt, Theodor Wolff,
she was posted to Warsaw in 1932 and recruited for Soviet military
intelligence by Rudolf Herrnstadt, who also became her lover. After
several of his key sources were transferred to Berlin and Bucharest,
Stöbe (code name alta) served as the communications link. With
the outbreak of World War II came a new position in the informa-
tion division of the Foreign Office as well as a close association with
the resistance group around Arvid Harnack. Having emerged as a
principal Soviet operative, Stöbe was arrested on 12 September 1942
by the Gestapo along with other members of the Rote Kapelle. She
was guillotined on 22 December at Plötzensee Prison. Stöbe had the
distinction of being the only female spy honored on a commemora-
tive coin of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit.
448 • STÖBE, ILSE