Mitarbeiter (unofficial collaborators) and placed its own Offiziere
im besonderen Einsatz (officers in special deployment) in the ranks.
At the same time, all-important intelligence collected by the VA au-
tomatically found its way to Moscow.
Despite the considerable tensions that persisted with the MfS and
the flawed performance of three of its leaders—Linke, Willy Säge-
brecht, and Theo Gregori—the VA succeeded in placing agents
in key positions in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the
West German Bundeswehr. In 1989, according to the VA’s final
head, Arthur Krause, 138 agents remained in place, 10 of them
acquired prior to 1982 and considered top-level sources. In its final
phase, the VA existed briefly as an “information center,” as all of its
agents were discontinued effective 31 March 1990. Official dissolu-
tion followed on 2 October. See also FRANKE, ARTHUR; ZEISE,
MANFRED.VÖLKEL, WALTER. A West Berlin academic at the Free University
who spied for the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), Walter
Völkel (code name Walter Rosenow) utilized his position at a re-
search institute that studied the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
to deliver confidential material beginning in the late 1970s. His as-
signment was to monitor individuals in West Berlin critical of the
GDR and to help carry out Zersetzungsmassnahmen (decomposition
measures), or psychological pressures and disinformation, devised
by the MfS. Völkel was among the authors of the official GDR
handbook published by the government of the Federal Republic of
Germany. His unmasking in spring 1992 resulted in his immediate
dismissal from the university.
VOGEL, DIETER. A double agent employed by the U.S. Central In-
telligence Agency (CIA) against the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung
(HVA), Dieter Vogel was a Hamburg businessman who had fled to
Switzerland owing to charges of tax evasion in early 1978. Recruited
four years earlier by the CIA, Vogel was then instructed to use his
fugitive status to gain entry into the HVA. His first assignment under
the code name Horn included sojourns in Canada, El Salvador, and
Argentina, where he gathered data on people of potential interest to
the HVA. A bolder plan called for Vogel, beginning in January 1980,
476 • VÖKEL, WALTER