and that operations abroad were not the sole prerogative of the
Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung. See also OPERATIONSGEBIET.WIECK, HANS-GEORG (1928– ). The first career diplomat to head
the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Hans-Georg Wieck was
born in Hamburg on 28 March 1928. After joining the Foreign Of-
fice of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in 1954, he held
ambassadorships to Iran and the Soviet Union before becoming the
permanent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) representa-
tive in Brussels. His appointment to the BND in September 1985
followed the abrupt dismissal of Heribert Hellenbroich and was
widely viewed as an attempt to reassure NATO allies of the integrity
of the FRG’s security agencies. Besides giving greater access to
politicians and journalists, Wieck concentrated on reviving recruit-
ments in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) after a series of
arrests by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit. In 1986, under his
direction, the systematic polling of 600 visiting GDR citizens on a
half-yearly basis was instituted, even though the BND’s findings
found little acceptance in Bonn (three-quarters of those questioned,
for example, consistently desired German reunification). Wieck left
the BND voluntarily in September 1990 and became ambassador to
India prior to his retirement in 2001. Two years later, he and Wolbert
Smidt, another former senior BND official, founded a public forum
on intelligence in Berlin.
WIEGAND, RAINER (1939–1996). A ranking counterintelligence of-
ficer of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS) who defected
to the West, Rainer Wiegand joined the security forces in 1958. By
1981, he led the task force (Arbeitsgruppe Ausländer) that oversaw
all foreigners—visitors, residents, and diplomats—in the German
Democratic Republic (GDR). He also directed penetrations by dou-
ble agents of organizations and military installations based in West
Berlin and was responsible for operations in Latin America and the
Middle East, such as efforts to protect Iraqi communist students from
attacks by Saddam Hussein’s secret service.
Yet knowing that international terrorists were being harbored in the
GDR with the explicit approval of the leadership caused Wiegand to
reassess his commitment to the MfS. In mid-1985—acting contrary
492 • WIECK, HANS-GEORG