to orders—he began to engage his own Arab agents to investigate
terrorist attacks being planned at the Libyan People’s Bureau in East
Berlin. His detailed reports urging action to curtail these activities
were disregarded, and on 5 April 1986, the La Belle Discotheque
bombing occurred in West Berlin. The MfS then launched a disinfor-
mation campaign to shift responsibility to the Americans.
Two years later, his disillusionment complete, Wiegand prepared
for his future defection by making contact with the Bundesnachrich-
tendienst (BND) through a double agent and by assembling copies of
important documents showing the terrorist links. Despite increasing
tension with his superiors, Wiegand continued in his post until his
furtive departure from the GDR on 31 December 1989. Following
extensive debriefings by the BND and the Bundesamt für Verfas-
sungsschutz, he resettled in Munich and established a management
consulting firm. For the trial of the accused perpetrators of the La
Belle Discotheque bombing, the prosecution engaged Wiegand as a
key witness, but shortly beforehand, on 17 June 1996, he and his wife
died in a mysterious automobile accident while traveling on business
near Lisbon, Portugal.WIENAND, KARL (1926– ). An influential politician in the Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG) and a key agent of influence for the
Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA), Karl Wienand was born in
Lindenpütz (North Rhine-Westphalia) on 15 December 1926. After
serving in the Wehrmacht and incurring severe wounds, he joined the
Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands in 1947 and rose steadily,
becoming the party’s parliamentary manager 20 years later under
the guidance of Herbert Wehner. His HVA recruitment by Alfred
Völkel, one of the camouflaged Offiziere im besonderen Einsatz, oc-
curred in 1970, and Wienand was assigned the code name Streit.
According to later HVA chief Werner Grossmann, this back
channel between the FRG and the German Democratic Republic
functioned “brilliantly” until 1990, even when Wienand no longer
held an official position. Yet his name also became connected with a
number of scandals, above all the unresolved case of the Bundestag
vote of Julius Steiner in April 1972. Despite Wienand’s denials, a
Düsseldorf court convicted him in June 1996 of committing espio-
nage and stipulated a two-and-a-half-year prison term along with the
WIENAND, KARL • 493