legal separation from the ruling party or oversight mechanisms were
mentioned. Wolf simply exhorted the younger cadres to follow in the
footsteps of the original Bolshevik Cheka.
Yet just as this plan came too late to have any chance of imple-
mentation, Wolf also declined his party’s invitation to become a can-
didate for political office. He further expressed his bitter disappoint-
ment over Mikhail Gorbachev’s unwillingness to intervene militarily
on the GDR’s behalf. In October 1990, facing an arrest warrant in
the newly reunited Germany and having refused an offer of resettle-
ment and employment by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Wolf
took temporary refuge in Moscow. His attempt to persuade Austria
to provide a place of hiding failed, and in September 1991 he sur-
rendered to German authorities at a border crossing. In the uncharted
legal landscape, it was unclear whether Wolf, formerly based in the
GDR, could be held responsible for having conducted espionage
against the FRG. Although a Düsseldorf court found him guilty in
December 1993 and stipulated a six-year prison term, the FRG’s
highest tribunal later overturned the ruling on the grounds that HVA
officers could only be tried for acts committed under West German
jurisdiction. A second attempt by state prosecutors in 1997 focused
on a series of kidnappings rather than outright espionage and resulted
in a two-year suspended sentence. In addition to numerous interviews
and other publications, Wolf’s principal memoirs, Spionagechef im
geheimen Krieg (Man without a Face), appeared in 1997. He died on
9 November 2006 in Berlin.WOLFF, KARL (1900–1984). The chief SS commander in Italy and
former chief of staff to Heinrich Himmler, Karl Wolff was born in
Darmstadt on 13 May 1900, the son of a district court magistrate. Af-
ter volunteering for service in World War I and earning the Iron Cross
First and Second Class, he participated in a Freikorps unit in 1919.
He then worked as a clerk in several businesses before becoming
head of an advertising firm in Munich. His rise in the SS proceeded
rapidly after he joined the Nazi Party in October 1931. Follow-
ing Adolf Hitler’s accession to power, SS-head Heinrich Himmler
not only recommended Wolff as the part-time adjutant to the new
military governor of Bavaria, Franz Ritter von Epp, but made him a
member of his own staff. One of his chief functions was to manage
WOLFF, KARL • 501