Historical Dictionary of German Intelligence

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lifetime. Not until April 1993 was his name officially restored by the
successor party to the SED.

ZANGE, HINRICH (1911– ). A spy for the Hauptverwaltung
Aufklärung who targeted political circles in the Federal Republic of
Germany, Hinrich Zange was born in Saatz (now Žatec, Czech Re-
public). Educated in Prague and trained as a lawyer, he was inducted
into the Wehrmacht during World War II. In 1946, he was deported
from Czechoslovakia to the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. Pre-
sumed irregularities in his law practice resulted in his arrest and con-
viction in 1952. Recruited by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit
while in prison, Zange was resettled in Bonn with the purpose of pen-
etrating two West German political parties, the Freie Demokratische
Partei and the Christlich-Demokratische Union. Counterintelligence
authorities, however, succeeded in unmasking him, and on 26 May
1961, he was sentenced by a Cologne court to two and a half years in
prison. Zange’s wife, who ran a beauty salon, received a six-month
sentence as his accomplice.


ZEHE, ALFRED. The first known East German operative captured
in the United States, Alfred Zehe was a professor of physics at the
Technical College in Dresden who served as a consultant and courier
for the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS). In a joint operation
of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Naval Office
of Special Investigation, officials at the East German embassy in
Washington, D.C., were offered classified information in return for a
cash payment. At their insistence, the evaluation of the material took
place in Mexico City, where Zehe met with undercover American
agents (he regularly spent half the year at the University of Puebla).
Contrary to his instructions never to visit the United States, Zehe
later attended a scientific conference in Boston and was arrested on
3 November 1983.
Although an aggressive defense was mounted involving the top
East German lawyer Wolfgang Vogel, Zehe complicated matters
by expressing his desire to defect to the United States (which was
firmly rejected by U.S. officials). On 21 February 1985, however,
reassured by the MfS of the possibility of a spy exchange—and
that no retaliatory measures against him or his family would be


514 • ZANGE, HINRICH

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