the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit during the period 1956–1989.
The number of inmates averaged 150–180 and included dissidents as
well as foreigners arrested for espionage or for assisting GDR citi-
zens to commit Republikflucht (flight from the republic). Whereas
Bautzen I still functions as a correctional facility, Bautzen II was
declared a memorial site in 1993 to commemorate the injustices that
had taken place in both prisons.BAZNA, ELYESA. See CICERO AFFAIR.
B-DIENST. The codebreaking unit of the Kriegsmarine, the B-Dienst
(B-Service) or Funkbeobachtungsdienst was headed by Max Kup-
fer and grew dramatically from 2,000 prewar employees to nearly
20,000 in the course of World War II. It proved enormously suc-
cessful in compromising the British navy’s communication system,
applying German city names to British naval codes to distinguish one
from another. Kriegsmarine Commander in Chief Karl Raeder stated
that half of his operational intelligence derived from this unit. Be-
sides learning about convoy operations and routing patterns, the B-
Dienst maintained a network of directional finders that could fix the
approximate locations of radio transmissions in the Atlantic. The unit
was also successful with French, Danish, and Soviet naval codes.
By 1943, however, the British had significantly improved the
security of their codes, while the American systems proved invul-
nerable to the German cryptanalysts. Another problem was organi-
zational, as the B-Dienst remained purposely segregated from key
operational commanders and could only pass on raw, often irrelevant
information. At the same time, many of the activities of the B-Dienst
overlapped with those of the Forschungsamt in the Air Ministry.
BEATER, BRUNO (1914–1982). The earliest deputy minister of the
Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), Bruno Beater was born
in Berlin on 5 February 1914, the son of a worker. A member of
the Wehrmacht at the beginning of World War II, he deserted to
the Red Army in July 1944 and became active as a propagandist for
the Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland. With his return to Ger-
many in 1945 came several local police positions before his early
entry into the MfS as head of the underground section of the greater
BEATER, BRUNO • 25