BEREZINO. See SCHERHORN.
BERG, HERMANN VON (1933– ). An important undercover dip-
lomat of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and agent of the
Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA), Hermann von Berg was
born in Mupperg (Thuringia) on 29 March 1933. An early member
of the Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth), he joined the
Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands in 1950 and began his
studies at Karl Marx University in Leipzig four years later. From
1962 to 1966, while working simultaneously for the disinformation
department of the HVA (code name Günther), von Berg directed
the international liaison division of the GDR Press Office.
His engaging manner—combined with his reputation as a liberal
critic of the state—led to cordial relations with the journalistic es-
tablishment of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) while also
allowing him to serve as a secret channel in the top-level negotiations
between the two Germanys. Although von Berg’s instructions were
merely to listen and not to advance any positions, the information
that he delivered was highly prized by the HVA, and he received a
state award in 1971 and an economics professorship at Humboldt
University the following year. However, he was unwilling to secure
any recruits from his West German contacts. In January 1978, the
manifesto of a “League of Democratic Communists” published in
Der Spiegel was traced to von Berg, who underwent a lengthy inter-
rogation by the Stasi and became the object of an especially compre-
hensive investigative procedure known as an Operativer Vorgang
(code name Tal). Afterward, he submitted an emigration request,
which was approved in May 1986 following the intervention of Willy
Brandt. Von Berg resumed his teaching at the University of Würz-
burg and then returned to Humboldt University in 1992.
BERGER, HELGE (1941– ). A secretary in the West German Foreign
Office and an agent of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA),
Helge Berger was trained as a multilinguist in Paris. Hardly had she
assumed her first position than one of the Romeo spies (pseudonym
Peter Krause) recruited her in 1966 by posing as a British MI6 of-
ficer in a falsche Flagge (false flag) operation. For the next 10 years,
her various postings, which included Warsaw and Paris in addition
BERGER, HELGE • 29