Israel (Operation blaumeise), and an important intelligence-sharing
relationship developed with France. Spheres of influence were agreed
upon, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure assuming prime
responsibility for Latin America and Africa, and the BND taking the
lead role in Germanic and Slavic Europe.
Incidents such as the Rabta Affair and Plutonium Affair—as
well as the unmasking of double agents Gabrielle Gast and Alfred
Spuhler following German reunification—continued to darken the
public image of the BND. Moreover, throughout its history, various
chancellors came to view the organization somewhat askance and
never embraced it fully. One of its most acerbic detractors, Helmut
Schmidt, characterized it simply as a “band of dilettantes.” In a
move designed to bring the BND closer to political decision-making
and alter its relatively insular culture, the government of Gerhard
Schröder authorized in April 2003 the transfer of its headquarters
from Pullach to Berlin, to be completed over the next eight years.
See also BLUM, EBERHARD; HELLENBROICH, HERIBERT;
LANGEMANN, HANS; LANGKAU, WOLFGANG; STÖBER-
HAI; WIECK, HANS-GEORG; ZENTRALSTELLE FÜR DAS
CHIFFRIERWESEN.BUNKE, TAMARA (1937–1967). A spy closely associated with the
guerrilla revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Tamara Bunke was
born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 19 November 1937, the daugh-
ter of teachers who, as communists and Jews, had fled Nazi Germany
two years earlier. The family returned to Germany in 1952, settling
in Stalinstadt (now Eisenhüttenstadt), and Bunke went on to study
political science at Humboldt University in East Berlin. Her fluency
in German, Russian, Spanish, and English—coupled with her ardent
ideological convictions—led to her recruitment by the Ministerium
für Staatssicherheit (MfS). In 1960, she was assigned as the transla-
tor for Guevara, who had come to the German Democratic Republic
(GDR) as the head of a Cuban trade delegation. This personal encoun-
ter only served to deepen her enthusiasm for the Cuban Revolution,
and in May 1961, she made her first visit to the country. Although
her contact with the MfS appears to have ceased at this point—her
control officer, Günter Männel, defected to West Berlin one month
after her departure—Cuban intelligence chief Manuel Piñeiro was so
BUNKE, TAMARA • 59