Rainer Hildebrandt, a staunch anticommunist who had been impris-
oned by the Nazis on numerous occasions. The group attracted the
attention of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) of the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency, which, after a year of indirect funding,
began a direct subsidy of half of the KgU’s expenses. The OPC fur-
ther sought to professionalize the group’s activities and to encourage
more aggressive undertakings in the GDR. Ernst Tillich, a theologian
associated with the Confessing Church during the Third Reich and
the group’s business manager, took over the leadership in November- Hildebrandt, in protest, completely severed his ties.
The KgU’s sabotage campaign—blowing up railway bridges, des-
ecrating communist monuments, and damaging factory machinery—
lasted only a short time. In 1952, two members of the group—Johann
Burianek and Wolfgang Kaiser—were apprehended in the GDR
and received death sentences in separate show trials. Moreover, the
Ministerium für Staatssicherheit managed to recruit the KgU’s
security chief, Karl Siegmund, which led to mass arrests as well as
death sentences for members of the Weimar chapter led by Gerhard
Benkowitz. State security officials further maintained that a close
relationship existed with the Ostbüro der SPD, even though Tillich
had been expelled from the Sozialistische Partei Deutschlands after
becoming the leader of the KgU.
Of various destabilizing activities, few were more irritating to the
East Germans than the falsification of state documents, including
postage stamps depicting the country’s leader, Walter Ulbricht, with
a noose around his neck. Nevertheless, not only had enemy penetra-
tion of the KgU crippled its effectiveness, but it was the object of
increasing complaints in the West German and West Berlin press.
Critics maintained that its amateurish methods had ruined the lives of
many young East Germans drawn to its cause, just as the leadership
had squandered its role by acrimonious squabbling. Tillich submit-
ted his resignation in April 1958 and was replaced briefly by Adolf
Hellwig. Despite the wishes of the OPC, pressure from the West
German Ministry for All-German Affairs brought about the group’s
dissolution in March 1959.
KANT, HERMANN (1926– ). A popular East German author and an
informer for the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), Hermann
KANT, HERMANN • 219