SIEWERT, EBERHARD (1934– ). The director of strategic intelli-
gence for the Verwaltung Aufklärung (VA), Eberhard Siewert was
born on 24 March 1934, the grandson of a well-known communist
resistance fighter during the Nazi period. After completing his stud-
ies at the University for Economics in Berlin-Karlshorst, he joined
the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA) in 1956 and was assigned to the
intelligence division. Following the appointment of Arthur Franke
as head of the Verwaltung für Koordinerung in 1959, responsibility
for devising new methods of infiltrating NVA officers into the Fed-
eral Republic of Germany fell to Siewert. Franke emphasized that
this new unit—Division 4—would be more concealed than any other
and that Siewert would answer only to him. In 1980, Siewert became
head of the strategic intelligence division of the VA, a position that
he held until the organization’s dissolution in 1990.
SILBER, JULES CRAWFORD (c. 1880–?). A self-proclaimed spy
during World War I, Jules Crawford Silber was born in Silesia. While
spending his childhood in South Africa, he acquired a command of
English, which enabled him to serve as a liaison for the British with
Boer prisoners captured during the Boer War. Despite his residency
afterward in the United States, the outbreak of hostilities in 1914
prompted him to act as a spy for Germany in Great Britain. After first
contacting a German military attaché in the United States and then
obtaining a Canadian passport, Silber found a position with the MI5
postal censorship office in Edinburgh.
According to his 1932 book Die anderen Waffen (The Invisible
Weapons), he conveyed a wealth of critical information to German
authorities. His presumed clandestine activity undetected by the Brit-
ish, he left the position only when postal censorship was discontinued
in 1919. Yet there exist no records of Silber or traces of his work with
military intelligence in any of the relevant German archives. Only a
letter of commendation from the director of MI5 postal censorship,
Edward Gleichen, confirms that a certain J. C. Silber worked as an
assistant censor during the war.
SINGER, JAKOB EDUARD (?–1848). A journalist employed as
an agent by the Mainzer Informationsbüro (MIB), Jakob Eduard
Singer not only wrote for numerous German newspapers but was
420 • SIEWERT, EBERHARD