After the collapse of the GDR, the soccer team adopted the name
FC Berlin to minimize its widely known past Stasi affiliation, but
in 1999 its earlier name was restored. Not only did the quality of its
players drop precipitously in the immediate post-reunification period,
but the team also attracted a large following of hooligans and neo-
Nazis. See also EIGENDORF, LUTZ.SPUHLER, ALFRED (1940– ). An officer of the Bundesnachrich-
tendienst (BND) who spied for the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung
(HVA), Alfred Spuhler had been a soldier in the West German
Bundeswehr since 1958 before an accident during a maneuver re-
sulted in the loss of his left eye. Transferring in October 1968 to a
BND cover organization, the Amt für Militärkunde (Office of Military
Information), he gained a proficiency in military intelligence and tele-
communications. His dissatisfaction over West German rearmament
and the seemingly exaggerated depiction of the Soviet threat caused
him to contact members of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands,
who helped arrange a meeting in fall 1971 with the HVA in East
Berlin. By the following spring, having recruited his older brother
Ludwig, a technician at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in
Garching (Bavaria), Spuhler signed a formal agreement.
The division of labor between the two brothers (code names pe-
ter and florian) allowed not only for the collection of voluminous
information—sometimes totaling 400 pages a week—but also for
a rapid delivery time. A new position in subject area 12 AB of the
BND gave the younger Spuhler (BND code name Pergau) access to
the computer database of information regarding all informants active
in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). As a result, the identity
of some 300 West German agents became known to the HVA. Not
surprisingly, the GDR bestowed numerous awards on both brothers.
Following their arrest on 29 November 1989, a Munich court sen-
tenced Alfred Spuhler to a 10-year prison term and the repayment of
60,000 DM earned as an agent. According to the judge, his actions
had rendered the BND “transparent,” thereby allowing it to become
effectively an “instrument of the enemy.” His brother received a
sentence of five and a half years, while their HVA control officer,
Günter Böttger, walked away with a suspended 14-month sentence.
On 16 December 1994, Alfred Spuhler was released on probation.
432 • SPUHLER, ALFRED