dismissal of his former BfV superior, Heribert Hellenbroich, only
recently appointed head of the Bundesnachrichtendienst. A further
result was a superficial damage assessment by the BfV (code name
titus), which failed to uncover the continuing betrayal of Klaus
Kuron, a subordinate of Tiedge.
Despite his disappointment not to have been debriefed by Markus
Wolf himself, Tiedge enjoyed a privileged new life, ranging from
private medical treatment and well-appointed accommodations to a
doctorate in law from Humboldt University in 1988 (his dissertation
was an extensive exposé of the BfV’s counterintelligence methods).
Fearing prosecution in a reunited Germany, he relocated to Moscow
with the assistance of the KGB in 1991 and assumed a different
identity. In 1998, another controversy arose with the publication of
his lengthy memoirs—Der Überläufer (The Defector)—as copies
were initially impounded by German authorities suspecting further
damaging revelations.TIPPELSKIRCH, KURT VON (1891–1957). The head of Fremde
Heere prior to World War II, Kurt von Tippelskirch was born in Berlin
on 9 October 1891, the son of a Prussian general. An officer in the elite
corps that guarded Emperor William II prior to 1914, he was severely
wounded at the first battle of the Marne and spent the remainder of
World War I in French captivity. Afterward, his knowledge of other
languages became a key factor in his appointment to Fremde Heere, at
that time a disguised unit known as T 3. With its expansion and divi-
sion into two branches in 1938—Fremde Heere West and Fremde
Heere Ost—the new army chief of staff, Franz Halder, designated
Tippelskirch as the overall supervisor (or Oberquartiermeister IV). His
tasks did not involve the evaluation of raw intelligence and formulation
of reports but consisted instead of coordinating the pieces into a unified
whole and validating the experts working under him. Briefings with
Halder took place on a regular basis.
Anxious to see combat, Tippelskirch was replaced by Gerhard
Matzky on 5 January 1941 and given command first of a battalion,
then a regiment, and finally an army in the offensive against the Soviet
Union. Although a plane crash in July 1944 caused his brief hospital-
ization, he returned to active duty during the final stages of the war.
Following his surrender to Allied forces, Tippelskirch was kept in
TIPPELSKIRCH, KURT VON • 463