agent and a control officer (or Führungsoffizier). Elaborate pre-
cautionary steps are mandatory—signals, passwords, and circuitous
travel routes—and may even include a preliminary Vortreff. During
the interwar period, Treff became the international term employed by
members of the Soviet intelligence apparatus.TRENNUNGSGEBOT. A restriction designed to prevent the institu-
tional fusion of intelligence and police functions in the Federal Republic
of Germany, the Trennungsgebot (separation order) originated in 1949
at the insistence of the three Western allies and members of the Parlia-
mentary Council who feared the emergence of a second Gestapo. While
this rule remained embodied in the revised legislation of 1972 and 1990
concerning the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), there have
been numerous instances of explicit collaboration. To develop common
antiterrorist strategies, for example, the joint Koordinierungsgruppe
Internationaler Terrorismus that was created on 21 September 2001
included representatives from the BfV, the Bundesnachrichtendienst,
the Militärischer Abschirmdienst, and several law enforcement agen-
cies. In 2002, new legislation permitted an expanded exchange of infor-
mation regarding the monitoring of asylum seekers.
TROSSIN, JULIUS (1896–1941). An agent for Nazi Germany and the
Soviet Union, Julius Trossin was a member of the Kommunistische
Partei Deutschlands who served as a courier for the GRU (Soviet mili-
tary intelligence) between Hamburg and the United States as well as
France and the Baltic states. After his arrest by the Gestapo on 6 July
1933, he agreed to act as a double agent in the Soviet Union, where the
NKVD (Soviet People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) uncovered
his true identity and imprisoned him. In fall 1941, invading German
forces killed Trossin along with 157 other inmates of the prison.
– U –
ÜBERLÄUFER. Known in English as a defector, an Überläufer
refers to an intelligence professional who physically leaves his or
her own service and reveals information to a foreign one. A major
coup for the British Secret Intelligence Service during World War II
ÜBERLÄUFER • 467