Tactical Shooting: Singing the Cold War Berlin Blues

[Icelander]

"It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, longstanding American concepts of `fair play' must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us."

-Gen. James Doolittle et al on the Panel of Consultants on Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, 18th of October 1954.

The setting is Berlin at the height of the Cold War. The city is a hotbed of intrigue that is nominally divided into four occupied sectors, the Soviet, British, French and American sectors. The far more important division, of course, is into East and West Berlin, the Free West and Communist East or the fascisti capitalistic stooges in the West and the People’s Democratic Republic in the East.

Berlin is the City of Spies, the City of Secrets and the City of Danger. The constant threat of warfare looms over the world as a whole as the superpowers circle each other warily. No one in Berlin has any illusions about the eventual fate of the city in the event of such a war, regardless of who won it. For the briefest of moments, it would be the front line of the War to End All Wars and then it would be no more. Perhaps it is because of this shared knowledge that the city is so vibrant and alive. Everyone spies on everyone and some say that one in every four citizens makes some extra money from the espionage trade. Freelancers and stringers look for the big secret that they can sell to rich Americans, West Germans spy on East Germans, East Germans spy on West Germans, NATO and the Soviets spy on their enemies and allies alike, East Germans spy on each other and the Israelis spy on literally everyone, but particularly those with connections to the ‘old’ Germany.

The war seems particularly close right now. It is the end of October in 1956 and Hungary has just declared itself a free and independent nation. Diplomats deliberate while Soviet tanks mass on the borders. There is war in the Middle East and the rumours say that NATO is engaged against a Soviet satellite state and the inevitable counterattack cannot be long in coming. Now, more than ever, it is vital that the intelligence organs of their respective governments can provide accurate and timely information on the intentions, capabilities and actions of the other side. After all, it could be used for targeting.

The KGB maintains a huge force of intelligence officers and support staff at the infamous building complex at Karlhorst. Their commander is the austere, honourable and disciplined Gen. Yevgeny Petrovich Pitovranov, a man who is apparently without flaws or weaknesses. He lives only to serve the Rodina. Before he accepted this post, he was head of the Counter-Intelligence Directorate of the MGB, the predecessor to the KGB.

In addition to the KGB, the Soviet military has a large intelligence organisation of its own, the GRU, also located at Karlshorst and it seems that every other military initiative or special program has its own intelligence section or purpose. This is Berlin; espionage is a way of life.

For some, it is not only a way of life, it is a calling. Some men are born to scheme in the ineffable wilderness of mirrors, where truth is not only illusionary, it is all-but irrelevant. One such man is Markus Wolf, an up and coming East German intelligence officer whom the Gen. Pitovranov trusts implicitly. Wolf runs the foreign intelligence directorate, HVA, of the budding East German Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, commonly known by its German abbreviation, the Stasi, in everything but name. As far as Gen. Pitovranov is concerned, if he continues to perform as brilliantly as he has in the past, he will soon have the title to go with his responsibilities. The cooperation between KGB and HVA is exemplary and fruitful, as Wolf proves able to penetrate the newly established West German government with consummate ease and provide invaluable information on NATO military preparedness.

As far as Gen. Pitovranov is considered, Generalmajor Karl Linke, the man in charge of the Verwaltung für Allgemeine Fagen or the senior officer of the Military Intelligence Service of the National People's Army, might just as well be replaced with a mule in uniform. This means that he can neither trust nor rely on this extensive organisation, which unfortunately is mostly entrusted with the counter-intelligence security of Germany.

The Stasi also has a whole three directorates with some form of counter-intelligence brief, but all of them have so far lacked the inspired leadership of a man like Markus Wolf. They are loyal, well-funded and extremely numerous, but their operations do not have that organisational flair that Wolf seems able to call upon at will. Until now, perhaps. A young officer in Administration 12, the directorate that shares joint responsibility with the army’s loyalty with the army’s own Military Intelligence Service, has come to the attention of Pitovranov’s staff through handling a series of routine inquiries with superb professionalism and occasional flashes of devilish cunning that allowed the Stasi to break a ring of low-ranking officers who had been co-opted by smugglers.

On the surface, this man, Emanuel Kline, was an unlikely candidate for a New Soviet Man, a genuine Socialist Hero. He was slight to the point of frailness, with a narrow and untrustworthy face marred by childhood pock-marks and a posture that contrived to make his uniform look ill-fitting and slovenly at all times. He was also an intellectual, with degrees in history and economics. Not only was he ill-favoured in looks and interests, but he had been one of the rare Germans who avoided military service in the war by fleeing to neutral Switzerland. To most soldiers of the Red Army, a hated fascisti soldier was at least an enemy to be feared. A deserter was a coward and weakling, less than a man.

Gen. Pitovnarov did not allow such unprofessional sentiments to colour his view of the young man’s skills. Besides, he happened to know that during the Great Patriotic War, the young man had been providing information to the NKGB, a precursor organisation to his own. A young man of moral courage, then, if not physical hardiness and a Marxist of enough fervour to choose ideology over nationality. In this country, for all that it might be the birthplace of Karl Marx, that was rare enough to be treasured. The General harboured no illusions about the ideological allegiance of most of his German ‘allies’. They had driven their tanks within sight of Moscow for their Vaterland and they had not forgotten this in ten years any more than the Rodina had. There was a reason, after all, why the Soviet liaison officers who effectively ran most of the Stasi had more of them watching each other than anything else.

The General decided that he would approve this young officer's request. He’ll allow Kline to select his own men, if he wishes, but he’ll make the determination for his KGB liaison himself. If Herr Kline lacks the intestinal fortitude for the work, he might benefit from the company of Starshiy Leytenant Oleg Ivanovich Kolchek. There was a man who could be trusted without reservation or second thoughts. Loyalty to the State and to the secret police apparatus that protected this state had been bred into his sturdy peasant bones. The son of a loyal Chekist who marked his own life as having truly begun when he had reverently taken a Yankee S&W 4.2-line revolver from the hand of his Chekist uncle and promised to wield it in defence of his country always. That gun now belonged to Starshiy Leytenant Kolchek and had been used by him to execute at least seven Enemies of the People that Gen. Pitovnarov knew about.

When the KGB was called the Sword and Shield of the Party, it was men like Kolchek that people thought about. Along with absolute loyalty, he’d also inherited bull-like strength, unthinking courage and the ability visit violence upon his fellow men without qualms or pangs of conscience. Every general dreams of commanding men who value victory over their own lives and who never flinch nor hesitate in doing what is necessary. The intelligent among them realise that those people who do lack all sense of self-preservation or conscience are usually seriously disturbed. Yet Kolchek is not disturbed. Perhaps the word he is looking for is empty. Yes, Kolchek is an empty vessel that has been filled with loyalty to his superiors.

Gen. Pitovnarov envied him his uncomprehending clarity, even while he understood that the only difference between Kolchek and the worst of the fascisti was the honour and rectitude of the men who gave him orders. That was the burden he must assume. Even when the path was painful and his doubts came in the night, he must be there to think and to feel on behalf of others who carried out orders, so that he might be sure that they were never turned against the People again. Perhaps, if the long-forgotten God of his childhood was good, Herr Kline might be another who could bear that burden with him.