32 Facts About Gabriele Gast

Gabriele Gast was born on 2 March 1943 and is a former double agent and East German spy.

In 1973, Gast responded to a newspaper job advertisement purportedly placed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Background vetting undertaken by the BND had failed to identify that since 1968 Gabriele Gast had been on the books of the East German HVA, the branch of the East German Ministry for State Security concerned with "foreign" intelligence.

Gabriele Gast refused to accept payment and reportedly engaged in espionage for "love".

Gabriele Gast was born in Remscheid during the Second World War, approximately three months before most of the town was destroyed in a firestorm caused by aerial bombing.

Gabriele Gast's father, who died while she was very young, was a driving instructor.

Gabriele Gast's chosen topic focused on the role of women in the German Democratic Republic.

Gabriele Gast's dissertation was submitted and her doctorate was received in 1972.

Sources are inconsistent regarding the sequence of events as to how and when Gabriele Gast met Karl-Heinz Schneider, the man she came to know as Karl-Heinz Schmidt.

Gabriele Gast appears to have met him first in Karl-Marx-Stadt, where she had travelled to interview members of the Democratic Women's League of Germany.

Gabriele Gast, as she testified many years later, had been planning to stay in Karl-Marx-Stadt that afternoon, presumably to write up notes of her meetings with the DFD ladies, but on learning that there was an afternoon trip to Dresden in the offing, she asked if she might come along.

Gabriele Gast liked him, although after sharing a glass of wine, it seems they went to their separate hotel rooms.

Gabriele Gast was "tactful, charming, a good dancer, and jovial".

Gabriele Gast was a highly trained MfS agent: his task was to seduce women who might be persuaded to work for his employers.

Gabriele Gast conducted more interviews, visited libraries, and undertook further research in the region.

Gabriele Gast was given a Stasi code name, "Gisela", which came with a false passport and a new handbag, incorporating a well concealed secret compartment.

Gabriele Gast's emotionally charged reaction in court suggested that Gast would have loved to have done just that.

Gabriele Gast achieved steady promotion through surveying and analysing all the information that arrived in the department concerning Eastern Europe on behalf of her employers in both western and eastern intelligence.

Gabriele Gast later told a court that around 1980 she became convinced that she would never marry and never have children of her own.

Gabriele Gast decided to take into her own home her sister's five year old adopted child, in order to spare him from having to grow up in an orphanage.

Gabriele Gast was earning well, and was able to buy a small house near Munich in which she could look after her elder sister's child.

In January 1980, while on holiday with "Schmidt" in Innsbruck, Gabriele Gast told her lover about her plans to take on care of her sister's child and her intention, accordingly, to step back from her work for the HVA.

Gabriele Gast encouraged her to understand the extent to which her activities supported east-west detente.

Gabriele Gast had responsibility for reports sent to the Chancellor's office, the Foreign Ministry and the Defence Ministry.

Gabriele Gast was able to share the western intelligence services' analysis of the summit meeting between Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev with her eastern employers.

Gabriele Gast later denied accusations that he had been paid for the information.

Gabriele Gast was arrested as she reached the border crossing.

Gabriele Gast served most of her sentence between 1990 and 1994 in Munich's Stadelheim Prison and Aichach penitentiary.

Gabriele Gast was one of the first of the former East German spies to be sentenced after 1990, and the sentence she received was one of the harshest.

Gabriele Gast combined the resulting discussions and her own experiences into a volume entitled "Kundschafterin des Friedens", which was published in 1999.

The book having been published, Gabriele Gast moved on relatively quickly to the next chapter in her life, taking a job with an engineering firm.

Gabriele Gast serves as deputy chair of the "Kundschafter des Friedens fordern Recht" initiative group.