32 Facts About Markus Wolf

Markus Wolf was the Stasi's number two for 34 years, which spanned most of the Cold War.

Markus Wolf is often regarded as one of the best-known spymasters during the Cold War.

Markus Wolf's father was the writer, communist activist and physician Friedrich Wolf and his mother was the nursery teacher Else Wolf.

Markus Wolf had one brother, the film director Konrad Wolf.

Markus Wolf's father was a member of the Communist Party of Germany, and after the anti-communist and anti-Semitic Nazi Party gained power in 1933, Wolf emigrated to Moscow with his father, via Switzerland and France, because of their communist convictions and because Wolf's father was Jewish.

Markus Wolf was a citizen of Germany, the Soviet Union and, later, East Germany.

Markus Wolf worked as a newsreader for German People's Radio after the dissolution of the Comintern, from 1943 until 1945.

Markus Wolf was among those journalists who observed the entire Nuremberg trials against the principal Nazi leaders.

Between 1949 and 1951 Markus Wolf worked at the East German embassy in the Soviet Union.

In December 1952, at the age of 29, Markus Wolf was among the founding members of the foreign intelligence service within the Ministry for State Security.

For most of his career in the HVA, Markus Wolf was known as "the man without a face" due to his elusiveness.

Until 1986, Markus Wolf was responsible for Department III which allegedly supported terrorism in what the GDR considered the non-socialist economic area, which were countries that were not a member of Comecon, especially in the Arab world and had all information about terrorism sent directly to him.

Markus Wolf's Stasi trained the security brigade of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in counterintelligence and briefed PLO trainees about US intelligence services and protected terrorists from countries allied with the GDR from arrest through the Stasi's monitoring of western intelligence services.

Markus Wolf's Stasi provided direct training to intelligence services from Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, South Yemen and Ethiopia.

Markus Wolf retired in 1986 with the rank of Generaloberst, being succeeded by Werner Grossmann as head of the East German foreign intelligence service.

Markus Wolf continued the work of his late brother Konrad in writing the story of their upbringing in Moscow in the 1930s.

Markus Wolf spoke at the November 1989 Alexanderplatz demonstration, where he was both booed and applauded by a highly divided crowd during his speech.

In September 1990, shortly before German reunification, Markus Wolf fled the country, and sought political asylum in Russia and Austria.

Markus Wolf claimed to have refused an offer of a large amount of money, a new identity with plastic surgery to change his features, and a home in California from the Central Intelligence Agency to defect to the United States.

Markus Wolf was additionally sentenced to three days' imprisonment for refusing to testify against Paul Gerhard Flamig when the former West German politician was accused in 1993 of atomic espionage.

Markus Wolf said that Flamig was not the agent that he had mentioned in his memoirs.

Markus Wolf died in his sleep at his Berlin home on 9 November 2006.

Markus Wolf was cremated and buried in his brother's grave in the Pergolenweg Ehrengrab section of Berlin's Friedrichsfelde Cemetery.

In 2011, the State Social Court of Berlin-Brandenburg ruled that the widow Andrea Markus Wolf was not entitled to a "compensation pension" that her husband had been stripped of as a "fighter against fascism".

Le Carre has stated that it is "sheer nonsense" to claim that Markus Wolf was the inspiration for the character Fiedler in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

Markus Wolf added that he considered Wolf to be the moral equivalent of Albert Speer.

Markus Wolf maintained that a character's code name Wolf in an early draft of the book was a coincidence and that the name came from the brand of his lawn mower.

Markus Wolf renamed the character after being told that there was an actual Wolf in East German intelligence.

Conversely, Markus Wolf stated that The Spy Who Came In From the Cold was the only book he read for a period in the early 1960s, and was surprised how accurately it presented the reality within the East German security services.

Markus Wolf wondered if le Carre had had special information about the situation within the Ministry of State Security.

Markus Wolf appears as a character in Frederick Forsyth's novel The Deceiver.

Markus Wolf is the director of the Friedrich Wolf Memorial in Lehnitz.