Stig Svante Eugen Bergling, later Stig Svante Eugen Sandberg and Stig Svante Eugen Sydholt, was a Swedish Security Service officer who spied for the Soviet Union.
65 Facts About Stig Bergling
1.
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Stig Bergling lived for several years in the Soviet Union, Hungary and Lebanon until, for health reasons, he voluntarily returned to Sweden in 1994.
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Stig Bergling continued to serve his sentence until 1997, when he was paroled.
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Stig Bergling died there on 24 January 2015, at 77 years old.
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Stig Bergling's father, who came from a wealthy home in Sala, was an engineer and worked with general insurance at an insurance company.
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Stig Bergling attended Carlssons skola, a private school in Ostermalm, Stockholm, and then attended Ostra Real.
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Stig Bergling became a reserve officer and advanced to the rank of lieutenant in the "Blocking Battalion Braviken" where Bergling was responsible for security matters.
8.
In 1971, Stig Bergling was on temporary leave from Sapo and began working at the Defence Staff's Security Department.
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Stig Bergling needed the information for his work at the Defence Staff, some times for long periods of time and it was impractical for him to return the original every day.
10.
Stig Bergling got permission from one of his superiors to obtain a copy of it.
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When Stig Bergling was later to return it, he became angry with one of his superiors, Bengt Wallroth who started arguing and criticizing him.
12.
Stig Bergling disliked the Defence Staff and Wallroth and instead of destroying the copy he kept it and put it in a safe deposit box at Erik Dahlbergsgatan in Stockholm.
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Alongside the work home in Sweden, Stig Bergling served several times in various UN battalions around the world.
14.
Stig Bergling was a reserve officer in the Swedish Coastal Artillery, and in 1968 he was stationed in Cyprus as a military police chief.
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Stig Bergling was in need of money and went to the Soviet Embassy and offered Nikiforov the copied binder with secret information.
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In November 1973, Stig Bergling switched duty tour in Lebanon with a Belgian major so he could go to Stockholm and retrieve the binder.
17.
Stig Bergling flew from Stockholm via Budapest to Beirut and on the 30 November 1973, he sold the copied binder with the documents to the Soviets.
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Stig Bergling stayed as an UNTSO observer another year in the Middle East and returned home in January 1975, and was then back at the Security Service and the so-called "Russian Division" where he previously worked.
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Back at Sapo, Bergling was instructed by the Soviets to investigate what the Soviet intelligence men did wrong.
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However, it was not in the Middle East where Stig Bergling was trained as a spy but in East Germany.
21.
In March 1976, Stig Bergling was placed at the surveillance division at Sapo, and then got a unique insight into the ongoing projects, which had the purpose of exposing the Soviet intelligence officers and to recruit its own Soviet informers.
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Stig Bergling soon became a suspect and Sapo began to follow him.
23.
In 1977, Stig Bergling applied for a new UN service and was deployed to Suez.
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Stig Bergling was in Jordan when he decided to fly back to Sweden.
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However, there were no flights to Sweden from Jordan, so Stig Bergling went to Israel instead.
26.
On 12 March 1979, Stig Bergling was arrested by the Israeli counterintelligence and security service Shin Bet at the passport control at Ben Gurion Airport after the Israelis had been informed by Sapo.
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The arrest of Stig Bergling occurred therefore independently by Israel, and the reason for this was that Shin Bet needed to find out if Stig Bergling had conducted espionage on Israeli interests during his time in the Middle East.
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Stig Bergling got half an hour to decide and chose the luxury hotel.
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All in all, Stig Bergling had earned 67,000 SEK on his spying.
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Stig Bergling was detained in custody in March 1979 and defended by the lawyer Ragnar Gottfarb.
31.
Stig Bergling said that he simply did not know where these documents were and that he would never had the time to copy the documents without being detected.
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Also, in his defence, Oleg Gordievsky reported to the West that Stig Bergling handed out the fortification code, but never said anything about the Supreme Commander's war planning documents.
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Letters to and from Stig Bergling were reviewed by Sapo and were kept.
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On 12 June 1980, Stig Bergling offered himself to be replaced by Raoul Wallenberg, but the Soviet Union did not respond.
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Stig Bergling was in solitary confinement for 39 months in Kumla Prison before he ended up in mental health care, first in Karsudden Mental Hospital in Katrineholm and then Vastervik Mental Hospital in Vastervik in 1982.
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Stig Bergling was at that time care assistant in the home care services in Spanga, divorced with four children.
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Stig Bergling informed that the National Prison and Probation Administration, in view of the government's rejection of pardon and the reasons for it, opposed easing of the regulations for Bergling.
38.
Stig Bergling had been planning the escape from prison for three years.
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The only surveillance Stig Bergling had was Sapo's surveillance team in a car in front of the house.
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Stig Bergling's wife went off to get to the third escape vehicle parked in Djursholm.
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Stig Bergling ran over Jarvafaltet towards Tensta and reached E18, where he found a vacant taxi.
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Stig Bergling ordered the taxi to Djursholms Osby and ran from there the last bit to Djursholm square.
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Stig Bergling met up, as planned, with his wife Elisabeth at the third escape vehicle, an Opel Ascona, which had been parked just 50 meters from where the previously convicted spy Stig Wennerstrom lived.
44.
The Government Offices were informed of Stig Bergling's escape during the afternoon of 6 October 1987, by a telephone message from Director General of the National Prison and Probation Administration to the Minister of Justice Sten Wickbom.
45.
On 8 October 1987, the Government decided to assign the Chancellor of Justice Hans Stark to the task of investigating the circumstances surrounding the conjugal visit Bergling had been granted, the security that had occurred and responsibilities associated with it and the responsible authorities' actions during the time of his dissenting.
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Wickbom had claimed that he had not been informed that Stig Bergling had been granted regular conjugal visits and that his escape was a result of a series of mix-ups between the police and the prison service.
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The information about Stig Bergling's conjugal visit was at the Department of Justice at the time of the escape, though he had not seen it.
48.
Again and again Stig Bergling has to show how Elisabeth's house looked like and how they could run away from Sapo.
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Stig Bergling received 500 rubles per month, which was more than most senior Soviet state and party officials earned.
50.
Stig Bergling first lived in Jumblatt's home in Moukhtara in the Chouf Mountains before he got his own house.
51.
In Lebanon, Stig Bergling got 5,000 dollars every six months, they lived rent free, got cars almost for free and they got pocket money from Jumblatt himself.
52.
On 2 August 1994, Stig Bergling called the Sapo from Cyprus.
53.
Stig Bergling was then ill with Parkinson's disease, his wife had cancer and longed for her children.
54.
When Stig Bergling said who he was, he was at first not believed.
55.
The day after the couple returned voluntarily to Sweden and Stig Bergling was arrested at Stockholm Arlanda Airport.
56.
Stig Bergling spent three years in prison until his release for health reasons on 17 July 1997.
57.
Stig Bergling received a blow over the ear, but no serious injuries.
58.
Stig Bergling did not get to the hospital in time, before she died on their wedding day.
59.
On 8 October 2003, Stig Bergling met for the first time before an audience Tore Forsberg, the former head of the Swedish counterintelligence, in a meeting in Akademiska Foreningen's premises in Lund.
60.
In 2008 Stig Bergling pronounced in media his support for the FRA law.
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Stig Bergling had an adult son which his ex-wife's new husband adopted.
62.
In March 2013 Stig Bergling was suspected to have shot a nurse in the face with an airsoft gun.
63.
Stig Bergling was buried on 7 May 2015 at Kungsholms Cemetery in Kungsholmen, Stockholm.
64.
Stig Bergling wasn't murdered or killed his wife, but later returned to Sweden to serve the remainder of his sentence for espionage.
65.
Stig Bergling felt that he was entitled to a dedicated copy of the book.