SEDUCED BY SECRETS - Inside the Stasi’s Spy-Tech World - by KRISTIE MACRAKIS 2008

"Thoroughly researched, Seduced by Secrets gives us an important, unmatched, insider account of East German intelligence. Kristie Macrakis writes with a scholar's eye and novelist's skills, revealing secrets and spy tradecraft never meant for public disclosure." Pete Earley, best-selling author of Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War "This book on the vaunted GDR secret service provides a fascinating inside view of the Stasi's spying efforts as well as technologies. Written in an accessible style, it is nonetheless based on exhaustive research in the Stasi files and many oral interviews. The first part paints vivid pictures of some of the major spy cases of the Cold War. The second part, which will gladden the heart of any espionage aficionado, discusses spy technology from invisible ink to smell samples. The result is a remarkable and readable synthesis of the East German spying operations." Konrad Jarausch, Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "Easily the most detailed, painstaking research yet undertaken on the Stasi's techniques and secrets. Certainly the most absorbing analysis of an organization hitherto steeped in mystery." Nigel West, Director of Counterintelligence Studies, The Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Washington DC "Seduced by Secrets makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of how the Stasi did what it did..." -Daniel Johnson, Commentary "Drawing upon declassified documents seized from STASI files (it is now defunct) and interviews with former officers, Ms. Macrakis has produced a first-rate read...[This book] deserve[s] a five cloak-and-dagger rating. Good reading for the specialist and the layman alike." - Joseph C. Goulden, The Washington Times

Seduced by Secrets takes a radically different approach to the history of the
East GermanMinistry for State Security (MfS/Stasi) by bringing the story
into the realm of intelligence history and distancing itself from politically
charged commentary. By examining the interplay between secrecy and
technology at one of the most effective and feared spy agencies and secret
police in the world, we can also do what all spy agencies fear: reveal the
Stasi’s secret spy-tech methods and sources.
Despite the little-known fact that almost half of all its agents planted
in the West were stealing scientific and technical secrets and that more
than eight thousand staff members at headquarters worked on providing
James Bond–like technology to support espionage and security, the Stasi
is primarily associated with the omnipresent informer. The general public
already knows that husbands spied on wives and children on parents and
that East Germany was probably the most spied-upon country in world
history.
What the general public does not know is that technology was at the
heart of the KGB’s (Soviet Committee for State Security) and the Stasi’s
spying operations against the United States and the West. Whereas the
Soviet’s foreign intelligence operations have been extensively documented,
books on the Stasi continue to emphasize solely the internal repressive
arm, yet they too operated like the KGB abroad.
Not only did the MfS steal technology from abroad, they also created
some of the spy world’s most inventive technological gadgets at home.
These activities were two sides of the same coin. Nothing is more secret
than identities of agents, and the methods spy agencies use to obtain
and communicate secrets. It is precisely these secret techniques that have
fascinated the millions of readers of spy stories.Whether they are reading
Ian Fleming or John le Carr´ e, readers are mesmerized by the techniques unveiled: the subminiature spy cameras, secret writing, servicing of dead
letter drops, running agents, turning agents into double agents, honey
traps, surveillance, and a host of other elements of the secret spy world.
What readers often miss by the time the entertainment comes to an end
is the purpose the agent hero had in risking his life for the government.
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In John le Carr´ e’s great work of spy literature, The Spy Who Came in
from the Cold, the drama becomes a great game of spy-versus-spy. Even
though James Bond was often trying to keepWestern nuclear weapons or
code machines from the evil East, the effect the spy films and novels have
is to portray the dazzling techniques as ends in themselves.
With the end of East Germany came the dissolution of the Stasi and
access to, and preservation of, most of its top-secret files. This was an
opportunity to examine the extent to which the real spy world resembled
the fictionalized account. Even though we owe a great deal of thanks to
the dissidents and the citizens’ movement for preserving those files, they
did not read them as historians once they were available. Seventeen years
after the fall of the BerlinWall is the right time for historians to investigate
the Ministry for State Security’s secret operations at home and abroad in
the neglected but enormously important area of science and technology.
Ever since the industrial revolution, backward nations seeking to catch
up to and surpass their rivals have used industrial and military espionage
as a silent weapon. In the twentieth century the Soviet Union stunned the
West when they stole America’s atomic bomb secrets. During the Cold
War, the KGB and the East German equivalent, the Stasi, assaulted the
West with an army of secret agents targeting our companies and defense
contractors. Recent cases flooding newspapers about Chinese industrial
and defense spying against America document the persistence of this quest
and the need for historical perspective.
Recent books have begun to document theUnited States’ use of sophisti-
cated technical means like spy planes, satellites, and submarines to gather
intelligence during the Cold War. Technical intelligence is usually associ-
ated with the American style of espionage; the East Bloc’s style tended to
favor human spies. The East also incorporated technology into their tools
for spies but used it as a complementary, not solo, technique. Because
the West underestimated the East’s successful use of technology in inter-cepting and listening to radio messages, for example, this gave the East a
surprise weapon.
The Stasi had an effective collection outfit, but the ultimate success of
scientific-technical intelligence lies in its integration into the host country.
This is where the espionage faltered. It was not just the weak economy that led to failures; Seduced by Secrets shows that the Stasi became so
caught up in the great game of espionage that it lost sight of its initial
goals. Even when the goals were achieved, the daily activities of the spy
world – the running of agents, catching spies, tracking enemies of the
state, and making spy gadgets, to name just a few – led to the emergence
of an insular spy culturemore intent on securing its power than protecting
national security.