17 Quotes by Markus Wolf

[W]henever we heard an unflattering portrait of our own side our first question to ourselves was not “Is this true?” but “What are they trying to hide about themselves by accusing us of this?” Once this mental defense system had been perfected, few criticisms could hit home.

The Intelligence Services of East and West have given Europe over fifty years of peace - the longest the Continent has ever known. They did so by keeping their leaders from being surprised.

Making use of human weaknesses in intelligence work is a logical matter. It keeps coming up, and of course you try to look at all the aspects that interest you in a human being.

At our college we were taught a universal approach to find out about a person: what problems the person has, what difficulties, what personal tendencies and likings.

I tried to instill a different motivation, to give them the security and the conviction that they were doing something good, something necessary, something useful - if you want to use a grandiose expression, that they were doing something for peace.

There were some tragic cases of women whose love was abused, who for a certain time procured important documents or information, not knowing who for, what service they worked for, and for a variety reasons got jailed, were tried and sentenced.

Most of the results of using technical bugging devices were of little importance for my service. It may have been different in counter-intelligence, where bugs in flats, etc., were used to obtain a lot of information about what counter-intelligence was interested in.

You can't do anything if a person says no. In such a case, there's nothing you can do - unlike the popular cliche that pressure is exerted, or that maybe an unwilling source is done away with.

I feel that I, and the people under my command, tried to use all the traditional methods of recruiting agents which were also used by other intelligence services; adopting also means like pressure, money, sex - but that did not characterize my service.