Siegfried Beer THE “SPY” KARL ERWIN LICHTENECKER - acipss
Siegfried Beer THE “SPY” KARL ERWIN LICHTENECKER - acipss
Siegfried Beer THE “SPY” KARL ERWIN LICHTENECKER - acipss
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JIPSS VOL.4, NR.1/2010, 128-139<br />
<strong>Siegfried</strong> <strong>Beer</strong><br />
<strong>THE</strong> <strong>“SPY”</strong> <strong>KARL</strong> <strong>ERWIN</strong> <strong>LICHTENECKER</strong>: VICTIM OR<br />
PERPETRATOR? A TALE OF AMBIVALENCE<br />
Zusammenfassung:<br />
128<br />
<strong>Siegfried</strong> <strong>Beer</strong>,<br />
Mag. et Dr. phil., born 1948 in Scheibbs, Lower<br />
Austria, is professor for late modern and<br />
contemporary history at the University of Graz.<br />
He is also Director of the Botstiber Institute for<br />
Austrian-American Studies.<br />
Contact: siegfried.beer@uni-graz.at<br />
DER „SPION“ <strong>KARL</strong> <strong>ERWIN</strong> <strong>LICHTENECKER</strong>: OPFER ODER TÄTER? EINE<br />
AMBIVALENTE GESCHICHTE<br />
In der Nacht vom 25. zum 26. Februar 1971 wurde der Mitarbeiter des Bundespressedienstes im<br />
Bundeskanzleramt, Dr. Karl Erwin Lichtenecker, von der österreichischen Staatspolizei verhaftet. Mitte<br />
September 1971 wurde ihm der Prozess gemacht, bei dem er zu zehn Monaten Kerker wegen Spionage<br />
nach dem Staatsschutzgesetz von 1936 und wegen eines Verstoßes gegen das Waffengesetz aus dem Jahr<br />
1967 rechtskräftig verurteilt wurde. Er hatte über den tschechoslowakischen Kulturattaché in Wien, der<br />
in Wirklichkeit ein Geheimdienstmann war, dem militärischen Auslandsgeheimdienst der CSSR Berichte<br />
über politische, wirtschaftliche und internationale Fragen der österreichischen Innen- bzw. Außenpolitik<br />
verschafft und soll dafür nicht unbeträchtliche Summen Belohnung bekommen haben.<br />
Der Artikel fußt einerseits auf mehreren Interviews mit Lichtenecker sowie auf dem Gerichtsurteil vom<br />
15. September 1971, und andererseits auf den nun in Prag zugänglichen Akten des tschechoslowakischen<br />
Auslandsgeheimdienstes zum Agenten „Atasé“. Daraus ergibt sich ein höchst ambivalentes Bild der<br />
jeweiligen Wahrnehmung: des Angeklagten, der zumindest teilgeständig war; des österreichischen<br />
Schöffengerichts, das zu einem eindeutigen Schuldspruch kam; und des ausländischen Geheimdienstes, mit<br />
dem Lichtenecker zusammenarbeitete. Dieses Bild dürfte für das Spionagegeschäft dieser Zeit insgesamt<br />
nicht untypisch sein.<br />
How can we recognise a real spy? Who is or becomes<br />
a traitor to his or her fatherland? How can we<br />
differentiate truth from fiction in a personal story<br />
of involvement with an official representative of a<br />
foreign state who hides his real professional background?<br />
How does openness to alleged ideological<br />
opponents, artistic and professional cooperation paired<br />
with good will and perhaps naiveté as well as with a<br />
well-meaning personal relationship, combine to end<br />
up in persecution and incarceration?<br />
The following is the fascinating tale of a Viennese<br />
journalist, translator and adult educator whose<br />
life changed dramatically on February 25/26, 1971<br />
when officers of the Austrian State Police (Stapo)<br />
appeared in his office and confronted him with the<br />
accusation of espionage for an unfriendly foreign<br />
country. This article is based on several short and<br />
lengthy interviews by the author and others with its<br />
protagonist in 2008 and 2009, 1 on legal documents<br />
produced at a two-day trial in an Austrian court in<br />
September 1971, and by documentary emphasis on<br />
archival materials recently released from the holdings<br />
of the Zpravodajská správa Generálního štábu (ZS/<br />
GŠ), 2 the military foreign intelligence organization<br />
of the Czechoslovak General Staff; its documents<br />
survived at Archiv bezpečnostních složek, the archi-
ves of the former Czechoslovak Security Forces, in<br />
Prague. Despite a plethora of seemingly objective<br />
facts and features it leaves ample room for subjective<br />
assessment as to personal loyalty, motives for<br />
legal persecution, validity of historical documents<br />
and, above all, moral judgement and evaluation of<br />
human behaviour. In a nutshell, it stands for the<br />
complexity and uncertainty of human involvement<br />
in the intelligence business. 3<br />
KEL at interview with author, on October 9, 2008 in his<br />
Viennese villa (Bildarchiv <strong>Siegfried</strong> <strong>Beer</strong>).<br />
SOME FACTS<br />
Karl Erwin Lichtenecker (henceforth KEL) was born<br />
in 1929 and has spent most of his life in his parents’,<br />
now his own, spacious villa in the Viennese district<br />
of Währing-Gersthof. He attended the Volksschule of<br />
the Marienbrüder and then the Deutsche Oberschule<br />
in the district, of which the infamous SS-daredevil<br />
Otto Skorzeny was also an alumnus. In early summer<br />
of 1944, to avoid being called to Hitler’s last<br />
reserves, he fled to the Northern Styrian mountain<br />
area of Planneralm and several months later joined<br />
a deserter friend called Roman, hiding out with the<br />
help of a courageous family in the village of Gars am<br />
Kamp in Lower Austria. He experienced the arrival<br />
of the Red Army in the area as “a real liberation” and<br />
even managed to utilize his rudimentary Russian by<br />
doing some translation work for the new occupiers.<br />
At the beginning of June 1945 he managed to journey<br />
to Vienna and was relieved to find out that both his<br />
parents and their villa had survived the war. At the<br />
age of 16 his life could finally begin.<br />
BEER, <strong>THE</strong> <strong>“SPY”</strong> <strong>KARL</strong> <strong>ERWIN</strong> <strong>LICHTENECKER</strong><br />
Now he needed some more schooling. He also<br />
found out that the American occupiers in his district<br />
were looking for translators, also adept at typewriting.<br />
Thus KEL for a while became one of three interpreters<br />
working for the US-Military Police Batallion in<br />
Währing; one of them was eventually to become a<br />
famous author: Johannes Mario Simmel. KEL also<br />
worked shortly for the US-Legation at Vienna’s<br />
Boltzmanngasse. While still inscribed at a private<br />
Maturaschule, he also enrolled<br />
as an extra-ordinary student at<br />
the University of Vienna, both at<br />
the Institute for Media Sciences<br />
(Zeitungswissenschaften), then<br />
headed by the former chief of the<br />
Bundespressedienst, the official<br />
press agency of the Austrian Federal<br />
Government since the early<br />
1920s, Eduard Ludwig, and at<br />
the Institute for Translation (Dolmetsch-Institut).<br />
Quite possibly<br />
due to his good connections to<br />
the American occupation element,<br />
KEL in 1950 managed to get accepted<br />
for a two-year scholarship<br />
at the School of Journalism of<br />
Ohio University in Athens, where he got his first of<br />
several academic degrees, a Bachelor of Science in<br />
Journalism. He also took courses in English Language<br />
and Literature and in Psychology. Upon his return<br />
to Vienna in 1952 he heard about and successfully<br />
applied for an open position in the Information Service<br />
of the Austrian Foreign Office, the Section IV of the<br />
Federal Chancellery (Bundeskanzleramt; BKA), then<br />
run by Friedrich Würthle. This work included doing<br />
official translations from German into English and<br />
vice versa; translating would become one of KEL’s<br />
major preoccupations in his life. 4 Thus he became<br />
involved in the translation of Foreign Minister Karl<br />
Gruber’s book Zwischen Befreiung und Freiheit:<br />
Der Sonderfall Österreich (Vienna 1953) which<br />
quite possibly accounts for the offer extended to him<br />
to accompany Gruber upon the former minister’s<br />
appointment as Austrian Ambassador to the United<br />
States in 1954. 5<br />
Before he left for the position of press attaché<br />
in Washington, DC, KEL managed to finish his<br />
Viennese doctorate in Media Sciences in 1954, under<br />
the tutelage of Eduard Ludwig. 6 He was to be<br />
in charge of Austrian press work in the American<br />
129
BEER, <strong>THE</strong> <strong>“SPY”</strong> <strong>KARL</strong> <strong>ERWIN</strong> <strong>LICHTENECKER</strong><br />
capital from 1955 to 1962, continuing the work of<br />
Hans Thalberg, who was later to become Austrian<br />
Ambassador to several countries, among them China. 7<br />
KEL remembers these Washington years as a very<br />
intense professional period in his life which also,<br />
regrettably to him, led to the breakdown of his first<br />
marriage to a Viennese woman, from whom he was<br />
divorced in 1961.<br />
Upon his return to Vienna in 1962 KEL joined the<br />
Bundespressedienst, Section III of the BKA, located<br />
on the roof floor of the Federal Chancellery and then<br />
directed by Friedrich Meznik. One of his “neighbours”<br />
there was Rudolf Kirchschläger, later to become<br />
Federal President of Austria, then chief of the Legal<br />
Service of the BKA. Among several tasks he was<br />
to chaperone and guide foreign journalists through<br />
the Austrian, mostly Viennese scenery. It was at this<br />
stage that KEL got into contact with PRO ARTIA<br />
(henceforth Artia), a foreign cultural trade company<br />
located in Prague, then in search of translators into<br />
English and quite likely run as a front firm by Czech<br />
intelligence. They also cooperated with western<br />
publishers like Paul Hamlyn and Spring Books in<br />
130<br />
London. Artia paid partly in western currencies, and<br />
partly in Czech Crowns. KEL naturally liked having<br />
an extra income, and Artia provided it. He assures<br />
his interviewers that his private business connections<br />
with various publishers were well-known to the chief<br />
of the Bundespressedienst. Nevertheless, he alleged<br />
scepticism and envy among his office colleagues.<br />
Eventually one of them started to search his desk<br />
and found incriminatory material, presumably used<br />
for spying.<br />
On February 25/26, 1971 KEL was confronted<br />
and soon apprehended by the Austrian Stapo and was<br />
not to return home until Christmas Day that year. He<br />
was given a two-day trial in mid-September of 1971<br />
and sentenced on two counts, espionage and illegal<br />
possession of a weapon, to a ten-month incarceration<br />
term. Arrest and trial of KEL were well-covered in<br />
the Austrian press. 8 Subsequently he was subjected<br />
to a disciplinary procedure and as a result removed<br />
from federal employment, with diminished pension<br />
rights. At the age of 43 he was forced to restructure<br />
his professional life. 9<br />
Front page of ZS/GŠ-evidence register<br />
on agent KEL.
KEL’s STORY<br />
At regular parties of his writing, translating and<br />
publishing friends like Erich Bertleff and Fritz Molden,<br />
our protagonist one day, presumably already<br />
in 1962, made the acquaintance of Miroslav Janků,<br />
the Cultural Attaché at the Czechoslovak Legation<br />
in Vienna. Little did he suspect that the attaché was<br />
in reality a Major in the Czechoslovak Foreign Military<br />
Intelligence Service. A seemingly “harmless”<br />
and warm personal friendship developed which was<br />
continued even when Janků was recalled to Prague<br />
in April 1964, allegedly to a new appointment in<br />
economic affairs. He knew of KEL’s expertise in<br />
economic matters and asked for information about<br />
Austrian economic policy, for example in connection<br />
with the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) and the<br />
European Economic Community (EEC). KEL was<br />
able to provide these, for he had studied Economics<br />
also and had regularly worked as interpreter<br />
at economically-oriented meetings in Washington,<br />
at the UN in New York City as well as in Vienna. 10<br />
Encoded message from KEL to Janku, perhaps postponing or calling off a meeting.<br />
JIPSS VOL.4, NR.1/2010<br />
He agreed to meet Janků secretly, usually in Prague,<br />
occasionally in Bratislava or even in Vienna. His trips<br />
to Prague were normally connected to translation<br />
work for Artia, but KEL was also able to build up<br />
connections to the Catholic underground in Prague,<br />
particularly to Dr. Břetislav Hodek, the renowned<br />
Czech translator of Shakespeare and revered author<br />
of an English-Czech dictionary. This contact was<br />
particularly in the interest of the archdiocese of<br />
Vienna for which KEL managed to smuggle various<br />
materials into Czechoslovakia; as employee of the<br />
Bundespressedienst he enjoyed the privilege of a<br />
passport with an official visa. One day Janků provided<br />
KEL with instructions for dead letter drops, one<br />
of them near the Ernst-Fuchs-Villa in Vienna’s 14th<br />
district. It was one of these instructions and drawings<br />
for depositing messages and/or information which<br />
was, presumably by chance, eventually found on<br />
KEL’s desk in the Federal Chancellery and would<br />
lead directly to his arraignment. He claims never to<br />
have used any of these dead letter drops.<br />
131
BEER, <strong>THE</strong> <strong>“SPY”</strong> <strong>KARL</strong> <strong>ERWIN</strong> <strong>LICHTENECKER</strong><br />
He also insists that he never divulged insider knowledge<br />
to his Czech friend for he never was a real<br />
government insider. As to money, he acknowledges<br />
that Janků occasionally provided him with Czech<br />
Crowns, just as he himself did with Austrian Schillings<br />
when Janků vacationed in Vienna, but he rejects the<br />
notion of direct payment in exchange for information,<br />
assuring the interviewers that he was not really in need<br />
of money. 11 When Janků one day asked for a blank<br />
Austrian passport, KEL professes to have become<br />
uneasy and in retrospect judges that this was the<br />
point at which he should have contacted the Stapo.<br />
He didn’t. Somehow he was still intrigued by secrecy<br />
and hazard. 12 He may intuitively have sensed he was<br />
in trouble, for in 1967 he took a one-year sabbatical<br />
from his work at the Bundespressedienst and moved<br />
to a Fulbright teaching position in English Literature<br />
and Economics at Buena Vista University in Storm<br />
Lake, IA and even had it extended to a second year.<br />
During this American interlude his agent status with<br />
ZS/GŠ was considered dormant.<br />
KEL returned to Austria in 1969, took up his<br />
translating connection to Prague, and was again<br />
contacted by Janků. Henceforth he tried to curtail<br />
his contacts to Janků; it was too late, for one day<br />
in February 1971 the Stapo came while his second<br />
wife Penny and their infant son were on vacation in<br />
the Austrian countryside. She would find out about<br />
the arrest of her husband through a radio newscast. 13<br />
132<br />
KEL spent three very uncomfortable days in custody<br />
and under interrogation by the Stapo. When they<br />
searched his villa they found no evidence of spying,<br />
but discovered an old pistol, a Frommer made in 1913<br />
and inherited from his father. KEL was not aware that<br />
he needed a gun license for it because the Weapon<br />
Law had been changed during his stay in the US;<br />
this was to incriminate him even further. Bail was<br />
set at an unaffordable level. He was imprisoned at<br />
the Landesgericht, the Viennese land court building.<br />
District attorney and judge prepared well for a trial<br />
which took two full days (September 14/15) and<br />
included two lay assessors. The verdict: 10 months<br />
of severe imprisonment (including one day per<br />
month fasting and hard bedding); it was based on two<br />
incriminating counts: espionage according to §17 of<br />
Federal Law (State Security Law), issued on July 11,<br />
1936, a carry-over from the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg<br />
era; 14 and illegal possession of a weapon according<br />
to §36, 1a of the Federal Weapon Law of 1967. The<br />
34-page written verdict specifically mentions that the<br />
accused did not display any “special recognition of<br />
unlawful behaviour.” 15 KEL still today feels that he<br />
was unfairly subjected to a law, then unknown to him<br />
and enacted in a non-democratic period of Austrian<br />
history, and that the prosecution authorities, lacking<br />
substantial incriminating evidence, had to resort to<br />
the discovery of a non-functioning pistol in order to<br />
justify his extended incarceration. 16<br />
KEL’s offer of potential topics for Janku.
<strong>THE</strong> COURT’s ASSESSMENT<br />
The defendant was deemed fully cooperative with<br />
police and court, but the evidence collected and<br />
held against him on the charge of espionage could<br />
be used only for a time period of less than four<br />
months: February 13, 1970 to June 7, 1970, while<br />
the incrimination on account of illegal possession of<br />
a weapon covered a longer period: from his return<br />
from the US in June 1969 to February 25, 1971,<br />
the day of his arraignment at the office. Ironically,<br />
these were the last two meetings with representatives<br />
of ZS/GŠ, even though there were secret plans<br />
for more, initiated from both sides, to which KEL<br />
never appeared.<br />
The court reconstructed KEL’s life story painstakingly<br />
but obviously had to limit the evidence against<br />
him to provable acts and events. Also, though knowing<br />
about them, it could not hold any of KEL’s exchange<br />
activities before 1967 against the defendant on account<br />
of crime limitation. It established that he was a gifted<br />
translator and writer, but a delinquent administrator<br />
who could not even submit his professional bills in<br />
time. The prosecution listed several reports handed<br />
over to Janků and knew about their topics: e.g. association<br />
negotiations of EFTA-countries like Austria with<br />
the EEC; Austrian trade relations with Eastern Bloc<br />
countries; conflicts within government and Austrian<br />
parties or on Austrian neutrality concepts, particularly<br />
vis-à-vis NATO, etc. The court accepted that KEL<br />
stopped all contact with Janků during his stay in the<br />
United States from 1967 to 1969. However, it was his<br />
renewed meeting in Prague on February 13, 1970,<br />
and the subsequent information provided to Janků,<br />
both written and orally, which became crucial for<br />
the indictment, particularly since the map detailing<br />
the dead letter drop, found on KEL’s desk, dated<br />
from this meeting. The prosecution also ascertained<br />
that at the presumed last meeting between KEL and<br />
Janků on June 7, 1970, a sum of money, allegedly<br />
between 500 and 1,200 Czech Crowns, was handed<br />
over, presumably as reimbursement for expenses.<br />
The court records also mention that KEL had received<br />
such payments already before 1967 and that he<br />
claimed to have acknowledged their receipt under<br />
a false name. However, it accepted that “he rejected<br />
regular reimbursement for information submitted as<br />
he was allegedly not in need of financial support”.<br />
The court judgment also includes a reference as to<br />
the circumstances leading to KEL’s arrest: “On Fe-<br />
JIPSS VOL.4, NR.1/2010<br />
bruary 24, 1971 Dr. Bauer, who shared the office with<br />
Dr. Lichtenecker, unintentionally brushed against a<br />
rather thick folder which then fell on the floor. […]<br />
Trying to put the scattered papers into some order<br />
again Dr. Bauer discovered the above-mentioned<br />
meeting plan […]. Dr. Bauer immediately alerted<br />
his superiors.”<br />
KEL’s boss at the Bundespressedienst, Dr. Friedrich<br />
Meznik, was called into the witness stand and<br />
acknowledged that KEL had no access to secret<br />
documents and thus could not be viewed as “Geheimnisträger”<br />
(“holder of secrets”). The court<br />
thus accepted, “that it cannot be proven that the<br />
defendant dangerously divulged an official secret<br />
as defined in § 102 c Penal Law”, but continued to<br />
argue: “However, the defendant, by his behaviour<br />
described above, clearly trespassed against § 17 State<br />
Security Law” and saw conclusively established,<br />
“that by forwarding economic and political information<br />
to Janků the accused diminished important<br />
interests of the Republic of Austria and thereby alone<br />
weakened Austria’s position”. In the court’s opinion<br />
the information provided to a foreign intelligence<br />
organization needed not be secret or even relevant<br />
for § 17 Staatsschutzgesetz to be rightfully applied,<br />
as “recognising that § 17 State Security Law applies<br />
would not necessitate proof that the information provided<br />
to an inimical intelligence organization must<br />
have resulted in concrete disadvantage for Austria”.<br />
In the court’s judgment KEL was therefore guilty<br />
of conspiracy with a foreign power and of severe<br />
breach of confidence as civil servant to the Republic<br />
of Austria. The verdict was unconditional. But was<br />
it really harsh?<br />
<strong>THE</strong> PRAGUE DOCUMENTS<br />
Perhaps understandably, KEL has professed not to be<br />
interested in any documents potentially to be found in<br />
the secret archives of Czechoslovakia’s Communist<br />
Intelligence Services. For him this mid-life episode<br />
became the turning point which led to a subjectively<br />
perceived actual improvement both of his personal<br />
and professional existence. He wanted to let sleeping<br />
demons lie. Yet undigested history has a way of returning,<br />
often in unpleasant manner. Austrians know<br />
a lot about that. The post-communist Governments<br />
of the Czech Republic have created and sustained an<br />
“Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes” and<br />
have substantially opened the archives of the former<br />
133
BEER, <strong>THE</strong> <strong>“SPY”</strong> <strong>KARL</strong> <strong>ERWIN</strong> <strong>LICHTENECKER</strong><br />
communist security forces. Their holdings have both<br />
fascinated and baffled researchers. Individual spy<br />
cases, foremost the one involving the former Mayor<br />
of Vienna, Helmut Zilk, have electrified but also<br />
substantially irritated even the Austrian media and<br />
public. With the help of a group of Austrian researchers<br />
the author has found out that a significant parcel<br />
broad treetop.”<br />
In this documentation Dr. Karl Erwin Lichtenecker<br />
is identified under the code-name “Atašé” as well as<br />
under the agent number “A316/71”. Miroslav Janků<br />
is listed as case officer; a certain Lieutenant-Colonel<br />
Štér as direct contact is also mentioned. KEL was<br />
considered a small but reliable agent who over the<br />
period of activities for Czechoslovakia from November<br />
1962 to June 1970 submitted well over 20<br />
reports on economic, diplomatic and political issues<br />
of interest to his Czech contacts. There is also the<br />
claim that he handed over microfilms and copies<br />
of Austrian documents. When the ZS/GŠ officers<br />
134<br />
of documentation (altogether more than 800 pages)<br />
also exists on KEL’s relationship with the foreign<br />
military intelligence branch of the Czechoslovak<br />
Security Forces, controlled by Prague’s Ministry of<br />
Defence. It can be located in Prague at the Archiv<br />
bezpečnostních složek, ZS/GŠ, under the record<br />
number 10475. 17<br />
Depiction of dead letter drop in outskirt district of Vienna; “wirefence, tree with sign to the right, in the background tree with<br />
found out about KEL’s arrest on February 26, 1971<br />
through Austrian Radio and Television reporting,<br />
they were greatly alarmed and assumed that the<br />
German Bundesnachrichtendienst in collaboration<br />
with Austria’s Stapo was behind it; it even spoke of<br />
a Jewish conspiracy.<br />
The small selection of documents, offered here<br />
in facsimile, appears to prove that KEL cooperated<br />
with his Czech friends quite willingly, even offering<br />
report topics on his own. The case file also includes<br />
several meeting plans, detailed dead letter drops<br />
and, most disturbingly, several lists of financial
transactions. One of the documents adds up the<br />
money paid to KEL as amounting to altogether over<br />
30,000 Austrian Schillings over the entire period of<br />
collaboration. The documents also prove the close<br />
personal relationship between KEL and case officer<br />
Janků, often couched in deciphered messages on<br />
meeting places and gifts, in one instance even to<br />
KEL’s mother. Even though KEL’s importance as<br />
agent for Czech interests was typically down-played<br />
upon his capture in February 1971, the documentation<br />
for the years before proves that he was considered<br />
a small agent but an expandable asset. There were<br />
even plans to blackmail him into heightened activity<br />
for Prague. The idea was simple: first assist him in<br />
the acquisition of valuables like a chandelier taken<br />
out of Czechoslovakia and then threaten him with<br />
smuggling charges. The record seems to prove that<br />
Agent activity and payment listing (XI/1964 to XI/1965) for KEL. The categories used are (left to<br />
right): date/activity/reports received/tasks given/payment.<br />
The financial records also provide insight into the<br />
broad range of KEL’s topics for his Czechoslovak<br />
masters. To name just a few, mentioned in the finan-<br />
JIPSS VOL.4, NR.1/2010<br />
Czech intelligence actually paid for that chandelier. 18<br />
It also shows that agent “Atašé” was only slowly<br />
built up. Over the first couple of years he was mainly<br />
hosted at Prague’s restaurants; then his rewards were<br />
raised by adding purchases of alcohol (for example<br />
to the order of 268 Austrian Schillings in May 1964)<br />
and by 1964/65 significant amounts of money were<br />
transferred, usually in connection with submitted<br />
reports, but occasionally in view of information actively<br />
demanded. For example, in March 1965 alone<br />
there were three meetings in Prague; at the last one<br />
on March 30 KEL was handed over 5,000 Austrian<br />
Schillings. At least so the records claim. That month<br />
a joint vacation in Yugoslavia was discussed; it seems<br />
really to have taken place in August 1965, apparently<br />
in the region of Pula.<br />
cial records, but here listed in random order: Austria<br />
and the other Neutrals; Austria’s attitude towards the<br />
German Democratic Republic; Austria’s nationalized<br />
135
BEER, <strong>THE</strong> <strong>“SPY”</strong> <strong>KARL</strong> <strong>ERWIN</strong> <strong>LICHTENECKER</strong><br />
industries; France in the EEC; interviews with Franz<br />
Olah and Josef Klaus; Federal Chancellor Klaus in<br />
Washington; Meeting of German Chancellor Erhard<br />
with French President De Gaulle; Austria’s relationship<br />
with Socialist states; Issues in connection with<br />
Austrian neutrality.<br />
The ZS/GŠ kept a meticulous record and accounting<br />
of its dealings with KEL. There is little reason<br />
to believe that these are not genuine or accurate.<br />
However, there are no signed receipts among the<br />
Atašé-documents. One of the most enlightening<br />
documents on the KEL-case is the damage analysis<br />
undertaken by ZS/GŠ already on March 1, 1971.<br />
It shows that in the course of “Normalisace”, the<br />
so-called normalization process after the failed<br />
“Counter-Revolution” of 1968, the Atašé-operation<br />
was actually to be de-activated by the end of 1970.<br />
Janků and practically all ZS/GŠ personnel who were<br />
involved with the KEL-case or knew about it, had at<br />
that point been eliminated from Czechoslovak military<br />
intelligence, and in most cases were dispelled from<br />
Communist Party membership. 19 This proves that there<br />
was a mutual scaling down of the Atašé-operation<br />
already by mid-1970. A last meeting was discussed<br />
for Christmas 1970 in Prague, but KEL never showed<br />
up. Instead he was arrested soon thereafter.<br />
ZS/GŠ looked for potential contributors to the<br />
unmasking of KEL. Among these, it was surmised,<br />
could have been emigrants like the TV-journalist Jiři<br />
Pelikán, his wife Jitka Frantová or the Slovak author<br />
Ladislav Mňačhko. Other sources of betrayal, it was<br />
assumed, could have been the former spy Adámek,<br />
an employee also of the Bundespressedienst, or the<br />
former Rozvedka-officer Ladislav Bittman, who<br />
had defected to the Americans in late August 1968<br />
and knew about the Atašé-operation. 20 It was even<br />
considered possible that former ZS/GŠ-officers,<br />
by then already demoted, may have had a hand in<br />
KEL’s discovery. In any case, the Viennese spy affair<br />
about KEL was seen as a political propaganda<br />
ploy, deliberately timed and staged by the Austrian<br />
Government or its secret services in pursuit of<br />
ulterior motives and goals. And even though KEL<br />
was again characterized as an agent of “little worth<br />
[...], though honest and responsible”, the damage<br />
assessment by the ZS/GŠ was to be brought to the<br />
attention of Gustav Husák, the General Secretary of<br />
the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In the final<br />
analysis, the leadership of ZS/GŠ was confident,<br />
that very little damage to Czech intelligence could<br />
136<br />
result from KEL’s capture and trial, as nothing much<br />
could be proven “against us, unless the agent himself<br />
divulges the information.”<br />
Excerpt from payment history March 1965, referring to<br />
a transfer of 5,000 Austrian Schillings and the purchase<br />
of a chandelier for 2,300 Czech Crowns by ZS/GŠ.<br />
WHO’s TRUTH?<br />
Interviewing KEL was informative, fascinating and<br />
for this intelligence historian pure pleasure. He comes<br />
across as a genuine, balanced and widely knowledgeable<br />
human being. Though his health may betray<br />
his age, his mind and wit do not. He readily admits<br />
to having made mistakes, having been naïve and<br />
guileless, and having been too kind and trustful to<br />
his Czech friends. And today he claims: “Schuldig<br />
fühle ich mich nicht” (“I do not feel guilty”). But is<br />
this the whole story? Is it possible that intelligence<br />
organizations create documentation full of deceit and<br />
swindle? Where did these microfilms come from?<br />
Who copied these documents? And what about all<br />
these elaborate financial records, in all their details<br />
and over the span of all these years? Could it really<br />
be that most of this money of not so insignificant size<br />
was taken by Czech intelligencers, case officers like<br />
Janků and Štér or other ZG/GŠ-employees? Why is<br />
financial memory so distorted? 21<br />
In contrast to Zilk, KEL had bad luck. 22 He had<br />
enemies who found him out and reported him to authorities.<br />
To this day he is convinced that a Socialist<br />
wanted his job at the Bundespressedienst and that even
the presiding trial judge was politically biased; and<br />
most importantly, that his reports to Janků were not<br />
of such quality as to have been of damage to Austrian<br />
national interest. Given the Cold War climate of the<br />
late 1960s and the frequent spy cases of this time<br />
period in Austria, 23 it is difficult to understand and<br />
to believe that KEL was merely a victim of human<br />
Front page of ZS/GŠ-evaluation of damage caused by the discovery of KEL.<br />
Judged by the entire available evidence KEL was<br />
quite unlucky about the manner and the timing of<br />
his arrest, but he was certainly not just a victim.<br />
His perpetration would be punishable by law also<br />
today, under legislation only slightly changed since<br />
1971. 25 With ten months in jail KEL paid dearly for<br />
JIPSS VOL.4, NR.1/2010<br />
good-naturedness and political naiveté. The court’s<br />
argument appears to have been on target: “If only on<br />
account of his high intelligence the defendant should<br />
have known that Janků was not a harmless civil<br />
servant, but the employee of an intelligence service,<br />
particularly in view of secret meeting plans and some<br />
of the questions which Janků put to him”. 24<br />
his mistake(s). He insists that at the office he was<br />
always considered an outsider and “an oddball” and<br />
that therefore he had enemies, not least because of<br />
his “eccentric” life style: translating books at the<br />
side, taking frequent trips abroad and owning sporty<br />
cars, like a Jaguar. Helmut Zilk, on the other hand,<br />
137
BEER, <strong>THE</strong> <strong>“SPY”</strong> <strong>KARL</strong> <strong>ERWIN</strong> <strong>LICHTENECKER</strong><br />
always had a knack for being “one of the boys” and<br />
apparently he did not have enemies. His deeds were<br />
similar to KEL’s. To his end the former Mayor of<br />
Vienna professed innocence. The Prague records<br />
tell a different story, for Zilk and KEL. Zilk could/<br />
should have had his time in jail also.<br />
For KEL it was surely bitter then that he lost his<br />
secure job, but he eventually found a calling, or several<br />
callings, for the rest of his remarkably full life<br />
since. His was a victory over self-inflicted adversity.<br />
Today he calls this episode “grotesque and bizarre”<br />
and is convinced that most people around him knew<br />
“that I was not a bad man”. Nevertheless, legitimate<br />
questions remain and keep this case open, but only for<br />
historians, for KEL has served his term. We can be<br />
confident that he will keep these academic concerns<br />
in proper perspective.<br />
ENDNOTES<br />
138<br />
KEL in 2008 (Bildarchiv <strong>Siegfried</strong> <strong>Beer</strong>).<br />
1 The author’s on October 9, 2008 and Bernd Ingrisch’s in the fall of 2009, in: Internationale Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie und<br />
Gruppendynamik in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 34, No. 2 (2009), 39-44.<br />
2 There is still remarkably little known about foreign Czechoslovak intelligence operations during the Communist period. One<br />
notable, archivally-based contribution is Igor Lukes, The Czechoslovak Special Services and Their American Adversary during the<br />
Cold War, in: Journal of Cold War Studies 9, No. 1 (2007), 3-28; for our context 13-15.<br />
3 This was well-expressed by a friend of the accused in a published response to his interrogation by the Stapo entitled “Mein Freund<br />
– der Spion”: “Seit diesem Gespräch vermeide ich allzu rasche Schlußfolgerungen, die in der Öffentlichkeit genußvoll breitgetreten<br />
werden.” In: Fridolin Koch, Der Präsident ißt keinen Fisch. 90 Anekdoten von Kaufleuten, Handelsdelegierten und Diplomaten<br />
(Graz-Vienna-Cologne 1993), 24f. For a general background to the intelligence struggle in mid-Cold War between Prague and<br />
Vienna cf. <strong>Siegfried</strong> <strong>Beer</strong>, Prag versus Wien. Ein nachbarschaftlicher Kampf von Geheim- und Nachrichtendiensten im Kalten<br />
Krieg, in: Stefan Karner, Michal Stehlik (eds.), Österreich. Tschechien. Geteilt – Getrennt – Vereint. Beitragsband und Katalog der<br />
Niederösterreichischen Landesausstellung 2009 (Schallaburg 2009), 122-127 and <strong>Siegfried</strong> <strong>Beer</strong>, Igor Lukes, Spy, Scholar, Artist.<br />
The Three Careers of Ladislav Bittman, in: Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies 2, No. 1 (2008), 113-134.<br />
4 KEL, for example, translated several of Frederic Morton’s novels into German.<br />
5 On Gruber’s mission to Washington cf. Karl Gruber, Ein politisches Leben. Österreichs Weg zwischen den Diktaturen (Vienna 1976),<br />
131-175.<br />
6 KEL’s dissertation was on the importance of the editorial content in American newspapers, examined in the context of the<br />
prohibition era. Karl Erwin Lichtenecker, Der Einfluß des“Editorial Content” in der amerikanischen Tagespresse auf die öffentliche<br />
Meinung in den Vereinigten Staaten (phil. Diss. Vienna 1954).<br />
7 Cf. Hans Thalberg, Von der Kunst, Österreicher zu sein. Erinnerungen und Tagebuchnotizen (Vienna 1984), 183-210.<br />
8 Comprehensive stories, for example, were carried in the Kurier (e.g. title story on February 26, 1971), in the Arbeiterzeitung, in<br />
the Presse and in the weekly Die Furche, both after KEL’s arrest in February and after his trial in September 1971. E.g., one headline<br />
ran: “ČSSR-Brief verriet Spion. Agent im Bundespressedienst hat bereits gestanden.” Cf. Arbeiterzeitung, 27 February 1971, 1.<br />
9 He worked, among other jobs, as editor for the Paul Zsolnay publishing firm, taught English and journalism at an Indian<br />
University, still translates books and wants to remain an adult educator for the rest of his life.<br />
10 In 1960 he took an M.A. in Economics from American University in Washington, DC while working as Austrian press attaché<br />
there.<br />
11 Interview tape of October 9, 2008; also: “Ein Angebot: hier Geld, hier Informationen gab es nie”, in: Ingrisch, 40 (see Endnote 1).<br />
12 As he explicitly admits in a Kurier-interview, 11 April 2009, 3.<br />
13 For a vivid depiction of these dramatic months from the angle of an unsuspecting spouse and mother cf. Alan Levy, Penny Slygh,<br />
in: The Gazette (Vienna), date unknown, 13-15 (copy, supplied by KEL, in possession of the author).<br />
14 It states: “Wer vorsätzlich zum Nachteil Österreichs einen geheimen Nachrichtendienst einrichtet oder betreibt oder einen<br />
solchen Nachrichtendienst auf welche Art immer unterstützt, wird […] mit strengem Arrest von sechs Monaten bis zu zwei Jahren<br />
bestraft.”<br />
15 The written trial verdict of the Landesgericht für Strafsachen Wien is numbered: 6aVr 1613/71; Hv 71/71; it was graciously<br />
provided to the author by KEL.<br />
16 As he recently confirmed, he felt and feels “vom Staat nicht gerecht behandelt, vom Schicksal schon” (“unjustly treated by the
JIPSS VOL.4, NR.1/2010<br />
state, but not by fate.”), in: Kurier, 11 April 2009, 3.<br />
17 Acknowledgment for help in finding, providing and linguistically deciphering some of the more than 800 pages of documentation<br />
of the “Atašé”-case is due Dalibor Hýsek (ORF-Vienna) and Stefan Benedik (University of Graz), but also to my former student<br />
Philipp Lesiak who is very knowledgably involved in a recently started research project undertaken by the Ludwig-Boltzmann-<br />
Institute for Research on War Consequences in Graz, in cooperation with the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and the<br />
Security Archive in Prague on the role of Czechoslovak intelligence organizations in Austria, 1948-1969.<br />
18 This took place in May 1965. The chandelier’s price was 2,300 Czech Crowns. Albeit, KEL’s memory differs from that version,<br />
claiming: “Ich habe mir meinen Luster in der ČSSR selbst gekauft. Dafür war er auch nicht so schön wie der vom Zilk.” Kurier,<br />
11 April 2009, 3.<br />
19 The document mentions the following “organs”: besides case officer Janků, also Burda, Drong, Nĕmĕc, Štér, Veselý, Škvor and Kučera.<br />
20 Rozvedka was the foreign intelligence service of the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior. Cf. Igor Lukes, <strong>Siegfried</strong> <strong>Beer</strong>,<br />
Ladislav Bittman: The Rozvedka Dossier on a Defector “who knew too much”, in: Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and<br />
Security Studies 3, No. 2 (2009), 127-134.<br />
21 As notably experienced by the author with Fritz Molden (OSS) and Helmut Zilk (Rozvedka).<br />
22 Cf. <strong>Siegfried</strong> <strong>Beer</strong>, “Helmut Zilk war glasklar ein Spion”, in: Die Presse, 27 March 2009, 3.<br />
23 During KEL’s sabbatical in the US, in October 1968, there was a spy scandal even in the Bundespressedienst where Josef<br />
Adámek was unmasked as long-time informant for Czechoslovak intelligence. Cf. Dieter Bacher, Harald Knoll, Österreich als<br />
Drehscheibe ausländischer Nachrichtendienste?, in: Stefan Karner et al. (eds.), Prager Frühling. Das internationale Krisenjahr<br />
1968. Beiträge (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna 2008), 1069.<br />
24 Needless to stress, after the trial KEL never heard from Janků again.<br />
25 Penal Law (StGB) § 256: Geheimer Nachrichtendienst zum Nachteil Österreichs, states: “Wer zum Nachteil der Republik<br />
Österreich einen geheimen Nachrichtendienst einrichtet oder betreibt oder einen solchen Nachrichtendienst wie immer unterstützt,<br />
ist mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu drei Jahren zu bestrafen.” Similarly, § 319 StGB states: “Wer im Inland für eine fremde Macht oder<br />
eine über- und zwischenstaatliche Einrichtung einen militärischen Nachrichtendienst einrichtet oder betreibt oder einen solchen<br />
Nachrichtendienst wie immer unterstützt, ist mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu zwei Jahren zu bestrafen.”<br />
APPENDIx: German translation of front page of ZS/GŠ-evaluation, March 1, 1971.<br />
STRENG GEHEIM!<br />
1. März 71<br />
Verhaftung Dr. Karl Erwin Lichtenecker NZS/GŠ [Zpravodajská správa Generálního štábu =<br />
Nachrichtendienst des Generalstabs] Oberstleutnant Lad[islav] Holub<br />
(Agent Atašé [= Attaché]) – Auswertung Generalmajor Brož Leutnant Kravar<br />
Heute, am 26. Februar 1971, traten in der Abendsendung des österreichischen Fernsehens der Chef<br />
der österreichischen Staatspolizei (STAPO) und der Leiter der Presseabteilung des österreichischen<br />
Außenministeriums mit einer kurzen Nachricht auf. [Sie sprachen] über die Verhaftung des Dr. Karl<br />
<strong>LICHTENECKER</strong>, Angestellter in der Presseabteilung des Regierungsvorsitzenden (Bundeskanzleramt)<br />
in Wien und bezeichneten ihn als Agenten des tschechoslowakischen Nachrichtendienstes.<br />
Am zweiten Tag brachten sämtliche Wiener Tageszeitungen die Nachricht von der Verhaftung. Durch<br />
alle [ziehen sich] Sensationsmeldungen, die keinerlei Konkretes über die eigentlichen Spionagetätigkeiten<br />
anführen. Sie stellen ihn als einen von vielen Spionen dar, aber mit minimaler Bedeutung,<br />
weil er – wie sie zeigen – keinen Zugang zu irgendwelchem geheimen Material hatte. Verhaftet<br />
wurde er am Mittwoch, 24.2.1971 auf Basis des Materials, das vermutlich auf seinem Bürotisch<br />
aufgefunden wurde. Dieses Material fanden seine Mitbeschäftigten vor und es handelte sich nach<br />
der einen Version um einen Brief aus der ČSSR und laut den anderen Nachrichten um ein Blatt<br />
Papier mit Aufzeichnungen.<br />
Die Zeitungen teilen mit, dass er durch die Vermittlung eines Diplomaten gelenkt wurde, der allerdings<br />
bereits nicht mehr in Wien wirkt.<br />
Es handelt sich wirklich um einen Agenten unseres Nachrichtendienstes, geführt unter dem Decknamen<br />
ATAŠÉ.<br />
1.) Persönliche Angaben des Verhafteten<br />
Dr. Karl LICHETECKER [sic!], geboren am 20.4.1929 in Wien, wohnhaft ebendort. Ab dem Jahr<br />
1962 Angestellter im Vorsitz der Regierung (Bundeskanzleramt) in Wien bis zum 15.8.1967, als er<br />
mit seiner Familie in die USA auswanderte. Von da an wirkte er bis zum August 1969 als außerordentlicher<br />
Professor für Literatur und Nationalökonomie in Buena [Vista] […]<br />
139