West Germany: Of Suicide and Espionage

The darkroom assistant in Dancker's photo shop in Bonn could hardly believe his eyes. Among banal vacation snapshots on a strip of film taken from a Minox camera were nine pictures of NATO documents clearly marked "Top Secret" and "Secret." It took police and the West German Counter Espionage Service four days to identify the owner of the film. He proved to be Rear Admiral Hermann Ludke, formerly deputy chief (early 1966 to mid-1967) of the logistics section of SHAPE, NATO's European command, who was on the eve of his retirement from the service.

Ludke had held a CTS (Cosmic...

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