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Q. Just before unification between East and West Germany last year, you took refuge in the Soviet Union. Why have you returned to Germany, where you may be held accountable for your actions as head of the East German foreign intelligence service?
A. I am not very happy with the situation. But this is the reality, and I have to live with it. I could have been given asylum in the Soviet Union -- I have friends there -- but I wanted to live in Germany. My parents, my brother and I $ left for 11 years during the Nazi era. I did not want to be an emigre for a second time.
Q. Your return was prompted by the failed Soviet coup in August, was it not?
A. My decision had nothing directly to do with the coup.
Q. Did you feel you would be in danger if you remained in Moscow?
A. No I didn't. The situation was anarchic, and nobody seemed to be in control. But I did not want to make myself a burden for the Soviet Union, for Russia or for the people who would turn out to be the leaders of this emerging country. I considered myself a guest. I did not want to cause any trouble.
Q. Doesn't it seem ironic to you that you are free on bail because of the liberal laws of a country you tried to undermine?
A. We will have to wait for the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court to find out if I and the other members of my service go free, and whether the court will impose severe sentences upon the people who worked for us within West Germany. Should this happen, it would be a heavy moral burden for me. I believe that the way they are treated should reflect the end of the cold war.
Q. What do you mean by "moral burden"?
A. I believe that many of our agents in the West were there because of a conviction that what we were doing was right, not because of money or blackmail. It would not be logical for the heads of the service to go free while those who believed in the Warsaw Pact and what we were doing went to prison. In the past, when agents were arrested, we tried to arrange exchanges for them, but suddenly this is no longer possible.
Q. If the shoe were on the other foot and we were all now living under East German law, what would have happened to West German agents who had infiltrated your service?
A. It is a paradox when the person who was head of the subdivision under me for counterintelligence is standing trial in Munich together with an agent who infiltrated the West German federal intelligence service. It is the job of an intelligence service to infiltrate the services of other countries. And if a person succeeds in this, he should not be condemned under laws in a new country for actions undertaken under laws that were valid in his country. I cannot accept the idea of good and bad, black and white, that East Germany was an illegal state and West Germany was a constitutional one. It is hard for me to say what would have happened if the situation had been reversed. Important / West German agents would not, I believe, have remained in that kind of united Germany.
Q. Did you aid Abu Nidal, Carlos, the Red Army Faction and other international terrorists?