Gerhard Schröder served as a Federal Chancellor between 1998 and 2005. During his early years as a member of parliament he met with East German leader Erich Honecker in East-Berlin (1985).
Shortly after Schröder had lost the German federal elections in 2005, he accepted a director's post at Gazprom, Russia's top provider of Siberian natural gas. He is connected with the disputed "Nord Stream 2" gas pipeline which he promoted from the beginning of the project. Schröder became as well a close friend to President Putin and, together with his then-wife, adopted two Russian children. His former social-democratic friends turned their backs on him because he was already known as " the comrade of shareholders " (German: "Der Genosse der Bosse").
Both, Schröder and Putin could already have met between 1985 and 1990 in Germany, at the time Putin served as a KGB and liaison officer to the East German state security. His task being related to "foreign intelligence outside East-Germany" as he told journalists on request, he could have been expected to maintain frequent contact with Russian headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst and with the Ministry of State Security in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen for which he owned a special identity card, even though he was officially stationed in Dresden. Visits to Westberlin, in the frame of interallied regulations or with a diplomatic passport, should have been easy to manage for him.
As to Vladimir Putin, it was during the last years of the East-German Republic that I heard his name for the first time on one of those trains which connected Westberlin with the Federal Republic. Between both frontier stations, such trains passed without further stop in the so-called German Democratic Republic. They were reserved for Western transit passengers and surveyed by East German state security ("Stasi"). On each train a group of three East German agents could be found, one of them usually being a middle-aged woman with a conspicuous and impudent appearance that she produced to get the attention of interesting passengers who should hold her for a shameless bitch, easy to approach. According to what I heard, she was responsible for some arrests and punishment of credulous but rather harmless people. In the 1980ies I happened to take the transit connection frequently. So I came to know what people I was travelling with. Once, while I was sitting in the dining car, they were sitting behind my back and had their lunch-break. Their conversation became more private and turned around a party the woman had attended. "Did you really get an invitation for that ?" "Yes I did, and there was someone pouring his vodka discreetly into a flower pot." Muffled laughter. "That was Putin." "Hello, if there is somebody such loyal to the party line." Louder laughter.
At the very moment I didn't get the meaning of that performance, but much later I understood. It was the time of General Secretary Gorbatchev's campaign against alcoholism in the Soviet Union (1985-88) which had led to considerable economic losses. Therefore, a Russian liaison officer and special guest at that Stasi party had to find a way to keep the political line without openly insulting his German colleagues. He might even have suspected the treacherous aspect of these lackeys.
Long after the German reunification, somebody else retold the same story and its background independently on the internet. So I decided to accept this as a confirmation. As to me, I never spoke to anybody about my experience up to now. And, by the way, Vladimir Putin wouldn't have enjoyed such incredible career, if he hadn't proven his unshaking loyalty towards his former masters, Gorbatchev and Boris Jelzin.
where he describes the character of his work.
Accepting the fact that Vladimir Putin appeared in Dresden in 1985 and became an important figure in the foreign intelligence business targeting the "main enemy" (which was the West), we can as well imagine that he wasn't entirely new in his business. Starting as a major and entitled with special privileges (access to Stasi facilities, German car plate) and with a certain knowledge of the German language, one might suppose that he had already acquired some professional experience in the spy business. From there, it should not be excluded that he had already completed this or that job to the satisfaction of his superiors. I remember two western press reports referring to the recruitment of students who had almost finished their formation in the late 1970ies or early 1980ies. Unless most spy activity of those years in the Federal Republic and Westberlin, this was specifically assigned to KGB. As to the reported cases, they should not have been too successful, but who knows about those other guys deliberately giving a hand in the establishing of global peace and socialism with a little well-paid post in it for themselves.
Much of the kind was happening in those years, sometimes directly under the eyes of uninvolved witnesses who happened to be on the spot at the wrong moment, or who got to know some shady figure who was not what he tried to impersonate. From there, I came to think that western counter-intelligence knew more than expected, even though they kept silent for their own reasons.
