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How Soviet Pick-Up Artists Stole Government Secrets | Sexpionage | Real History | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: How Soviet Pick-Up Artists Stole Government Secrets | Sexpionage
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a group of middle-aged men ran the Cold
War for the east
their strategy included the standard
tools of Espionage but they were also
from the early 1960s until the collapse
of Communism in 1989 this group spent
their experiments helped create an army
of undercover agents who were dispatched
to the West
their task to seduce lonely West German
secretaries and persuade them to hand
they left behind them a trail of
abandoned and betrayed women who had no
idea their lovers were actually spies
it's also where actually is the best
years of my life I was 32 you know I
could have lived I could have had a life
known as Romeos they were experts in the
what problems do men have in deceiving women
women
not too many
you know it's you do it once or twice or
three times and then you are pretty cool
about the whole thing [Music]
a lot of people will think of just
infatuation or sexual attraction it was
all of that but it was much much more it
was an
eternal longing within me which I never
from 1977 until 1984 Gabrielle claim had
an affair with a man who she thought was
the love of her life
she was unaware that in reality he was
an East German spy mining her for West
German secrets [Music]
[Music]
Gabrielle passed on more secrets to the
east than any other agent in her position
would be a tour a smaller for a award
for his uh portrayal you know because he
was a fantastic actor really seriously
because he never made me doubt since for
the Romeos were trained to exploit what
different women dreamed of in a man
Margaret herker met her Romeo lover in 1968.
1968.
for 17 years she too unknowingly became
a key source for the east ER
I suppose his instructions were to humor
me to adapt to me to listen be attentive
and at the time it was important to have
the feeling there was someone there for
me I'd never heard that before
I'd never had anyone I could talk to
the Romeo program which entrapped
Margaret and Gabrielle was devised in
the early 1960s by the hva East
Germany's foreign intelligence service
from their headquarters in East Berlin
it was intended to be a key part of
these were the years of the Cold War
when Germany was divided into communist
its heart was the Berlin Wall which
divided the city in two
East and West were sworn enemies
representing rival ideologies and rival
military blocs
it was crucial for the hva to know what
our main goal was to infiltrate the key
power centers of the West NATO the
Secret Service the West German government
we thought about how to penetrate these
targets and we came up with the idea of
going for single secretaries who had
positions in important places [Music]
[Music]
it was the Romeo's job to seduce the
Western secretaries and mine them for secrets
secrets
the East Germans looked for very
specific qualities in the men who were
to be sent to the West
the typical Romeo was between 25 and 35
a good looking well educated
East Sherman he had good manners
study absolute politicians the first and
foremost they had to be politically
reliable what was the use of a
good-looking man if he couldn't be trusted
we were looking for faith in the Party
Loyalty willingness to join the struggle
so we valued political reliability Above
All Else [Music]
[Music]
strangely enough these secretaries often
fell in love with men who weren't always
that good looking
they had other qualities for example
they might be a father figure reliable
and serious
more important to these women was the
inner values of these men
who made them think
he was the kind of man who when he
walked into a room you think he's
important he's tall
Gerhart buyer was deemed to have these
qualities and was selected to be sent to
again my particular Talent was that I
really understood people I could really
engage with them and relate to their problems
the feeling that they were dealing with
a very extraordinary man foreign
to learn their trade the men selected as
Romeos were sent to belzig a secret
training camp outside Berlin
the syllabus was extensive Marxist
leninism Espionage and most importantly
rests on a firm grasp of psychology [Music]
[Music]
I learned a lot about applied psychology
and psychological manipulation
I studied human behavior very closely
through various different approaches
such as Freudian theories Orlando
Orlando
the Romeos were being sent to the west
to be promiscuous to seduce and deceive
but the East German regime was highly
moralistic there was no mention of sex
intelligence Chiefs like to pretend
women would be seduced by higher motives
we were all ideologically very indoctrinated
indoctrinated
the political motive for doing
intelligence work was always
depicted as the strongest the most reliable
reliable
uh the use of human weaknesses was in
generally played down
you didn't want to be seen as working
with sleazy characters
it was a contradiction the Romeos also
had to deal with it
we were told that morality was all important
important
the wife was highly valued in East
German Society you should never deceive
your wife
but these guys were told that they had
to go to the west and do the very opposite
this was a conflict that was always
they're training over most Romeos were
it was the home of government Ministries
and foreign embassies the key targets
for the East Germans
one is a relatively small town
full of Ministries and administration
the professionals so the politicians who
worked there they usually had their
family lives but they had a lot lots of
secretaries and we knew that upon was a
lonely place these women didn't have
anything to do in the evening and for a
Woman They had to find a partner it's
nearly impossible
they broke long hours they don't have a
lot of spare time and they are just not
enough possible partners
it was not only a difficult place to
meet men it was just no place at all to
meet men the competition was fierce I
mean if there was one man
a word of mouths you know before he even
arrived everybody oh there's somebody
coming who is not married because most
of them were married and and then they
were just 20 or more women waiting for
Gabrielle claim worked as a secretary at
the American Embassy in Bonn in the mid-1970s
mid-1970s
she had hoped to meet a diplomat to
marry but was Finding life in the
capital as a single woman difficult
he didn't get invited anywhere you
didn't you didn't fit in anywhere you
had to have this kind of husband or
Margaret herker had also moved to Bonn
in search of a new life in the late 1950s
1950s
she worked as a secretary to the
I suppose I was looking for Independence
to escape from the narrowness of my
parents home
I particularly wanted to get away from
my mother who had always kept us very
close do you
so it was against her will that I went
before
they were both just the sort of
vulnerable women working in useful
places the hva was looking for
a woman who had been neglected by life
after that then you know she was in the
early 30s lonely normally not too pretty
when they were too pretty that was it
was no Goods a little bit ugly not too
ugly because you know you had to enable
the Romeos were like vultures circling
the Romeos now planted themselves in
bonds cafes and waited for secretaries
to seduce
Margaret herker and Gabrielle claim were
about to meet the men who would change
the course of their lives [Music]
One Summer Afternoon Gabrielle claim a
secretary at the American Embassy in
Bonn was waiting to meet a gentleman
friend at a cafe on the banks of the
when I was sitting there waiting for
this friend I saw this man coming
towards me and he was so tall and blonde
I
thought that a man Nexus would be
actually the answer to all of my inner
dreams and I looked at him and he came
closer and closer and then he talked to
me and I thought well if ever in my life
and then he asked me out in his head
that we could go for dinner and he
wanted to spend the evening with me [Music]
he ordered a lot of wine and he talked
to me and I just remember the feeling I
had of
totally falling enough with him [Music]
the man who approached Gabrielle in the
cafe was a Romeo
his bosses in Berlin had intricately
planned this first meeting
they had been watching over two years to
see what type of Romeo would suit her best
the man she was supposed to be meeting
that day was also an hva agent she had
met a year earlier [Music]
[Music]
he had intentionally not turned up and
sent Romeo agent Frank dietzel to meet
they studied the psychology of the women exactly
exactly
this was very important for example she
doesn't have a husband what does she do
in her spare time that was researched in
great detail
the Romeo would then consider how to
make his first approach he played out
the situation in advance in his head
which story to use
story it was on stage it was pure theater
that day on the Rhine the hva had got it
it was not only that he was so
tremendously good looking that he was so
intelligent also he reminded me of my
Father which I never had and this is
something I had always waited for and
every kind of in a dream which I didn't
wasn't even aware of that I had those
dreams he answered to those dreams and
these weaknesses were all registered
loneliness was a big one like they
wanted a father figure so our man
arrives on the scene he has money he's
good looking and Charming the secretary
becomes obsessed and she will do
first encounters between a Romeo and a
potential Source were not always planned
in advance
Romeos were always on the lookout for
secretaries to seduce
for Margaret herker it was a chance
meeting outside a telephone box near her house
he'd seen me from his flat it overlooked
the telephone box I used I'd been
waiting to call my parents but hadn't
been able to get through so I'd been
pacing up and down outside
he'd heard my steps and had come down
I'd never seen him in my life before but
after a while we got chatting and we
ended up going for a walk along the
Rhine that's how it all started does
the Romeo told Margaret his name was
France Becker and he claimed to be a student
student
she revealed she was a secretary to the
when I told him where I work
he was unable to conceal the fact that
he was a bit nervous a little bit
excited and I suppose he thought that's
fantastic and it fitted in very nicely
hva Chiefs in Berlin were immediately
alerted that a very important contact
had been made nothing less than a
secretary to the president of West Germany
Germany [Music]
[Music]
it was Now France Becker's job to turn
we always used the same method to create
trust build the foundations for a long
relationship manipulate emotions this
was the simplest method rooted in basic
Margaret and Becker began an intimate
he said he needed me because he was all
alone in the world I'm not sure whether
it was pity I felt but I did have this
sense of being somehow responsible for him
him
a kind of maternal feeling and when he
visited me at my flat
it seemed to me as if he was coming home
that he was coming back to where he belonged
Becca spent three years developing the
relationship with no mention of
he tapped into her loneliness and her
need for companionship
I have a conversation of in the lesson
well he was the sort of person you could
he was a wonderful listener he really
engaged with me he made me feel as if I
was someone special for most of these women
women
it was probably a dream come true they
suddenly have a partner who is very
attentive who's very nice
who avoids all mistakes who wants to
keep the relationship stable and going
and here you have almost the ideal partner
foreign [Music]
[Music]
it was a whirlwind Romance
her Romeo lover Frank dietzel claimed he
worked abroad and could only see her
every four to six weeks
they met for passionate weekends in
hotels along the river Rhine
it would always drive so there was a
tremendous amount of longing you're just
driving there you were totally high as
if you had taken some tracks or
something then you would meet him and
then you would know that that this was
the only life you would get for all this
time and you really had to mix most of it
it [Music]
[Music] foreign
[Music]
sexuality and so he was sexually totally
dependent on him I never ever considered
as such a ditches could not live without
it in this longing which he built up
because of the lack of sexuality in the
interim periods and I always had to wait
for five weeks and he came up with those
idiotic mathematical equations telling
me that if he would go to bed with me
six or seven times during this one week
and said this would equate no this is
not funny this is what equate to to
whatever during the weekend and this
would then come up if you access all up
to this normal relationship [Music]
[Music]
Frank dietzel sent the intimate details
of his relationship with Gabrielle back
to Berlin
they were pulled over by intelligence
Chiefs at hva headquarters who could
then plan the next stage in the relationship
s played a role of course
it was reported whether sex was
important to the woman this kind of
information was included in a dossier
and the Romeo used it to plan his behavior
behavior
the Romeo would report about sex
verbally to his controller but that side
of things was left pretty much to the
Romeo to manage as he saw fit but it was
discussed when it was relevant to the operation
Gabrielle may have fallen passionately
in love but for all Romeos sex served a
very specific purpose
we called it the post-coital Readiness
what this man was that women you were
sleeping with were prepared to reveal an
enormous amount after sex
this will never happen during the day
when they're at the most rational which
is why you have to work on them in the
evening when they're at their most emotional
with military Precision the hva Chiefs
in Berlin had made Margaret and
Gabrielle fall in love with their Romeos
they were now considered ready to start
three years into his relationship with
Margaret herker Romeo agent Franz Becker
felt she was ready to pass on
and um
we just chatted about this and that
Abba he just seemed to have a very
entanglement was engineered very
carefully very slowly what she delivered
in the early days or reported on didn't
go beyond what any of us might tell a
good friend or partner in casual
conversation but that was just the beginning
after two years of receiving this verbal
information he felt ready to ask her for more
more
secret documents from the palace
Margaret had now been with him for five
years and trusted him when he told her
who he worked for eign
he never talked about secret Services of
course there was what he called The Firm
which had its headquarters in Zurich all
I knew was that it was a right-wing
organization when he asked me to give
him documents I didn't say of course
I'll do it I just said I'll see what I
can do if I happen to find anything
I agreed so he had something to offer
Margaret began to smuggle top secret
government documents from the
what I took were just little notes which
I could slip very easily into my handbag
or thin carbon copy which I could fold
I had a good relationship with my bosses
but this was a breach of trust no one
would have thought I was capable of
I asked myself how France managed to
yeah even now I ask myself this he told
me I was helping him
I don't know I just can't explain it yeah
West Germany was at the front line of
the Cold War
thousands of British and American troops
were stationed there in NATO bases
all top secret reports on negotiations
within NATO were sent to the West German president
president
this was the information the East
Germans wanted
because of the situation at that time
the heightened tension between East and
West this information was extremely
sensitive it was rather like big brother
looking over your shoulder at all
negotiations between the alliance partners
Gabrielle claims job at the U.S embassy
in Bonn gave her access to American
Military secrets
her Romeo also developed a relationship
to the point where she would trust him
and in African countries and at his home
office was in Munich and that he worked
for a company which was collecting
information on different levels also
economic levels and to add some kind of
like a so-called sink tank or database
which would be used to support
a peace to nurture and peace in the world
world [Music]
[Music]
Gabrielle was obsessed with date cell
nobody ever had a headsets and just so
I think this made me close my eyes to
having smuggled the documents out of the
embassy she would photograph them at
home and give him the films whenever she
saw him I would have some films in the
pocket of my coat and he would hack me
and and put his hand in the pocket of my
coat and take the films without ever
saying anything and then always looking
at me like this fast image and say oh
yes you did very well Chad
Gabrielle's position at the U.S embassy
made her recruitment by the hva a danger
to the West
she was known to East German
was one of the most important East
Germans ever had in terms of the
quantity of information and the extent
of information that was being passed to
East Berlin
she worked in the American Embassy so
had access to very important information
she worked in the very office where
armed supplies and Military Maneuvers
were coordinated between the West
Margaret was now regularly delivering
secret documents to Becca
but their relationship changed
she was hooked on him so he didn't need
to spend as much time with her and
insisted their Affair be kept a secret
I never really had an address I never
really had a telephone number where I
could call him right up to the end I didn't
didn't
he always had some excuse or other why
this had to be the case and this was an
Becca gave regular reports to his bosses
back in the east on the state of the relationship
teams of psychologists analyzed the
reports and worked out how the
they wanted to keep their Source happy
the task really was to keep things on
the boil re-inject Vigor into the
relationship and we did this with
interesting conversation
an expensive holiday
some of these women couldn't have
afforded it on their own but the hva
footed the bill and it worked it brought
time the relationship could last another
year if the relationship showed signs of
cooling it was always warmed up again to
motivate the woman and this was always
Becca took these photos of Margaret on
but he refused to be photographed
pictures of the back of his head are all
that Margaret has of their time together
even then she claimed she noticed
something strange about him
there was always something at the back
of it all which I couldn't really put my
finger on he seemed divided as if he had
Margaret thought of leaving him
but Becca had been well trained in using
whenever I tried to end the relationship
he'd come along and talk about all the
he'd always say that we needed one
another that we knew one another inside
out that we understood each other
and that's how he kept me
foreign I don't want to talk badly about
women but women
they accept quite a bit
if they are really in Need for for some relationships
relationships
women are forgiving in general if you
don't overdo it and you can play with
the woman as long as you want at the end
you open your shirts and shoot me or she
will say no it's not that bad
long stretches apart secrecy
secrecy
for Gabrielle 2 life as the lover of a
Romeo was never easy
I never really lived and it was
so so this was a horrible problem in all
those years and it got it got
you would think oh well she didn't see
him for five weeks and she hurt her life
in those interval periods but I didn't I
didn't have any life I didn't go out I
didn't do anything I didn't do anything
Berlin couldn't risk Gabrielle becoming
too unhappy they couldn't afford to lose
such a valuable source
she had to believe there was a future
with her Romeo
detail kept her by promising what she
Most Wanted in the world
we were in Dusseldorf and walking along
and he lifted me up in front of the
window so we could doors to look into
our Reflections and he said oh we were
such a beautiful couple of
and we will get married next spring of
course I was ecstatic I was dancing with
joy I thought now I would finally have a life
life [Music]
[Music]
six months later details summoned
I because I thought when we were going
to get married I was ecstatic with joy
and I thought that he would tell me you
know something about the wedding plans
but Romeos were not supposed to marry
their source
they lived in West Germany under a false
identity and marriage would involve too
many checks
so he made his excuses
the wedding was off
as I've said maybe this relationship
would now break up you know because he
had hurt me really not only so much but
but the relationship did not break up
the trips to the Rhine and Gabrielle's
spying continued year after year
secret details of Western missile
systems and NATO exercises were all
passed on
it was the only way Gabrielle could keep detail
detail
he always played this fantastic hole he
do I'm certainly not die but I don't
know how I could keep on seeing you of
course if he would have said if you
don't give me any more documents bloody
well I don't come to see you anymore
then even I would have walked but he
always said yes I will do my the most I
can but I don't know how I can do it and
then always calculating and everything
you know and that's how he got me to do what
what
the man in Berlin had shaped two
excellent sources
but their spying for the East was about
to come to an end
the West German secret service the BND
by 1985 Margaret herker had been with
her Romeo lover Franz Becker for 17 years
for 14 of those she had been passing on
but Becca had been identified as an
agent by the West German secret service
the BND while under surveillance they
noticed he saw a lot of Margaret and
then of course the alarm Bell started ringing
ringing
who is this is it his mother is it his
girlfriend is it his sister and then we
discovered that masuka worked in the
president's office and then of course
foreign
after several months the West Germans
it was time to tell her boss president
Von weitzecker because
he was very skeptical
suddenly the head of counterintelligence
comes along and says Mr President one of
your closest age is an agent
and of course you have to have some very
strong evidence to back that up and I
remember that President Von Weiser was
my impression at the time was that he
was more willing to Believe Miss haircut
[Music]
but the evidence was overwhelming
Margaret was picked up from her flat and
charged with espionage
she insisted her lover had worked for a
I really believed even then that it was
but the police didn't believe anything I said
said
after gansonville to skip country in the
whole world there is no Swiss
organization whatever its political
color which would have been interested
in the type of material that this herker
and her claim that she didn't know what
she was involved in well this is
something all these people do to
preserve their own self-esteem um
she might have been clinging to the idea
of doing something good or working for peace
peace
but the fact that she clung to something
like this is a sign that deep down she
for the first time Margaret discovered
that the man she had loved for 17 years
F on
I only discovered later that he was
already married when he was sent over here
that was a terrible Revelation for me um
I mean the whole thing was bad enough
but the fact that he'd always gone on
about how he was all alone in the world
without family and uh
he could have spared me that I think foreign
Becker escaped to the east Margaret was
sentenced to eight years in prison for
Espionage of which she served for
information well of course it was
absolutely awful
I needed all the strength I had just to
survive it
and if you ask me how I survived it well
for Gabrielle claim the end came in 1991.
1991.
the Cold War and her affair with her
Romeo lover Frank dietzel were now over
the hva had been disbanded
documents uncovered from their files
revealed that Gabrielle had been passing
secrets to the east from 1977 until the
collapse of Communism in 1989.
she had handed over 1500 documents more
but at her trial all she could think of
was deed cell
yeah we're constantly talking about
Espionage and I didn't care [ __ ] about
that I always said
but did you know him what was he like
and did he love me I'm sorry I always
wanted to know that you did he have some
feelings for me or was it all just deny
if something like that happens to you
you just tend to question yourself
what is true and what's not true and
what part is where and what part is
imagined and the word part is a story
and what part is a fiction
and you go absolutely insane because you
just feel that you are disintegrating
always we are false everything you lived
for was kind of taken away so you have
in every level
as the Cold War was now over Gabrielle
the men who ran the operation from
Berlin were not even put on trial as
they were deemed to have been doing
ship office in East Germany picking
people women out you know like like
animals for testing and saying okay we
ER lives alone in her parents old house
after her release from prison she had
nowhere to go but the place she had left
30 years earlier in search of an
exciting life in Bonn
she has not seen France Becker since her arrest
arrest [Music]
[Music]
he is now seriously ill ustrated
it seems to me that he now has to live
with himself and that must be hard
enough but I think I've worked through a
lot of this this is his issue now even I
the relationship was a huge part of my life
it did have a purpose and a meaning for
me so in that respect these were not
Gabrielle claim now lives alone in
there is little Sympathy for the plight
of Gabriella Margaret from the men who
my name is Paul we never abused women we
saw it as a legitimate method a method
which was justified by the very real
threat says by the Cold War
if we're talking about the brutality of
secret Services if you show me this
broken heart well then I can show you
much much worse
look back through history and a few
whichever way you look at it Espionage
is a dirty business but it's necessary
there is always a point where you want
to know more from someone than he's
prepared to reveal and to gather this
information you use all the means at
your disposal and because the human
being is always the weakest link in the
chain you use this weakness to your own advantage
advantage
if it hadn't been the army or for this
poor woman there would be 10 years of a
happy life may be missing
I don't think that was a too big human
cause to it because it goes into the
in the general mixture of human faith
and and human happiness and unhappiness
some of them are probably very happy
with their Romeos [Music]
[Music]
Gabrielle's Romeo lover died several
years ago
he may have deceived her to keep her
spying but to this day she has not let go
if he would walk into my life
like I remember him
I'm terribly afraid that I would fall in
love with him again and because of I'm now
now
a very big part of me would say yes that
I loved you and you felt a void in me
which nobody ever caught or what or will
again and why don't we just move on from
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