"Drawing upon declassified documents seized from STASI files (it is now defunct) and interviews with former officers, Ms. Macrakis has produced a first-rate read. Both books deserve a five cloak-and-dagger rating. Good reading for the specialist and the layman alike."
Read the entire article
"Seduced by Secrets makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of how the Stasi did what it did..."
"Thoroughly researched, Seduced by Secrets gives us an important, unmatched, insider account of East German intelligence. Kristie Macrakis writes with a scholar's eye and novelist's skills, revealing secrets and spy tradecraft never meant for public disclosure."
"This book on the vaunted GDR secret service provides a fascinating inside view of the Stasi's spying efforts as well as technologies. Written in an accessible style, it is nonetheless based on exhaustive research in the Stasi files and many oral interviews. The first part paints vivid pictures of some of the major spy cases of the Cold War. The second part, which will gladden the heart of any espionage aficionado, discusses spy technology from invisible ink to smell samples. The result is a remarkable and readable synthesis of the East German spying operations."
"Easily the most detailed, painstaking research yet undertaken on the Stasi's techniques and secrets. Certainly the most absorbing analysis of an organization hitherto steeped in mystery."
The East German Ministry for State Security, or Stasi (from the German Staatssicherheit, meaning “State Security”), ranks alongside the KGB as one of the most infamous secret police services of the modern age. Widely feared, its seemingly omnipresent network of spies and informers—with husbands notoriously spying on wives and children keeping tabs on their parents, all in addition to the agents listening in on your telephone or apartment—the Stasi has developed an almost mythic reputation. Thanks in no small part to the famously diabolical depictions in the spy novels of John Le Carre and the James Bond stories (and films) of Ian Fleming, the Stasi, like the KGB on which it was modeled, has become one of those subjects with which everyone is familiar, but few know much about it.
Yet despite the Stasi´s association with the figure of the informer, the truth is that almost half of its agents in the West were charged with stealing scientific and technical secrets while more than 8,000 staff members in East Berlin were busy working to develop various James Bond-like technologies to support espionage and security measures.
Indeed, as Kristie Macrakis writes in this startling and highly informative new work, “technology was at the heart” of the Stasi´s spying operations. “Not only did the MfS [Ministry for State Security, or Stasi] steal technology from abroad,” she writes, “they also created some of the spy world´s most inventive technological gadgets at home.”
Formed in the wake of the postwar division of Germany, the Stasi developed into what Macrakis calls “the KGB with a German personality.” Unlike the United States, the Stasi combined under one roof the foreign intelligence gathering of the CIA with the domestic police work of the FBI.
Provocatively, Macrakis positions the Stasi within a long history of backward nations seeking to catch up to and even surpass their rivals, using industrial and military espionage as a sort of silent weapon to reorder the Industrial Revolution. “Recent cases flooding newspapers about Chinese industrial and defense spying against America document the persistence of this quest and the need for historical perspective,” she notes.
How did the Stasi go about its business? Seduced by Secrets first examines the operatives and spies who carried out this techno-industrial espionage, moving then to the tools and gadgets employed in their trade. Among those profiled are the American spies “Paul” and “Kid,” both of whom volunteered for the Stasi while they were stationed in East Berlin, and both of whom are now serving time at Fort Leavenworth Maximum Security Prison.
An eye-opening look deep inside the Stasi´s hidden world, Seduced by Secrets is perfect for anyone who has ever been fascinated by the spy game.