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JIPSS VOL.4, NR.1/2010, 128-139
Siegfried Beer
THE “SPY” KARL ERWIN LICHTENECKER:
PERPETRATOR? A TALE OF AMBIVALENCE
VICTIM
OR
Siegfried Beer,
Mag. et Dr. phil., born 1948 in Scheibbs, Lower
Austria, is professor for late modern and
contemporary history at the University of Graz.
He is also Director of the Botstiber Institute for
Austrian-American Studies.
Contact: [email protected]
Zusammenfassung:
DER „SPION“ KARL ERWIN LICHTENECKER: OPFER ODER TÄTER? EINE
AMBIVALENTE GESCHICHTE
In der Nacht vom 25. zum 26. Februar 1971 wurde der Mitarbeiter des Bundespressedienstes im
Bundeskanzleramt, Dr. Karl Erwin Lichtenecker, von der österreichischen Staatspolizei verhaftet. Mitte
September 1971 wurde ihm der Prozess gemacht, bei dem er zu zehn Monaten Kerker wegen Spionage
nach dem Staatsschutzgesetz von 1936 und wegen eines Verstoßes gegen das Waffengesetz aus dem Jahr
1967 rechtskräftig verurteilt wurde. Er hatte über den tschechoslowakischen Kulturattaché in Wien, der
in Wirklichkeit ein Geheimdienstmann war, dem militärischen Auslandsgeheimdienst der CSSR Berichte
über politische, wirtschaftliche und internationale Fragen der österreichischen Innen- bzw. Außenpolitik
verschafft und soll dafür nicht unbeträchtliche Summen Belohnung bekommen haben.
Der Artikel fußt einerseits auf mehreren Interviews mit Lichtenecker sowie auf dem Gerichtsurteil vom
15. September 1971, und andererseits auf den nun in Prag zugänglichen Akten des tschechoslowakischen
Auslandsgeheimdienstes zum Agenten „Atasé“. Daraus ergibt sich ein höchst ambivalentes Bild der
jeweiligen Wahrnehmung: des Angeklagten, der zumindest teilgeständig war; des österreichischen
Schöffengerichts, das zu einem eindeutigen Schuldspruch kam; und des ausländischen Geheimdienstes, mit
dem Lichtenecker zusammenarbeitete. Dieses Bild dürfte für das Spionagegeschäft dieser Zeit insgesamt
nicht untypisch sein.
How can we recognise a real spy? Who is or becomes a traitor to his or her fatherland? How can we
differentiate truth from fiction in a personal story
of involvement with an official representative of a
foreign state who hides his real professional background? How does openness to alleged ideological
opponents, artistic and professional cooperation paired
with good will and perhaps naiveté as well as with a
well-meaning personal relationship, combine to end
up in persecution and incarceration?
The following is the fascinating tale of a Viennese journalist, translator and adult educator whose
life changed dramatically on February 25/26, 1971
128
when officers of the Austrian State Police (Stapo)
appeared in his office and confronted him with the
accusation of espionage for an unfriendly foreign
country. This article is based on several short and
lengthy interviews by the author and others with its
protagonist in 2008 and 2009,1 on legal documents
produced at a two-day trial in an Austrian court in
September 1971, and by documentary emphasis on
archival materials recently released from the holdings
of the Zpravodajská správa Generálního štábu (ZS/
GŠ),2 the military foreign intelligence organization
of the Czechoslovak General Staff; its documents
survived at Archiv bezpečnostních složek, the archi-
BEER, THE “SPY” KARL ERWIN LICHTENECKER
ves of the former Czechoslovak Security Forces, in
Prague. Despite a plethora of seemingly objective
facts and features it leaves ample room for subjective assessment as to personal loyalty, motives for
legal persecution, validity of historical documents
and, above all, moral judgement and evaluation of
human behaviour. In a nutshell, it stands for the
complexity and uncertainty of human involvement
in the intelligence business.3
KEL at interview with author, on October 9, 2008 in his
Viennese villa (Bildarchiv Siegfried Beer).
SOME FACTS
Karl Erwin Lichtenecker (henceforth KEL) was born
in 1929 and has spent most of his life in his parents’,
now his own, spacious villa in the Viennese district
of Währing-Gersthof. He attended the Volksschule of
the Marienbrüder and then the Deutsche Oberschule
in the district, of which the infamous SS-daredevil
Otto Skorzeny was also an alumnus. In early summer of 1944, to avoid being called to Hitler’s last
reserves, he fled to the Northern Styrian mountain
area of Planneralm and several months later joined
a deserter friend called Roman, hiding out with the
help of a courageous family in the village of Gars am
Kamp in Lower Austria. He experienced the arrival
of the Red Army in the area as “a real liberation” and
even managed to utilize his rudimentary Russian by
doing some translation work for the new occupiers.
At the beginning of June 1945 he managed to journey
to Vienna and was relieved to find out that both his
parents and their villa had survived the war. At the
age of 16 his life could finally begin.
Now he needed some more schooling. He also
found out that the American occupiers in his district
were looking for translators, also adept at typewriting.
Thus KEL for a while became one of three interpreters working for the US-Military Police Batallion in
Währing; one of them was eventually to become a
famous author: Johannes Mario Simmel. KEL also
worked shortly for the US-Legation at Vienna’s
Boltzmanngasse. While still inscribed at a private
Maturaschule, he also enrolled
as an extra-ordinary student at
the University of Vienna, both at
the Institute for Media Sciences
(Zeitungswissenschaften), then
headed by the former chief of the
Bundespressedienst, the official
press agency of the Austrian Federal Government since the early
1920s, Eduard Ludwig, and at
the Institute for Translation (Dolmetsch-Institut). Quite possibly
due to his good connections to
the American occupation element,
KEL in 1950 managed to get accepted for a two-year scholarship
at the School of Journalism of
Ohio University in Athens, where he got his first of
several academic degrees, a Bachelor of Science in
Journalism. He also took courses in English Language
and Literature and in Psychology. Upon his return
to Vienna in 1952 he heard about and successfully
applied for an open position in the Information Service
of the Austrian Foreign Office, the Section IV of the
Federal Chancellery (Bundeskanzleramt; BKA), then
run by Friedrich Würthle. This work included doing
official translations from German into English and
vice versa; translating would become one of KEL’s
major preoccupations in his life.4 Thus he became
involved in the translation of Foreign Minister Karl
Gruber’s book Zwischen Befreiung und Freiheit:
Der Sonderfall Österreich (Vienna 1953) which
quite possibly accounts for the offer extended to him
to accompany Gruber upon the former minister’s
appointment as Austrian Ambassador to the United
States in 1954.5
Before he left for the position of press attaché
in Washington, DC, KEL managed to finish his
Viennese doctorate in Media Sciences in 1954, under the tutelage of Eduard Ludwig.6 He was to be
in charge of Austrian press work in the American
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BEER, THE “SPY” KARL ERWIN LICHTENECKER
capital from 1955 to 1962, continuing the work of
Hans Thalberg, who was later to become Austrian
Ambassador to several countries, among them China.7
KEL remembers these Washington years as a very
intense professional period in his life which also,
regrettably to him, led to the breakdown of his first
marriage to a Viennese woman, from whom he was
divorced in 1961.
Upon his return to Vienna in 1962 KEL joined the
Bundespressedienst, Section III of the BKA, located
on the roof floor of the Federal Chancellery and then
directed by Friedrich Meznik. One of his “neighbours”
there was Rudolf Kirchschläger, later to become
Federal President of Austria, then chief of the Legal
Service of the BKA. Among several tasks he was
to chaperone and guide foreign journalists through
the Austrian, mostly Viennese scenery. It was at this
stage that KEL got into contact with PRO ARTIA
(henceforth Artia), a foreign cultural trade company
located in Prague, then in search of translators into
English and quite likely run as a front firm by Czech
intelligence. They also cooperated with western
publishers like Paul Hamlyn and Spring Books in
London. Artia paid partly in western currencies, and
partly in Czech Crowns. KEL naturally liked having
an extra income, and Artia provided it. He assures
his interviewers that his private business connections
with various publishers were well-known to the chief
of the Bundespressedienst. Nevertheless, he alleged
scepticism and envy among his office colleagues.
Eventually one of them started to search his desk
and found incriminatory material, presumably used
for spying.
On February 25/26, 1971 KEL was confronted
and soon apprehended by the Austrian Stapo and was
not to return home until Christmas Day that year. He
was given a two-day trial in mid-September of 1971
and sentenced on two counts, espionage and illegal
possession of a weapon, to a ten-month incarceration
term. Arrest and trial of KEL were well-covered in
the Austrian press.8 Subsequently he was subjected
to a disciplinary procedure and as a result removed
from federal employment, with diminished pension
rights. At the age of 43 he was forced to restructure
his professional life.9
Front page of ZS/GŠ-evidence register
on agent KEL.
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KEL’s STORY
At regular parties of his writing, translating and
publishing friends like Erich Bertleff and Fritz Molden, our protagonist one day, presumably already
in 1962, made the acquaintance of Miroslav Janků,
the Cultural Attaché at the Czechoslovak Legation
in Vienna. Little did he suspect that the attaché was
in reality a Major in the Czechoslovak Foreign Military Intelligence Service. A seemingly “harmless”
and warm personal friendship developed which was
continued even when Janků was recalled to Prague
in April 1964, allegedly to a new appointment in
economic affairs. He knew of KEL’s expertise in
economic matters and asked for information about
Austrian economic policy, for example in connection
with the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) and the
European Economic Community (EEC). KEL was
able to provide these, for he had studied Economics also and had regularly worked as interpreter
at economically-oriented meetings in Washington,
at the UN in New York City as well as in Vienna.10
He agreed to meet Janků secretly, usually in Prague,
occasionally in Bratislava or even in Vienna. His trips
to Prague were normally connected to translation
work for Artia, but KEL was also able to build up
connections to the Catholic underground in Prague,
particularly to Dr. Břetislav Hodek, the renowned
Czech translator of Shakespeare and revered author
of an English-Czech dictionary. This contact was
particularly in the interest of the archdiocese of
Vienna for which KEL managed to smuggle various
materials into Czechoslovakia; as employee of the
Bundespressedienst he enjoyed the privilege of a
passport with an official visa. One day Janků provided KEL with instructions for dead letter drops, one
of them near the Ernst-Fuchs-Villa in Vienna’s 14th
district. It was one of these instructions and drawings
for depositing messages and/or information which
was, presumably by chance, eventually found on
KEL’s desk in the Federal Chancellery and would
lead directly to his arraignment. He claims never to
have used any of these dead letter drops.
Encoded message from KEL to Janku, perhaps postponing or calling off a meeting.
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BEER, THE “SPY” KARL ERWIN LICHTENECKER
He also insists that he never divulged insider knowledge to his Czech friend for he never was a real
government insider. As to money, he acknowledges
that Janků occasionally provided him with Czech
Crowns, just as he himself did with Austrian Schillings
when Janků vacationed in Vienna, but he rejects the
notion of direct payment in exchange for information,
assuring the interviewers that he was not really in need
of money.11 When Janků one day asked for a blank
Austrian passport, KEL professes to have become
uneasy and in retrospect judges that this was the
point at which he should have contacted the Stapo.
He didn’t. Somehow he was still intrigued by secrecy
and hazard.12 He may intuitively have sensed he was
in trouble, for in 1967 he took a one-year sabbatical
from his work at the Bundespressedienst and moved
to a Fulbright teaching position in English Literature
and Economics at Buena Vista University in Storm
Lake, IA and even had it extended to a second year.
During this American interlude his agent status with
ZS/GŠ was considered dormant.
KEL returned to Austria in 1969, took up his
translating connection to Prague, and was again
contacted by Janků. Henceforth he tried to curtail
his contacts to Janků; it was too late, for one day
in February 1971 the Stapo came while his second
wife Penny and their infant son were on vacation in
the Austrian countryside. She would find out about
the arrest of her husband through a radio newscast.13
KEL spent three very uncomfortable days in custody
and under interrogation by the Stapo. When they
searched his villa they found no evidence of spying,
but discovered an old pistol, a Frommer made in 1913
and inherited from his father. KEL was not aware that
he needed a gun license for it because the Weapon
Law had been changed during his stay in the US;
this was to incriminate him even further. Bail was
set at an unaffordable level. He was imprisoned at
the Landesgericht, the Viennese land court building.
District attorney and judge prepared well for a trial
which took two full days (September 14/15) and
included two lay assessors. The verdict: 10 months
of severe imprisonment (including one day per
month fasting and hard bedding); it was based on two
incriminating counts: espionage according to §17 of
Federal Law (State Security Law), issued on July 11,
1936, a carry-over from the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg
era;14 and illegal possession of a weapon according
to §36, 1a of the Federal Weapon Law of 1967. The
34-page written verdict specifically mentions that the
accused did not display any “special recognition of
unlawful behaviour.”15 KEL still today feels that he
was unfairly subjected to a law, then unknown to him
and enacted in a non-democratic period of Austrian
history, and that the prosecution authorities, lacking
substantial incriminating evidence, had to resort to
the discovery of a non-functioning pistol in order to
justify his extended incarceration.16
KEL’s offer of potential topics for Janku.
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THE COURT’s ASSESSMENT
The defendant was deemed fully cooperative with
police and court, but the evidence collected and
held against him on the charge of espionage could
be used only for a time period of less than four
months: February 13, 1970 to June 7, 1970, while
the incrimination on account of illegal possession of
a weapon covered a longer period: from his return
from the US in June 1969 to February 25, 1971,
the day of his arraignment at the office. Ironically,
these were the last two meetings with representatives of ZS/GŠ, even though there were secret plans
for more, initiated from both sides, to which KEL
never appeared.
The court reconstructed KEL’s life story painstakingly but obviously had to limit the evidence against
him to provable acts and events. Also, though knowing
about them, it could not hold any of KEL’s exchange
activities before 1967 against the defendant on account
of crime limitation. It established that he was a gifted
translator and writer, but a delinquent administrator
who could not even submit his professional bills in
time. The prosecution listed several reports handed
over to Janků and knew about their topics: e.g. association negotiations of EFTA-countries like Austria with
the EEC; Austrian trade relations with Eastern Bloc
countries; conflicts within government and Austrian
parties or on Austrian neutrality concepts, particularly
vis-à-vis NATO, etc. The court accepted that KEL
stopped all contact with Janků during his stay in the
United States from 1967 to 1969. However, it was his
renewed meeting in Prague on February 13, 1970,
and the subsequent information provided to Janků,
both written and orally, which became crucial for
the indictment, particularly since the map detailing
the dead letter drop, found on KEL’s desk, dated
from this meeting. The prosecution also ascertained
that at the presumed last meeting between KEL and
Janků on June 7, 1970, a sum of money, allegedly
between 500 and 1,200 Czech Crowns, was handed
over, presumably as reimbursement for expenses.
The court records also mention that KEL had received such payments already before 1967 and that he
claimed to have acknowledged their receipt under
a false name. However, it accepted that “he rejected
regular reimbursement for information submitted as
he was allegedly not in need of financial support”.
The court judgment also includes a reference as to
the circumstances leading to KEL’s arrest: “On Fe-
bruary 24, 1971 Dr. Bauer, who shared the office with
Dr. Lichtenecker, unintentionally brushed against a
rather thick folder which then fell on the floor. […]
Trying to put the scattered papers into some order
again Dr. Bauer discovered the above-mentioned
meeting plan […]. Dr. Bauer immediately alerted
his superiors.”
KEL’s boss at the Bundespressedienst, Dr. Friedrich Meznik, was called into the witness stand and
acknowledged that KEL had no access to secret
documents and thus could not be viewed as “Geheimnisträger” (“holder of secrets”). The court
thus accepted, “that it cannot be proven that the
defendant dangerously divulged an official secret
as defined in § 102 c Penal Law”, but continued to
argue: “However, the defendant, by his behaviour
described above, clearly trespassed against § 17 State
Security Law” and saw conclusively established,
“that by forwarding economic and political information to Janků the accused diminished important
interests of the Republic of Austria and thereby alone
weakened Austria’s position”. In the court’s opinion
the information provided to a foreign intelligence
organization needed not be secret or even relevant
for § 17 Staatsschutzgesetz to be rightfully applied,
as “recognising that § 17 State Security Law applies
would not necessitate proof that the information provided to an inimical intelligence organization must
have resulted in concrete disadvantage for Austria”.
In the court’s judgment KEL was therefore guilty
of conspiracy with a foreign power and of severe
breach of confidence as civil servant to the Republic
of Austria. The verdict was unconditional. But was
it really harsh?
THE PRAGUE DOCUMENTS
Perhaps understandably, KEL has professed not to be
interested in any documents potentially to be found in
the secret archives of Czechoslovakia’s Communist
Intelligence Services. For him this mid-life episode
became the turning point which led to a subjectively
perceived actual improvement both of his personal
and professional existence. He wanted to let sleeping
demons lie. Yet undigested history has a way of returning, often in unpleasant manner. Austrians know
a lot about that. The post-communist Governments
of the Czech Republic have created and sustained an
“Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes” and
have substantially opened the archives of the former
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communist security forces. Their holdings have both
fascinated and baffled researchers. Individual spy
cases, foremost the one involving the former Mayor
of Vienna, Helmut Zilk, have electrified but also
substantially irritated even the Austrian media and
public. With the help of a group of Austrian researchers the author has found out that a significant parcel
of documentation (altogether more than 800 pages)
also exists on KEL’s relationship with the foreign
military intelligence branch of the Czechoslovak
Security Forces, controlled by Prague’s Ministry of
Defence. It can be located in Prague at the Archiv
bezpečnostních složek, ZS/GŠ, under the record
number 10475.17
Depiction of dead letter drop in outskirt district of Vienna; “wirefence, tree with sign to the right, in the background tree with
broad treetop.”
In this documentation Dr. Karl Erwin Lichtenecker
is identified under the code-name “Atašé” as well as
under the agent number “A316/71”. Miroslav Janků
is listed as case officer; a certain Lieutenant-Colonel
Štér as direct contact is also mentioned. KEL was
considered a small but reliable agent who over the
period of activities for Czechoslovakia from November 1962 to June 1970 submitted well over 20
reports on economic, diplomatic and political issues
of interest to his Czech contacts. There is also the
claim that he handed over microfilms and copies
of Austrian documents. When the ZS/GŠ officers
134
found out about KEL’s arrest on February 26, 1971
through Austrian Radio and Television reporting,
they were greatly alarmed and assumed that the
German Bundesnachrichtendienst in collaboration
with Austria’s Stapo was behind it; it even spoke of
a Jewish conspiracy.
The small selection of documents, offered here
in facsimile, appears to prove that KEL cooperated
with his Czech friends quite willingly, even offering
report topics on his own. The case file also includes
several meeting plans, detailed dead letter drops
and, most disturbingly, several lists of financial
JIPSS VOL.4, NR.1/2010
transactions. One of the documents adds up the
money paid to KEL as amounting to altogether over
30,000 Austrian Schillings over the entire period of
collaboration. The documents also prove the close
personal relationship between KEL and case officer
Janků, often couched in deciphered messages on
meeting places and gifts, in one instance even to
KEL’s mother. Even though KEL’s importance as
agent for Czech interests was typically down-played
upon his capture in February 1971, the documentation
for the years before proves that he was considered
a small agent but an expandable asset. There were
even plans to blackmail him into heightened activity
for Prague. The idea was simple: first assist him in
the acquisition of valuables like a chandelier taken
out of Czechoslovakia and then threaten him with
smuggling charges. The record seems to prove that
Czech intelligence actually paid for that chandelier.18
It also shows that agent “Atašé” was only slowly
built up. Over the first couple of years he was mainly
hosted at Prague’s restaurants; then his rewards were
raised by adding purchases of alcohol (for example
to the order of 268 Austrian Schillings in May 1964)
and by 1964/65 significant amounts of money were
transferred, usually in connection with submitted
reports, but occasionally in view of information actively demanded. For example, in March 1965 alone
there were three meetings in Prague; at the last one
on March 30 KEL was handed over 5,000 Austrian
Schillings. At least so the records claim. That month
a joint vacation in Yugoslavia was discussed; it seems
really to have taken place in August 1965, apparently
in the region of Pula.
Agent activity and payment listing (XI/1964 to XI/1965) for KEL. The categories used are (left to
right): date/activity/reports received/tasks given/payment.
The financial records also provide insight into the
broad range of KEL’s topics for his Czechoslovak
masters. To name just a few, mentioned in the finan-
cial records, but here listed in random order: Austria
and the other Neutrals; Austria’s attitude towards the
German Democratic Republic; Austria’s nationalized
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BEER, THE “SPY” KARL ERWIN LICHTENECKER
industries; France in the EEC; interviews with Franz
Olah and Josef Klaus; Federal Chancellor Klaus in
Washington; Meeting of German Chancellor Erhard
with French President De Gaulle; Austria’s relationship with Socialist states; Issues in connection with
Austrian neutrality.
The ZS/GŠ kept a meticulous record and accounting of its dealings with KEL. There is little reason
to believe that these are not genuine or accurate.
However, there are no signed receipts among the
Atašé-documents. One of the most enlightening
documents on the KEL-case is the damage analysis
undertaken by ZS/GŠ already on March 1, 1971.
It shows that in the course of “Normalisace”, the
so-called normalization process after the failed
“Counter-Revolution” of 1968, the Atašé-operation
was actually to be de-activated by the end of 1970.
Janků and practically all ZS/GŠ personnel who were
involved with the KEL-case or knew about it, had at
that point been eliminated from Czechoslovak military
intelligence, and in most cases were dispelled from
Communist Party membership.19 This proves that there
was a mutual scaling down of the Atašé-operation
already by mid-1970. A last meeting was discussed
for Christmas 1970 in Prague, but KEL never showed
up. Instead he was arrested soon thereafter.
ZS/GŠ looked for potential contributors to the
unmasking of KEL. Among these, it was surmised,
could have been emigrants like the TV-journalist Jiři
Pelikán, his wife Jitka Frantová or the Slovak author
Ladislav Mňačhko. Other sources of betrayal, it was
assumed, could have been the former spy Adámek,
an employee also of the Bundespressedienst, or the
former Rozvedka-officer Ladislav Bittman, who
had defected to the Americans in late August 1968
and knew about the Atašé-operation.20 It was even
considered possible that former ZS/GŠ-officers,
by then already demoted, may have had a hand in
KEL’s discovery. In any case, the Viennese spy affair about KEL was seen as a political propaganda
ploy, deliberately timed and staged by the Austrian
Government or its secret services in pursuit of
ulterior motives and goals. And even though KEL
was again characterized as an agent of “little worth
[...], though honest and responsible”, the damage
assessment by the ZS/GŠ was to be brought to the
attention of Gustav Husák, the General Secretary of
the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In the final
analysis, the leadership of ZS/GŠ was confident,
that very little damage to Czech intelligence could
136
result from KEL’s capture and trial, as nothing much
could be proven “against us, unless the agent himself
divulges the information.”
Excerpt from payment history March 1965, referring to
a transfer of 5,000 Austrian Schillings and the purchase
of a chandelier for 2,300 Czech Crowns by ZS/GŠ.
WHO’s TRUTH?
Interviewing KEL was informative, fascinating and
for this intelligence historian pure pleasure. He comes
across as a genuine, balanced and widely knowledgeable human being. Though his health may betray
his age, his mind and wit do not. He readily admits
to having made mistakes, having been naïve and
guileless, and having been too kind and trustful to
his Czech friends. And today he claims: “Schuldig
fühle ich mich nicht” (“I do not feel guilty”). But is
this the whole story? Is it possible that intelligence
organizations create documentation full of deceit and
swindle? Where did these microfilms come from?
Who copied these documents? And what about all
these elaborate financial records, in all their details
and over the span of all these years? Could it really
be that most of this money of not so insignificant size
was taken by Czech intelligencers, case officers like
Janků and Štér or other ZG/GŠ-employees? Why is
financial memory so distorted?21
In contrast to Zilk, KEL had bad luck.22 He had
enemies who found him out and reported him to authorities. To this day he is convinced that a Socialist
wanted his job at the Bundespressedienst and that even
JIPSS VOL.4, NR.1/2010
the presiding trial judge was politically biased; and
most importantly, that his reports to Janků were not
of such quality as to have been of damage to Austrian
national interest. Given the Cold War climate of the
late 1960s and the frequent spy cases of this time
period in Austria,23 it is difficult to understand and
to believe that KEL was merely a victim of human
good-naturedness and political naiveté. The court’s
argument appears to have been on target: “If only on
account of his high intelligence the defendant should
have known that Janků was not a harmless civil
servant, but the employee of an intelligence service,
particularly in view of secret meeting plans and some
of the questions which Janků put to him”.24
Front page of ZS/GŠ-evaluation of damage caused by the discovery of KEL.
Judged by the entire available evidence KEL was
quite unlucky about the manner and the timing of
his arrest, but he was certainly not just a victim.
His perpetration would be punishable by law also
today, under legislation only slightly changed since
1971.25 With ten months in jail KEL paid dearly for
his mistake(s). He insists that at the office he was
always considered an outsider and “an oddball” and
that therefore he had enemies, not least because of
his “eccentric” life style: translating books at the
side, taking frequent trips abroad and owning sporty
cars, like a Jaguar. Helmut Zilk, on the other hand,
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BEER, THE “SPY” KARL ERWIN LICHTENECKER
always had a knack for being “one of the boys” and
apparently he did not have enemies. His deeds were
similar to KEL’s. To his end the former Mayor of
Vienna professed innocence. The Prague records
tell a different story, for Zilk and KEL. Zilk could/
should have had his time in jail also.
For KEL it was surely bitter then that he lost his
secure job, but he eventually found a calling, or several callings, for the rest of his remarkably full life
since. His was a victory over self-inflicted adversity.
Today he calls this episode “grotesque and bizarre”
and is convinced that most people around him knew
“that I was not a bad man”. Nevertheless, legitimate
questions remain and keep this case open, but only for
historians, for KEL has served his term. We can be
confident that he will keep these academic concerns
in proper perspective.
KEL in 2008 (Bildarchiv Siegfried Beer).
ENDNOTES
The author’s on October 9, 2008 and Bernd Ingrisch’s in the fall of 2009, in: Internationale Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie und
Gruppendynamik in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 34, No. 2 (2009), 39-44.
2
There is still remarkably little known about foreign Czechoslovak intelligence operations during the Communist period. One
notable, archivally-based contribution is Igor Lukes, The Czechoslovak Special Services and Their American Adversary during the
Cold War, in: Journal of Cold War Studies 9, No. 1 (2007), 3-28; for our context 13-15.
3
This was well-expressed by a friend of the accused in a published response to his interrogation by the Stapo entitled “Mein Freund
– der Spion”: “Seit diesem Gespräch vermeide ich allzu rasche Schlußfolgerungen, die in der Öffentlichkeit genußvoll breitgetreten
werden.” In: Fridolin Koch, Der Präsident ißt keinen Fisch. 90 Anekdoten von Kaufleuten, Handelsdelegierten und Diplomaten
(Graz-Vienna-Cologne 1993), 24f. For a general background to the intelligence struggle in mid-Cold War between Prague and
Vienna cf. Siegfried Beer, Prag versus Wien. Ein nachbarschaftlicher Kampf von Geheim- und Nachrichtendiensten im Kalten
Krieg, in: Stefan Karner, Michal Stehlik (eds.), Österreich. Tschechien. Geteilt – Getrennt – Vereint. Beitragsband und Katalog der
Niederösterreichischen Landesausstellung 2009 (Schallaburg 2009), 122-127 and Siegfried Beer, Igor Lukes, Spy, Scholar, Artist.
The Three Careers of Ladislav Bittman, in: Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies 2, No. 1 (2008), 113-134.
4
KEL, for example, translated several of Frederic Morton’s novels into German.
5
On Gruber’s mission to Washington cf. Karl Gruber, Ein politisches Leben. Österreichs Weg zwischen den Diktaturen (Vienna 1976),
131-175.
6
KEL’s dissertation was on the importance of the editorial content in American newspapers, examined in the context of the
prohibition era. Karl Erwin Lichtenecker, Der Einfluß des“Editorial Content” in der amerikanischen Tagespresse auf die öffentliche
Meinung in den Vereinigten Staaten (phil. Diss. Vienna 1954).
7
Cf. Hans Thalberg, Von der Kunst, Österreicher zu sein. Erinnerungen und Tagebuchnotizen (Vienna 1984), 183-210.
8
Comprehensive stories, for example, were carried in the Kurier (e.g. title story on February 26, 1971), in the Arbeiterzeitung, in
the Presse and in the weekly Die Furche, both after KEL’s arrest in February and after his trial in September 1971. E.g., one headline
ran: “ČSSR-Brief verriet Spion. Agent im Bundespressedienst hat bereits gestanden.” Cf. Arbeiterzeitung, 27 February 1971, 1.
9
He worked, among other jobs, as editor for the Paul Zsolnay publishing firm, taught English and journalism at an Indian
University, still translates books and wants to remain an adult educator for the rest of his life.
10
In 1960 he took an M.A. in Economics from American University in Washington, DC while working as Austrian press attaché
there.
11
Interview tape of October 9, 2008; also: “Ein Angebot: hier Geld, hier Informationen gab es nie”, in: Ingrisch, 40 (see Endnote 1).
12
As he explicitly admits in a Kurier-interview, 11 April 2009, 3.
13
For a vivid depiction of these dramatic months from the angle of an unsuspecting spouse and mother cf. Alan Levy, Penny Slygh,
in: The Gazette (Vienna), date unknown, 13-15 (copy, supplied by KEL, in possession of the author).
14
It states: “Wer vorsätzlich zum Nachteil Österreichs einen geheimen Nachrichtendienst einrichtet oder betreibt oder einen
solchen Nachrichtendienst auf welche Art immer unterstützt, wird […] mit strengem Arrest von sechs Monaten bis zu zwei Jahren
bestraft.”
15
The written trial verdict of the Landesgericht für Strafsachen Wien is numbered: 6aVr 1613/71; Hv 71/71; it was graciously
provided to the author by KEL.
16
As he recently confirmed, he felt and feels “vom Staat nicht gerecht behandelt, vom Schicksal schon” (“unjustly treated by the
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state, but not by fate.”), in: Kurier, 11 April 2009, 3.
17
Acknowledgment for help in finding, providing and linguistically deciphering some of the more than 800 pages of documentation
of the “Atašé”-case is due Dalibor Hýsek (ORF-Vienna) and Stefan Benedik (University of Graz), but also to my former student
Philipp Lesiak who is very knowledgably involved in a recently started research project undertaken by the Ludwig-BoltzmannInstitute for Research on War Consequences in Graz, in cooperation with the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and the
Security Archive in Prague on the role of Czechoslovak intelligence organizations in Austria, 1948-1969.
18
This took place in May 1965. The chandelier’s price was 2,300 Czech Crowns. Albeit, KEL’s memory differs from that version,
claiming: “Ich habe mir meinen Luster in der ČSSR selbst gekauft. Dafür war er auch nicht so schön wie der vom Zilk.” Kurier,
11 April 2009, 3.
19
The document mentions the following “organs”: besides case officer Janků, also Burda, Drong, Nĕmĕc, Štér, Veselý, Škvor and Kučera.
20
Rozvedka was the foreign intelligence service of the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior. Cf. Igor Lukes, Siegfried Beer,
Ladislav Bittman: The Rozvedka Dossier on a Defector “who knew too much”, in: Journal for Intelligence, Propaganda and
Security Studies 3, No. 2 (2009), 127-134.
21
As notably experienced by the author with Fritz Molden (OSS) and Helmut Zilk (Rozvedka).
22
Cf. Siegfried Beer, “Helmut Zilk war glasklar ein Spion”, in: Die Presse, 27 March 2009, 3.
23
During KEL’s sabbatical in the US, in October 1968, there was a spy scandal even in the Bundespressedienst where Josef
Adámek was unmasked as long-time informant for Czechoslovak intelligence. Cf. Dieter Bacher, Harald Knoll, Österreich als
Drehscheibe ausländischer Nachrichtendienste?, in: Stefan Karner et al. (eds.), Prager Frühling. Das internationale Krisenjahr
1968. Beiträge (Cologne-Weimar-Vienna 2008), 1069.
24
Needless to stress, after the trial KEL never heard from Janků again.
25
Penal Law (StGB) § 256: Geheimer Nachrichtendienst zum Nachteil Österreichs, states: “Wer zum Nachteil der Republik
Österreich einen geheimen Nachrichtendienst einrichtet oder betreibt oder einen solchen Nachrichtendienst wie immer unterstützt,
ist mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu drei Jahren zu bestrafen.” Similarly, § 319 StGB states: “Wer im Inland für eine fremde Macht oder
eine über- und zwischenstaatliche Einrichtung einen militärischen Nachrichtendienst einrichtet oder betreibt oder einen solchen
Nachrichtendienst wie immer unterstützt, ist mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu zwei Jahren zu bestrafen.”
Appendix: German translation of front page of ZS/GŠ-evaluation, March 1, 1971.
STRENG GEHEIM!
1. März 71
Verhaftung Dr. Karl Erwin Lichtenecker
Nachrichtendienst des Generalstabs] (Agent Atašé [= Attaché]) – Auswertung
NZS/GŠ [Zpravodajská správa Generálního štábu =
Oberstleutnant Lad[islav] Holub
Generalmajor Brož
Leutnant Kravar
Heute, am 26. Februar 1971, traten in der Abendsendung des österreichischen Fernsehens der Chef
der österreichischen Staatspolizei (STAPO) und der Leiter der Presseabteilung des österreichischen
Außenministeriums mit einer kurzen Nachricht auf. [Sie sprachen] über die Verhaftung des Dr. Karl
LICHTENECKER, Angestellter in der Presseabteilung des Regierungsvorsitzenden (Bundeskanzleramt) in Wien und bezeichneten ihn als Agenten des tschechoslowakischen Nachrichtendienstes.
Am zweiten Tag brachten sämtliche Wiener Tageszeitungen die Nachricht von der Verhaftung. Durch
alle [ziehen sich] Sensationsmeldungen, die keinerlei Konkretes über die eigentlichen Spionagetätigkeiten anführen. Sie stellen ihn als einen von vielen Spionen dar, aber mit minimaler Bedeutung,
weil er – wie sie zeigen – keinen Zugang zu irgendwelchem geheimen Material hatte. Verhaftet
wurde er am Mittwoch, 24.2.1971 auf Basis des Materials, das vermutlich auf seinem Bürotisch
aufgefunden wurde. Dieses Material fanden seine Mitbeschäftigten vor und es handelte sich nach
der einen Version um einen Brief aus der ČSSR und laut den anderen Nachrichten um ein Blatt
Papier mit Aufzeichnungen.
Die Zeitungen teilen mit, dass er durch die Vermittlung eines Diplomaten gelenkt wurde, der allerdings bereits nicht mehr in Wien wirkt.
Es handelt sich wirklich um einen Agenten unseres Nachrichtendienstes, geführt unter dem Decknamen ATAŠÉ.
1.) Persönliche Angaben des Verhafteten
Dr. Karl LICHETECKER [sic!], geboren am 20.4.1929 in Wien, wohnhaft ebendort. Ab dem Jahr
1962 Angestellter im Vorsitz der Regierung (Bundeskanzleramt) in Wien bis zum 15.8.1967, als er
mit seiner Familie in die USA auswanderte. Von da an wirkte er bis zum August 1969 als außerordentlicher Professor für Literatur und Nationalökonomie in Buena [Vista] […]
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