Gabriele Gast
Gabriele Gast (born 2 March 1943) is a former double agent and East German spy. In 1973, Gast responded to a newspaper job advertisement purportedly placed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. On 1 November 1973, she started to work with the West German intelligence service (the Bundesnachrichtendienst/BND). Background vetting undertaken by the BND had failed to identify that since 1968 Gast had been on the books of the East German HVA, the branch of the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) concerned with "foreign" intelligence. For an unknown reason, it was not till 1990, when she was "betrayed by a defector", that the West German Intelligence Service became aware of her espionage activities. Informants who passed information from the West to the East German intelligence services were often paid a fee. Gabriele Gast refused to accept payment and reportedly engaged in espionage for "love". It is theorised that after some time the "love" was matched and replaced as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Remscheid
Remscheid () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is, after Wuppertal and Solingen, the third-largest municipality in Bergisches Land, being located on the northern edge of the region, on the south side of the Ruhr area. Remscheid had around 109,000 inhabitants in 2015. At the end of 2019 it had 113,703 inhabitants. Geography Remscheid comprises four boroughs, ''Alt-Remscheid'', ''Remscheid-Süd'', ''Lennep'', and Lüttringhausen. Its highest point is the Brodtberg (378 m). History Remscheid was founded in the 12th century, but remained a small village until the 19th century. Early spellings for the city included ''Remissgeid'' (1217), ''Rymscheyd'' (1351), ''Reymscheyd'' (1487) and ''Rembscheid'' (1639). The economic growth of the entire Rhine-Ruhr region led to an increase of the population of Remscheid. Mechanical engineering and toolmaking were the main industries practised within the town. This is carried on today with the Hazet tool company which has three ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term ''Cold war (term), cold war'' is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and Nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, Economic sanctions, embargoes, and sports diplomacy. After the end of World War II in 1945, during which the US and USSR had been allies, the USSR installed satellite state, satellite governments in its occupied territories in Eastern Europe and N ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aachen
Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is located at the northern foothills of the High Fens and the Eifel Mountains. It sits on the Wurm (Rur), Wurm River, a tributary of the Rur (river), Rur, and together with Mönchengladbach, it is the only larger German city in the drainage basin of the Meuse. It is the westernmost larger city in Germany, lying approximately west of Cologne and Bonn, directly bordering Belgium in the southwest, and the Netherlands in the northwest. The city lies in the Meuse–Rhine Euroregion and is the seat of the Aachen (district), district of Aachen ''(Städteregion Aachen)''. The once Celts, Celtic settlement was equipped with several in the course of colonization by Roman people, Roman pioneers settling at the warm Aachen thermal springs around the 1st cen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Klaus Mehnert
Klaus Mehnert (October 10, 1906, in Moscow, Russian Empire – January 2, 1984, in Freudenstadt, West Germany) was a German writer, journalist and academic. He was a correspondent in the Soviet Union; a professor in the United States; a publisher of the German-funded journal ''XXth Century'' in Shanghai during World War II; and an advisor to several German governments after the war. He was a prolific author. Early life and education Mehnert was born in 1906 in Moscow, Russia. His father was an engineer. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Mehnert's family left Moscow for Stuttgart, Germany. His father died in Flanders in 1917 as a German soldier. Mehnert attended the University of Tübingen and the University of Munich in Germany, the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States, and finally the University of Berlin, where he received his PhD under Professor Otto Hoetzsch in 1928. Hoetzsch and Mehnert later took part in the short-lived society to study the Sovi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Prague Spring
The Prague Spring (; ) was a period of liberalization, political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected Secretary (title), First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August 1968, when the Soviet Union and three other Warsaw Pact members (People's Republic of Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Hungarian People's Republic, Hungary and Polish People's Republic, Poland) Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, invaded the country to suppress the reforms. The Prague Spring reforms were an attempt by Dubček to grant additional rights to the citizens of Czechoslovakia in an act of partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. The freedoms granted included a loosening of restrictions on the freedom of the press, media, freedom of speech, speech and freedom of movement, travel. After national discussion of dividing the country into a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Berliner Zeitung
The ''Berliner Zeitung'' (; ) is a daily newspaper based in Berlin, Germany. Founded in East Germany in 1945, it is the only East German paper to achieve national prominence since Reunification of Germany, reunification. It is published by Berliner Verlag. History and profile ''Berliner Zeitung'' was first published on 21 May 1945 in East Berlin. The paper, a center-left daily, is published by Berliner Verlag. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the paper was bought by Gruner + Jahr and the United Kingdom, British publisher Robert Maxwell. Gruner + Jahr later became sole owners and relaunched it in 1997 with a completely new design. A stated goal was to turn the ''Berliner Zeitung'' into "Germany's ''Washington Post''". The daily says its journalists come "from east and west", and it styles itself as a "young, modern and dynamic" paper for the whole of Germany. It is the only East German paper to achieve national prominence since German reunification, reunification. In 2003, th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Association Of Christian Democratic Students
The Association of Christian Democratic Students (, RCDS) is a German student organisation founded in 1951 and based in Berlin. It contains more than 100 groups at universities with 8,000 members in total. The RCDS is the largest and oldest existing political student association in Germany. It sees itself as a liberal and conservative student association. The organisation stands politically near the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union, two conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ... German political parties. It is one of nine founding members of thCentre Right European Association for Students which was established on the 23rd of July 2022 amongst organisations such as AktionsGemeinschaft, Fria Moderata Studentförbundet of Blasieholmsgata ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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German Federal Republic
BRD ( ; English: FRG/Federal Republic of Germany) is an unofficial abbreviation for the Federal Republic of Germany, informally known in English as West Germany until 1990, and just Germany since reunification. It was occasionally used in the Federal Republic itself during the early Cold War; it was commonly used between 1968 and 1990 by the ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), resulting in a strong deprecation of its use in West Germany. The East German regime had previously used the term "German Federal Republic" (), which it abbreviated as "DBR", to refer to West Germany. The most widely used abbreviation for West Germany in the country itself was its ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code "DE", which has remained the country code of reunified Germany. While the English equivalent FRG was used as an IOC country code and a FIFA trigramme, the use of ''BRD'' was strongly discouraged by the authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany itself from the 1970s, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Catholic Church
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions and has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilization.Gerald O'Collins, O'Collins, p. v (preface). The church consists of 24 Catholic particular churches and liturgical rites#Churches, ''sui iuris'' (autonomous) churches, including the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, which comprise almost 3,500 dioceses and Eparchy, eparchies List of Catholic dioceses (structured view), around the world, each overseen by one or more Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishops. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the Papal supremacy, chief pastor of the church. The core beliefs of Catholicism are found in the Nicene Creed. The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of The Ruhr
The Battle of the Ruhr (5 March – 31 July 1943) was a strategic bombing campaign against the Ruhr Area in Nazi Germany carried out by RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. The Ruhr was the main centre of German heavy industry with coke plants, steelworks, armaments factories and ten synthetic oil plants. The British attacked 26 targets identified in the Combined Bomber Offensive. Targets included the Krupp armament works (Essen), the Nordstern synthetic oil plant at Gelsenkirchen and the Rheinmetall–Borsig plant in Düsseldorf, which was evacuated during the battle. The battle included cities such as Cologne not in the Ruhr proper but which were in the larger Rhine-Ruhr region and considered part of the Ruhr industrial complex. Some targets were not sites of heavy industry but part of the production and movement of materiel. The Ruhr had been attacked by Bomber Command from 1940; its defences and the amounts of industrial pollutants produced a semi-permanen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks in World War II, Tanks and Air warfare of World War II, aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in history, causing World War II casualties, the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Allied-occupied Germany, Germany, Allied-occupied Austria, Austria, Occupation of Japan, Japan, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Günter Guillaume
Günter Guillaume (1 February 1927 – 10 April 1995) was an East German spy who gathered intelligence as an agent for East Germany's secret service, the Stasi, in West Germany. Guillaume became West German chancellor Willy Brandt's secretary, and his discovery as a spy in 1973 led to Brandt's downfall in the Guillaume affair. Early life Günter Karl Heinz Guillaume was born on 1 February 1927, at 31 Choriner Straße in Prenzlauer Berg, then a working-class district of Berlin. He was the only child of Karl Ernst Guillaume, a pianist who played in bars and theatres, where he provided background music for silent films, and Johanna Old Pauline (), a hairdresser. His parents, who had married four months before Günter's birth, were both native to Berlin. Due to the combination of the Great Depression and the introduction of sound films, the Guillaumes suffered financial hardship. These experiences made the extremist policies being presented by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Party attra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |