Julius Mader (7 October 1928 – 17 May 2000), also known as Thomas Bergner, was a German journalist, writer, and political scientist who wrote extensively on espionage.

Early life

Mader came from a lower-middle-class family. His family was forcibly relocated in 1945, ending up in the

Soviet occupation zone The Soviet occupation zone in Germany ( or , ; ) was an area of Germany that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a communist area, established as a result of the Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republ ...

of what remained of Germany, a region in the process of becoming the

German Democratic Republic East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

. Mader attended business college, followed by an apprenticeship as a draper. He studied government and law, economics and journalism at the Universities of

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and

Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...

, the Institute of Internal Trade in Leipzig, and the German Academy for Political and Legal Science in Potsdam-Babelsberg.

Career

In 1955, he completed a Master of Business Travelers. A member of the SED, from 1958-59 he was deputy managing editor at a magazine. From 1960, he began working as a freelance writer. From 1962, he served as officer on special assignment with the code name "Faingold" for the

Stasi The Ministry for State Security (, ; abbreviated MfS), commonly known as the (, an abbreviation of ), was the Intelligence agency, state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive pol ...

. In 1965, he earned his doctorate from the "Walter Ulbricht" Law Academy (''"Deutsche Akademie für Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft "Walter Ulbricht""'') at

Potsdam-Babelsberg Babelsberg () is the largest quarter (urban subdivision), quarter of Potsdam, the capital city of the Germany, German state of Brandenburg. The neighbourhood is named after a small hill on the Havel river. It is the location of Babelsberg Palace an ...

for "The secret services of the German Federal Republic and their subversive activities against the German Democratic Republic". In 1970, he received his habilitation (higher academic qualification) from the

Humboldt University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

, for work co-authored with Albert Charisius on the development, system and operation of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

secret service. Mader's military and political writings covered the period of the Nazi era and the Cold War. His books have a circulation of several million, including translations.Boris Chertok, ''Rockets and People
Volume 3
: Hot Days of the Cold War'', NASA History Series, 2009, (p.278, footnote 62) He was the author of the book ''

Who's Who in the CIA ''Who's Who in CIA'' is a book written by the East German journalist Julius Mader (also known as Thomas Bergner) and self-published in East Berlin in 1968. It was titled as ''Who's who in CIA; ein biographisches Nachschlagewerk über 3000 Mitarb ...

'', which has been identified as an "active measure" of

disinformation Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic dece ...

References

* Paul Maddrell, "What we have discovered about the Cold War is what we already knew: Julius Mader and the Western secret services during the Cold War", '' Cold War History'', Vol. 5, No. 2, May 2005, pp. 235–258, {{DEFAULTSORT:Mader, Julius 1928 births 2000 deaths People from Ústí nad Labem District East German writers Sudeten German people Stasi officers East German journalists Historians of espionage Naturalized citizens of Germany Humboldt University of Berlin alumni 20th-century German historians 20th-century German male writers German male non-fiction writers