Rainer Rupp (born September 21, 1945 in

Saarlouis Saarlouis (; french: link=no, Sarrelouis, ; formerly Sarre-Libre and Saarlautern) is a town in Saarland, Germany, capital of the district of Saarlouis. In 2020, the town had a population of 34,409. Saarlouis, as the name implies, is located on t ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

) is a former top spy who worked under the

codename A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...

s Mosel and later Topaz for the East German intelligence service HVA (General Reconnaissance Administration) in the

NATO headquarters The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is headquartered in a complex in Haren, part of the City of Brussels municipality of Belgium. The staff at the headquarters is composed of national delegations of NATO member states and includes civ ...

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

from 1977 until 1989, releasing

document A document is a written, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ''Documentum'', which denotes a "teaching" o ...

s of the highest importance (''

Cosmic Top Secret Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to know, ...

'') to the

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

Biography

Rupp grew up in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

with strong

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soc ...

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studi ...

leanings. In 1968, as a

student A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementa ...

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...

, employment as a spy for the

GDR East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...

was suggested to him, and he agreed out of conviction. He continued his studies in

, was trained as a spy in

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 u ...

and was hired by

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

in 1977. He rose quickly in the ranks and provided

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now creat ...

s of some 10,000 pages to his controllers, including the precise location plans for the deployment of

cruise missile A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhea ...

s and

Pershing II The Pershing II Weapon System was a solid-fueled two-stage medium-range ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the Pershing 1a Field Artillery Missile System as the United States Army's primary nuclear-capable theate ...

missiles in

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

, as well as the central MC 161 document which summarized the NATO strategy as well as NATO's analysis of the

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republi ...

and its intentions. These documents were promptly transferred to the KGB. He would photograph documents in his office, or take them home and photograph them in his

wine cellar A wine cellar is a storage room for wine in bottles or barrels, or more rarely in carboys, amphorae, or plastic containers. In an ''active'' wine cellar, important factors such as temperature and humidity are maintained by a climate control system ...

. He met contact persons all over

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

and received instructions via number stations,

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...

programs

broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

messages

encrypted In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...

as number sequences. His

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English ...

wife knew about his activities and tried to persuade him to stop. He later said "At the time I did it, I believed it to be my

moral duty A duty (from "due" meaning "that which is owing"; fro, deu, did, past participle of ''devoir''; la, debere, debitum, whence "debt") is a commitment or expectation to perform some action in general or if certain circumstances arise. A duty may ...

." NATO did not have any knowledge of the existence of Topaz until GDR officer Heinz Busch defected in 1990. Busch however did not know the identity of Topaz. Several meetings of the

secret service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...

s of a number of countries ensued with the aim of identifying Topaz, who took part in some of those meetings. With the help of the Rosenholz files that had fallen into the hands of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

after the dissolution of the GDR, Rupp was caught in 1993, while on vacation in Germany. He confessed and received a

prison sentence In law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court after conviction in a criminal procedure, normally at the conclusion of a trial. A sentence may consist of imprisonment, a fine, or other sanctions. Sentences for multip ...

of 12 years in 1994. He was released early in July 2000. Rupp became a member of the

PDS PD, P.D., or Pd may refer to: Arts and media * ''People's Democracy'' (newspaper), weekly organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) * ''The Plain Dealer'', a Cleveland, Ohio, US newspaper * Post Diaspora, a time frame in the '' Honorverse' ...

and served temporarily as an advisor in regard to issues of security and

foreign policy A state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterally or through ...

; he quit the party, however, in 2003.

Averted atomic war claim

Rupp claims that his activities may have averted a

nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear wa ...

in the fall of 1983, a claim that is not entirely unfounded according to American experts. In an interview for the Channel 4 programme "1983: The Brink of Apocalypse", about exercise

Able Archer 83 Able Archer 83 was the annual NATO Able Archer exercise conducted in November 1983. The purpose for the command post exercise, like previous years, was to simulate a period of conflict escalation, culminating in the US military attaining a simu ...

, broadcast in the UK on 5 January 2008, he said that he had transmitted the message that NATO was ''not'' preparing to launch a surprise nuclear attack against the USSR during the exercise to his HVA controllers. He did this by way of encoding the message on a device disguised as a calculator which then turned the message into a short electronic burst which could be transmitted to a set telephone number. He viewed this as vital to preventing a Soviet pre-emptive strike against NATO forces. In the same program, Rupp said he was proud of the damage he did to NATO over the years of his intelligence activities."1983 The Brink of Apocalypse" Channel 4
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rupp, Rainer 1945 births Living people West German spies for East Germany People convicted of spying for East Germany NATO personnel