Cold War Conversations - "vivid & compelling" The NY Times My father was Cold War Stasi spy Werner Stiller (134)
Werner Stiller’s spectacular defection to the West in 1979 inflicted one of the Cold War’s most serious blows to the Stasi.
At the time he was working as a case officer for the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance, the Stasi’s foreign intelligence division, where he was in charge of scientific espionage in the West.
We speak with Stiller’s son Andy, who although he was 11 months old at the time of his father’s defection met his father in later life.
Also included is Scott Calonico, who is producing a documentary film with Andy, covering his father’s abandonment of his family and his country, as well as the story of a young man and his journey to discover the man who was his father, the spy…
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We welcome filmmaker Scott Calonico and Andy to our Cold War conversation…
There’s further information on this episode in our show notes, which can also be found as a link in your podcast app here. https://coldwarconversations.com/episode134/
If you can’t wait for next week’s episode do visit our Facebook discussion group where guests and listeners continue the Cold War Conversation. Just search Cold War Conversations in Facebook.
Thank you very much for listening. It is really appreciated – goodbye.
If you are interested in East Germany we can highly recommend our friends over at Radio GDR.
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0:00 Introduction and backstory of Scott and Andy
0:54 The story of Werner Stiller, Andy's father, and his defection
2:24 Request for listener donations
4:41 Werner's role in East German intelligence services and his motivations
10:35 Examination of Werner's personal life and its impact on his career
14:28 Werner's contact with the BND and his attempts to escape
30:10 Werner's final escape to West Berlin and its aftermath
34:11 Revealing of Marcus Wolf's identity and the aftermath of Werner's defection
41:13 Andy's discovery of his father's past and their relationship post-defection
54:57 Discoveries from the Stasi archives and plans for Scott's documentary
1:00:16 Closing remarks and promotion of Cold War conversations on Facebook
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