Stasi in Scotland

A sensational new book lays bare the extent of the communist GDR’s attempts to gain access into the British establishment by trying to coax Scotland’s students into spying for them.

Anthony Glees, an intelligence expert from London’s Brunel University, has drawn on the enormous store of files left behind in Stasi headquarters when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, to draw up the most complete picture yet of the East Germans’ infiltration of Scottish academia during the height of the Cold War.

His revelations came as a Scots secretary admitted last night that she had spied for the Stasi for 12 years. Helen Anderson, from Arbroath, said she initially thought she was being recruited by anti-nuclear activists when she was approached while working in Berlin. But she soon fell in love with her Stasi handler.

Glees’s book Stasi Files details the remarkable extents to which students and lecturers were identified for their potential understanding of the communist bloc, targeted for recruitment or simply spied on because of their alleged ‘hostile’ attitudes.

Glees, who has exposed a series of establishment figures over the assistance they gave to the reviled regime of Erich Honecker - knowingly or otherwise - confirms that Edinburgh University was the centre of Stasi interest.

His account of the activities of Edinburgh student Robin Pearson, from his recruitment in 1978 to his eventual exposure while working as a lecturer in Hull 21 years later, reveals an unprecedented list of names and locations that show Scotland was a key target for penetration by Stasi leaders.

This looks to be a major scandal, but one is left wondering how many other nations' universities were similarly targeted. One can almost hear the cries of "witch hunt" already -- but in this case, the witches were all too real. Read the full story in the Sunday Scotsman.

Posted by David on June 17, 2003 2:34 PM