Dieter Popp

1. JVA Koblenz
   Dates unknown

Dieter Popp (24 November 1938 – 27 November 2020) was a West German insurance agent who worked as a spy between 1969 and 1990. He was based in Bonn, at that time the so-called provisional capital of the German Federal Republic (West Germany). His espionage work was undertaken on behalf of the Military Intelligence Service of the East German National People's Army. In 1990, during the run-up to reunification, Dieter Popp was arrested. In 1991 he was sentenced to a six-year prison term and heavily fined for what one source terms "aggravated espionage". Taking into account the time he spent held in pre-trial investigatory detention, he ended up serving four years of his six-year term. Released in 1994, he continued to believe passionately that East German intelligence operatives such as himself had been "missionaries of peace" ("Kundschafter des Friedens"). By keeping Soviet negotiators well briefed on the secret goals, methods, and red lines of their western counterparts in respect of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks he had contributed to the containment of east–west tensions and prevented the Cold War from exploding into a hot war as a result of western hubris and misplaced over-confidence. Over time it was the lessening of that east–west tension that opened the way to understandings between Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl that put an end to the separate German Democratic Republic. In 1995 Dieter Popp co-founded and became the chair of an organisation of those whose beliefs in this respect were similar to his own, known as "Kundschafter des Friedens fordern Recht e.V." ("Missionaries of Peace demand Justice"). His powerful advocacy of his views continued to place him outside the German political mainstream.