Alfred Frenzel
Born	18 September 1899 Josefův Důl,Bohemia,Austria-Hungary
Died	18 July 1968(1968-07-18) (aged 68) Liberec, Czechoslovakia
Occupation	Member of Parliament ofWest Germany
Espionage activity
Country	West Germany
Allegiance	Czechoslovakia
Agency	StB
Service years	1956–1960
Codename	Anna

Alfred Frenzel (18 September 1899 – 18 July 1968) was aWest German member of parliament, who was secretly conductingespionage forCzechoslovakia while serving on the Bundestag's Defense Committee. Given thecode nameAnna by theStB, he passed along classified information to the Communist government in Prague for five years, until his arrest inBonn on 31 October 1960.^[1] He was the most important StB spy during the entireCold War.

DuringWorld War II, after the invasion of his homeland byNazi Germany, Frenzel worked as an agent for thegovernment in exile in theUnited Kingdom. After the end of the war, Czechoslovakia became acommunist state, and Frenzelemigrated toWest Germany.

The new state intelligence service in Czechoslovakia, the StB, examined the files of pre-war intelligence officers, and found information on Frenzel's pre-war activities. When they discovered that Frenzel had been appointed to theparliamentary defence committee responsible for remilitarising West Germany and establishing her place inNATO, the StB leapt on this opportunity to recruit such a highly placed spy.

In April 1956, an old friend of Frenzel's visited him in West Germany. He told Frenzel that he was now working for the Czechoslovak government, and offered Frenzel a job. The old friend added that he would expose Frenzel's political past andcriminal record unless he took up the offer. He also said that Frenzel's wife, who was on a trip toPrague, would be in grave danger if he refused.Intimidated, Frenzel agreed to take the job.

He travelled toVienna, Austria, which was at the time crawling with StB officers due to its proximity to Czechoslovakia, where he was given 1,500Deutsche Marks and given the code name Anna. In July, he signed a document indicating his links to the StB.

Frenzel was now trapped, and the StB had enough information toblackmail him unless he did exactly as they said.

Under the close watch of his StB controller,MajorBohumil Molnár, Frenzel returned to West Germany. He began to pass information to Molnár, including a copy of the entire West German defencebudget and details ofprototypeAmericanaircraft.

To reward him for this, the StB gave him acar and avilla back in Czechoslovakia, and also paid Frenzel an enormoussalary, placed into a Czechoslovakbank so as not to arouse West German suspicion.

During his time as a spy, the StB'sTechnical Directorate gave Frenzel many new and experimental devices, including a smallfilm-carryingstatue, which, by way of a smallexplosive charge, would destroy its film unless a specialmercury switch was deactivated.

Much of the information the StB gathered from Frenzel was passed on to theKGB.

In September 1959, Frenzel was passed on from Molnar (who was promoted to deputy director of the StB for his work with Frenzel) to a new controller, a man operating under thepseudonymFranz Altman. Altman's favourite method of transporting information and film was by way of the containers that would destroy their contents, such as the small statue mentioned before.

These containers would be passed on to Czechoslovakdiplomats, who would return the information to Prague. However, in October 1960, the West Germancounterintelligence organisation, theBfV, became suspicious of Altman, after thetax department reported spending disproportionate to hisincome.

Altman was arrested just before he boarded a flight to Prague. The arresting BfV agents went through his luggage, and found atalcum powder tin. It was determined to be carrying film, and BfV agents very carefully disassembled it.

Inside was a roll of film, and when the film was developed, photos were found of key West German installations. In the corner of one photo was thenumber plate of a car. The BfV investigated this, and found that the car belonged to Alfred Frenzel. Along with further evidence, he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years inprison.

He was exchanged for four West German agents five years later.

Frenzel died of natural causes in 1968.

• The Ultimate Spy Book byH. Keith Melton,ISBN 0-86438-875-6

• 1899 births
• 1968 deaths
• Czechoslovak spies against the United States
• Czechoslovak spies against West Germany
• Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians
• German Bohemian people
• People of the StB
• People convicted of spying for Czechoslovakia

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