Karl Wienand (born 15 December 1926 inLindenpütz; died 10 October 2011 inTrier[1]) was a German politician of theSocial Democratic Party (SPD) and secret agent for theDDR'sMinistry of State Security (MfS).
Karl Wienand's father, aGerman communist party member, was frequently detained as an enemy of theNazi regime[2] and often demonstrated againstRobert Ley. The Nazis would later kill the man.[3]
After distinguishing himself attendingVolksschule, Wienandfils was sent in 1941 to the normal schools inBad Godesberg andXanten. He performed military service in theSecond World War in apenal battalion[3] and was severely wounded. He suffered a head injury and a dislocated shoulder ; he also needed a leg amputated. He thus qualified as a "70%casualty".
He was widowed twice, and (step)father to five children. One son of his first wife died in an accident.[3] In 1975, he became director of theBonner "Gesellschaft für kosmetische plastische Chirurgie und ÄsthetikmbH Klinik International".[4]
Wienand applied to enter theNazi party on 9 October 1943, and would be enrolled on 20 April 1944 (as member #10.014.358).[5][6] In 1947, Wienand attached himself to the SPD. In 1950, he was selected as SPDblock captain (German:Unterbezirk) for theRhein-Sieg-Kreis. Already by 1951 he had advanced to theMittelrhein committee (German:Bezirk) and by 1955 the central party council (German:Parteirat). In 1990, he resigned from politics. In 2002, he left the SPD, anticipating a censure motion (German:Parteiausschluss).
PerHerbert Wehner, Wienand is a "Mann für heikle Fälle [man with a deft touch]". In the view of the historianArnulf Baring, he belongs "zum sozialliberalen Kernbereich, zur Handvoll ihrer wichtigsten Figuren [to the central core of social liberalism, the most important handful of figures]".[7]
Following the1953 German legislative election, Karl Wienand at the age of 26 became the youngest representative in thesecond German Bundestag. From 15 November 1963 to 13 April 1967 he was deputy chairman of the Bundestag's committee on defense. From 3 March 1964 to 27 April 1967 he headed the SPD's parliamentary working group on national security. From 7 March 1967 to 30 August 1974, Wienand wasChief Whip. His time in the Bundestag lapsed beginning 3 December 1974.
Wienand was ensnared in a series ofpolitical scandals, and has been convicted multiple times.
In thePaninternational Flight 112 disaster on 6 September 1971, 22 people died on during an emergency landing on the autobahn outside Hamburg. Wienand, in return for roughly 162,500 Deutsche Marken, had allegedly shielded the airline from the inspection of theFederal Aviation Office. A parliamentary inquiry on the issue but could not reach any firm conclusions due to partisanship.[8]
In avote of no confidence againstChancellorWilly Brandt in 1972, Wienand supposedly paid theCDU representativeJulius Steiner 50,000 DM to abstain, the "Steiner-Wienand affair". As much was admitted in a 1973 press conference following Steiner's second resignation from the Bundestag. Later it was revealed that Steiner had obtained 50,000 DM from the MfS; whether he had been paid twice is unclear.
In 1973, Wienand was stripped of hisimmunity as aBundestag member followingtax evasion. In 1975 he is believed to have owed altogether 102,000 DM in taxes – not to mention taxes on the moneys from Paninternational.
In 1993, federal prosecutors at theFederal Prosecutor's Office encountered a description of acovert agent inMain Directorate for Reconnaissance (HVA) records that placed them on Wienand's trail. Starting in June 1959, the MfS had managed Wienand as a possibleunofficial collaborator (German:Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter (IM) Vorlauf) code-named "Streit". In 1971, he was accepted as a penetrative unofficial collaborator (German:IM mit besonderen Aufgaben) and renamed in the records as "Kontaktperson". In 1988, he was reregistered as an intelligence source.[9] The prosecutors alleged proof that from 1970 to 1989 he had secretly worked with the MfS' HVA. The Düsseldorf regional court (German:Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf) deemed his punishable work to begin in 1976, as he previously had a protection for official speech; and sentenced him in 1996 on account of his espionage for the DDR to 2.5 years' time and financial penalties equivalent to the amount of funds Wienand had received from the MfS: 1 million DM. According to the memoirs of the HVA headMarkus Wolf, Wienand had been in contact with DDR foreign agents since the end of the 1960s. TheFederal Court of Justice (BGH) rejected Wienand'scassatory appeal on 28 November 1997,[10] which was the final court of appeals for the Düsseldorfer jurisdiction. ThereafterGerman presidentRoman Herzogcommuted his sentence to 5 years' probation on account of Wienand's heart disease.[11]
Wienand denied the accusations unto his death.
Wienand took millions inbribes for planning and construction of the Cologne waste incinerator (MVA). Allegedly, he was an accomplice to corruption, bribery, and tax evasion. In 2002, he spent three months inpre-trial detention (German:Untersuchungshaft), before theCologne regional court (German:Oberlandesgericht Köln), on account of deteriorating health, let him instead provide sureties against flight (surrendering his passport andpersonal ID, as well as performing thrice-weekly check-ins at the local police station). These conditions were then lifted in August 2003 by the Cologne district court (German:Landgericht Köln). Because of his health, the investigation into Wienand could not remain open for long. On 14 December 2004, the district court sentenced Karl Wienand to two years' probation. The court considered it proven, that the 77‑y.o. had been guilty of aiding and abetting a corrupt breach of faith. Wienand's lawyer had admitted at the start of the trial, that he had received the amount of a million euros in connection with the Cologne MVA, but not the quantity of 2.1 million that the state's lawyer claimed. The BGH lifted a portion of the sentence in 2005, Wienand had already been acquitted of parts of it in the cologne district court.[12]
