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TSCM expert and security consultant
Herbert Kunz is a German security consultant, with expertise in espionage
countermeasures,
in particular in finding hidden
covert listening devices (bugs).
He started his career in 1971 during his National Service for the Nationale
Volks-Armee (NVA) 1 of the former
DDR (East-Germany).
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In 1974 he started working for the East-German Außenministerium (Foreign
Office), where he was trained extensively in countermeasures against
eavesdropping. Following the recognition of the DDR as a Nation State in
1975, 2 he was sent all over the world to secure DDR objects,
such as embassies, residencies and private apartments.
In 1975, he helped building the first bugging-secure plexiglass room (Orbita)
at the embassy in Vienna (Austria). He found numerous bugs in
London, Iran, Egypt, West-Germany, the US, etc.
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After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent reunification
of the two Germanies in 1990, Kunz stayed in the bug-finding trade
and made a living as a security advisor/engineer and teacher. He can be
hired as a security consultant and is a member of the
Bund Internationaler Detektive
3 (BID). He is also an honorary teacher at the
Security Academy in Berlin (Germany) [1].
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NVA = Nationale Volksarmee = National People's Army.
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The DDR was officially recognised as a nation state by the West,
after the 1975 Helsinki Accords [2].
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International Detective Union.
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Kunz' equipment on this website
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Security services are generally not very open about their work and their
methods. It will therefore not be a surprise that there are virtually no
surviving stories about how the Soviets searched their embassies,
residencies and apartments, an how — if any — bugs were detected and discovered.
Luckily, this situation was different in the former DDR (East-Germany).
Following WWII, the DDR was established as a communist state in 1949,
administered 1 by the
Soviet Union
(Russia). After the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989,
the DDR was reunited with West-Germany (BRD) in 1990,
the East-Germans became West-German citizens and the Stasi-archives
fell into Western hands.
In 1975, the DDR was recognised by the United Nations as an official
nation state, after which embassies, residencies and homes were established
in more than 100 countries. Needless to say that it was of the utmost
importance to the DDR Goverment that these objects were free of
covert listening devices (bugs).
During his time at the DDR Foreign Office,
Kunz found numerous bugs 2
mainly by means of visual inspection and with help of
simple tools like field-strength indicators.
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All that changed when the Orchidea-3 NLJD
was introduced in the mid-1980s.
Many objects were searched again, and a wide variety of
bugs were discovered
by Kunz, most of which were thought to have been planted by Western
adversaries like the British
MI5/MI6
and the United States CIA.
The image on the right shows two of the items that were found in 1987 in London,
in the 12 cm hollow space between the DDR Embassy and its next door neighbour.
At the time it was believed that the items were planted by the British
secret intelligence service MI6
via the adjacent building.
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Western bugs found in DDR objects
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1986 Five remote controlled bugs in the DDR residency in Harare (Zimbabwe) 1987 Several Bugs in the new DDR embassy in London 4 1987 Operational bug in a DDR embassy personnel apartment in Cairo (Egypt) 1987 Defective bug in another apartment in Cairo (Egypt) 1987 Various bugs in the DDR representation in Bonn (West Germany)
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With exception of West-Berlin, which was controlled by West Germany (BRD).
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For example: in 1973, telephone bugs had been found in the DDR representation
in London (UK), as well as manipulated mains wall sockets in Düsseldorf
(West-Germany).
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The Orchidea produces a 30 W (optionally 350 W) pulsed signal, whereas the
Scanlock Broom produces a 300 mW continuous signal.
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At the time, these bugs were attributed to the British
MI6, but in retrospect —
based on items in the collection of Crypto Museum — it seems
more likely that the bugs were placed by the
CIA.
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Reproduced here by kind permission from the author.
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Tuesday 09 October 2018. Last changed: Sunday, 23 August 2020 - 08:45 CET.
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