man with thinning hair and a mustache.
One journalist asked the local politician if he thought it was wise to build a shopping mall on a site where there was believed to be unexploded ordnance from World War II. The politician started to ramble and after just a couple of sentences was left fumbling for words. Ralph Hanke stepped in.
“That’s a ridiculous idea. We’ve spent a lot of time and money making sure that this site is absolutely safe. …”
The journalists fired a torrent of questions at Ralph. None of them concerned the impending building project or the munitions. Now it was about everything from his fortune to his rumored romance with a Ukrainian model.
Ralph Hanke never gave interviews and only showed himself in public very occasionally at small, unexpected places where there was little at stake, such as the construction of this small shopping mall in a Munich suburb.
His right-hand man, Roland Gentz, stepped in front of him and thanked the journalists for their interest, then shepherded Ralph out behind the podium.
They got into the car driven by Mikhail Sergeyevich Asmarov, a big Russian whose neck was almost as broad as the seat he was sitting in.
“He doesn’t know when to shut up. The problem with that moron is that he thinks he’s working for the people,” Roland said from the passenger seat.
Ralph was looking out the window. Buildings glided past, houses, shops, homes, and people — all unknown to him, and that would always be the case. In recent times he had started playing for high stakes, and he liked that. His construction company was getting all the contracts he wanted. Building shopping malls, docks, parking structures, and office buildings looked good, it made him legitimate. He provided a lot of work and earned a lot of money, clean money.
Ralph Hanke lived a life he had created for himself, no one could say otherwise. As the only child of a poor family he had grown up in the former German Democratic Republic. His then wife gave birth to his son, Christian, in 1978, but he divorced her two years later when she developed an unhealthy taste for heroin.
He spent the years before the Wall fell working in the post office, where he informed on his colleagues to the Stasi. His activities as an informant gave him advantages that he went on to exploit later. He got to know some security officers who were smart enough to predict the collapse of East Germany. He resigned from the post office and prepared a coup with his friends in the Stasi to steal archive material about informants in order to sell it back to them after the Wall fell.
He spent the last year working solely for the Stasi, where he was part of Kommerzielle Koordinierungs — KoKo. The purpose of the department was to use the security service to acquire Western currency to keep the bankrupt country afloat a bit longer.
Ralph Hanke and his friends sold small arms from the East German Army to anyone who wanted them. The first time he ever went abroad it was to General Noriega’s Panama. Noriega paid for the guns in cash, with dollars, and for the first time Ralph realized he had found his role in life. On November 9, 1989 he walked free as a bird into West Berlin, his son, Christian, by his side. The sun shone behind him, lighting up the way ahead as they walked through the opening at the Brandenburg Gate.
He lived for a while with an old friend in West Berlin, waiting a few months before he started selling the files to the former informants. The longer he waited, the more money he could get for them. He used this small fortune to buy stolen supplies from the collapsed army: vehicles, weapons, and other equipment that could be snapped up for next to nothing, then he sold them on and earned back his money tenfold. He kept copies of the Stasi reports he had sold back to the informants, many of whom went on to occupy positions of power in the new Germany.
In the late 1990s, when most of these men and women felt that their
One journalist asked the local politician if he thought it was wise to build a shopping mall on a site where there was believed to be unexploded ordnance from World War II. The politician started to ramble and after just a couple of sentences was left fumbling for words. Ralph Hanke stepped in.
“That’s a ridiculous idea. We’ve spent a lot of time and money making sure that this site is absolutely safe. …”
The journalists fired a torrent of questions at Ralph. None of them concerned the impending building project or the munitions. Now it was about everything from his fortune to his rumored romance with a Ukrainian model.
Ralph Hanke never gave interviews and only showed himself in public very occasionally at small, unexpected places where there was little at stake, such as the construction of this small shopping mall in a Munich suburb.
His right-hand man, Roland Gentz, stepped in front of him and thanked the journalists for their interest, then shepherded Ralph out behind the podium.
They got into the car driven by Mikhail Sergeyevich Asmarov, a big Russian whose neck was almost as broad as the seat he was sitting in.
“He doesn’t know when to shut up. The problem with that moron is that he thinks he’s working for the people,” Roland said from the passenger seat.
Ralph was looking out the window. Buildings glided past, houses, shops, homes, and people — all unknown to him, and that would always be the case. In recent times he had started playing for high stakes, and he liked that. His construction company was getting all the contracts he wanted. Building shopping malls, docks, parking structures, and office buildings looked good, it made him legitimate. He provided a lot of work and earned a lot of money, clean money.
Ralph Hanke lived a life he had created for himself, no one could say otherwise. As the only child of a poor family he had grown up in the former German Democratic Republic. His then wife gave birth to his son, Christian, in 1978, but he divorced her two years later when she developed an unhealthy taste for heroin.
He spent the years before the Wall fell working in the post office, where he informed on his colleagues to the Stasi. His activities as an informant gave him advantages that he went on to exploit later. He got to know some security officers who were smart enough to predict the collapse of East Germany. He resigned from the post office and prepared a coup with his friends in the Stasi to steal archive material about informants in order to sell it back to them after the Wall fell.
He spent the last year working solely for the Stasi, where he was part of Kommerzielle Koordinierungs — KoKo. The purpose of the department was to use the security service to acquire Western currency to keep the bankrupt country afloat a bit longer.
Ralph Hanke and his friends sold small arms from the East German Army to anyone who wanted them. The first time he ever went abroad it was to General Noriega’s Panama. Noriega paid for the guns in cash, with dollars, and for the first time Ralph realized he had found his role in life. On November 9, 1989 he walked free as a bird into West Berlin, his son, Christian, by his side. The sun shone behind him, lighting up the way ahead as they walked through the opening at the Brandenburg Gate.
He lived for a while with an old friend in West Berlin, waiting a few months before he started selling the files to the former informants. The longer he waited, the more money he could get for them. He used this small fortune to buy stolen supplies from the collapsed army: vehicles, weapons, and other equipment that could be snapped up for next to nothing, then he sold them on and earned back his money tenfold. He kept copies of the Stasi reports he had sold back to the informants, many of whom went on to occupy positions of power in the new Germany.
In the late 1990s, when most of these men and women felt that their
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