The “Rosenholz-Archives” Myth and Reality

The “Rosenholz”-Archives reveals only who the HV A seemed interesting. And this even has its limits, because the names from La-Li are not part of the microfilms. Persons registered after January 1989 are home free, since the film ends in December 1988. It is in general possible to establish who was an agent; using the three different part of “Rosenholz” it is possible and other databases of the HV A. In West Germany the number throughout the history of the HV A is 6,000. 1,500 of those who were active at the end of the 1980s. Those are all known to the Federal Commissioners Office, the remaining 4,000 West German agents are hidden in the ocean of the 293,000 filing cards. Using the “Rosenholz” of other countries it will be possible to give an almost complete picture of the HV A networks throughout the Western World.

The total picture of what the Scandinavian countries really received and what it meant can only be established when the “Rosenholz”-files are generally available. Fundamental questions however still remain to be answered, like who did the HV A register and on which grounds? How was the HV A networks constituted over time? And how did they develop over time? How did they communicate? And how did the secret logistic function work? The answers to these questions would certainly reveal new insights of how foreign intelligence functioned on the operative level in a not so distant past. Furthermore it must be of interest to the Nordic States how well their own counterintelligence understood their opponent. Did the Nordic services have a clue what went on, or did the Eastern German activities develop unnoticed? Trying to evaluate this should seem imperative to both intelligence services and governments in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.