English version...

He was the most wanted man of the turning point: Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski. The former foreign buyer of the GDR, the SED regime exacted a total of 27 billion D-Mark, is now 75 years old.
Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski was a true capitalist in East German socialism. The economic managers led the Secret Department was founded in 1967 "commercial coordination" (KoKo) Ministry of Foreign Trade of the GDR.

His task to avert the constant threat of bankruptcy of the GDR, dominated the resourceful foreign buyer like no other. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the KoKo achieved under his direction a total of 27 billion D-Mark. Without the gifted and enterprising Strippenzieher the communist regime would have been bankrupt years ago.

About KoKo branching network with its 150 subsidiaries companies and wrapped the Berlin-born largely obscured his shady transactions. In addition to the purchase of hard currency Schalck-Golodkowski sat among other things, to embargo and arms deals, the Inter-shops, antiques theft or smuggling.

Nested Empire

Even the infamous Häftlingsfreikäufe - over 30 000 political prisoners are to DDR have been released by the Federal Republic - ran on the KoKo. As to the outside world as a humanitarian action of the Protestant Church was looked for Schalck-Golodkowski a lucrative business. The 'great Alex, "as it was called because of its size of about 1.90 meters, drew also responsible for supplying the GDR political notables with Western luxury goods.

His convoluted empire was one of the best kept secrets of the SED regime. Only the top comrades, the State Council Chairman Erich Honecker, facing business leaders Günter Mittag and Stasi chief Erich Mielke, were initiated into the business of the Socialist Unity Party member and loyal Stasi colonel.

1986 rose Schalck-Golodkowski in the Central Committee of the SED. This followed a spectacular billion loan from the Federal Republic, which he in 1983 as an informal negotiator of the GDR calculated the CSU leader and Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss had geleiert from the cross. With this deal, became the man who had always kept in the background, even in the West a certain celebrity.

Turbulent turnaround time

With the collapse of the GDR in the autumn of 1989 went through Schalck-Golodkowski a rollercoaster of emotions. After it first had to replace lunch and traded internally even as party candidate for prime minister, he was expelled for violation of press reports about the criminal activities of his KoKo from the Central Committee and the Party.

The former hero of the workers and peasants fled the State in the night of 4 December 1989 with his wife Sigrid in the West. Four weeks he spent in custody before he was a "Pastor Gutmann from the GDR" in the basement of a pastor's widow Munich shelter.

Instead of identifying flood immunity

Under the code name "Snow White" now at the Federal Intelligence Service, he made extensive statements about the criminal activities of KoKo and his Stasi activities. The BND provided him with impunity and then a new identity in view.

But with the dissolution of his old place of activity came at the KoKo increasingly dubious details to light. Various investigations, indictments and court cases were the result - whether because of illegal arms transactions, embezzlement, fraud or espionage. All sentences were suspended on probation.
In one memorable television appearance in the RTL show "The hot seat" of the former "hero of labor protested in 1991 to have it all" handled properly and correctly. " Spends his life in the meantime ill financial juggler (cancer, heart problems) in Rottach-Egern am Tegernsee Bavaria. Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski is now 75 years old.

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