The Curious Case of Rainer Baake

The American Thinker ^ | 8-2-17 | David Archibald

[afraidfortherepublic]

Are you worried about the Russian influence on the presidential election? If so, there's a chance you are at least eight years too late. Consider the curious case of Rainer Baake, born in 1955 in the West German town of Witten. From his German Wikipedia entry (translated): After the Abitur (final high school examinations), Rainer Baake worked as a Community Organizer in Chicago from 1974 to 1978.

So a 19 year old German went from a small town in Germany to be a community organiser in Chicago for four years. This is as strange as a 19-year-old African-American would be going from the Midwest to work as a community organizer in Hamburg, overcoming the problems of a different skin color and a high-school-level language abiliy.   Doubtless young Rainer had a burning ambition to inform disadvantaged Chicago residents of tenants’ rights and the like.

Or perhaps not? And four years? It was as if it was his job or education, that he didn’t have a normal life to get back to.

The next question is who paid for young Rainer to be in Chicago?  

One suspect should be Markus Wolf, head of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (the foreign intelligence division) of East Germany’s Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the Stasi. He is considered to be the most successful spymaster in the entire post-World War II period. West Germany was riddled with Stasi agents, including, at one stage, the secretary to the German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, who had to resign as a consequence.  The Stasi would have known who all the promising young West German communists were.

[afraidfortherepublic]

FTA: Of course, this thesis has a slender basis, and there could be many other possibilities. But we are dealing with people who knew the importance of covering their tracks. For example, in retirement Markus Wolf wrote his memoirs, which were published in English and German. The content and message, for each language, is different because he had two different audiences to manipulate and influence.

[Migraine]

I saw that excerpt at the end of the article. Seems like Archibald was just getting warmed up. Wonder why he said that Wolf’s memoir had a different tenor according to the language of the audience, but didn’t specify or even hint at those differences? I find this a fascinating thesis, especially after just having read Jack Barsky’s (nee Albrecht Dittrich) memoir, “Deep Undercover” (he had a similar Cold War gig, except that he fell in love with the idea of America).

Also, Archibald referred to Frank Davis Marshall. I think he got the middle and last names reversed. Small matter.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

afraidfortherepublic :" Markus Wolf, head of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (the foreign intelligence division) of East Germany’s Ministry for State Security,
commonly known as the Stasi."

I think that I would like to know more about Markus Wolf, as he was cunningly successful.
It would seem that he left two of his agents in government service: one in New Hampshire, and another in NYC .

[marron]

And I don’t think Davis was in Chicago in the 70s, I thought he was in Hawaii until his death.