Thinking about why the celebrations to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall seemed so inadequate, I remembered a story told to me over lunch 20 years ago by a British spy, who I shall call Jim.
In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany, the British Secret Intelligence service was tasked by the British government to track down and reward the agents and informants who had worked for them during the Cold War. According to my lunching companion, who was in charge of the operation, there were about 30 and each was to be paid 30,000 Deutsch Marks – about $17,000.
It was a gesture of gratitude rather than compensation for all the suffering that the individuals and their families had endured, which included long prison sentences and sometimes death. It took a while to trace all the individuals and the families of the deceased. Jim made sure that all young British Intelligence officers, now working in the Berlin Station on the famous boulevard Unter der Linden in East Berlin, went along to hear for themselves the stories of sacrifice and courage when handing over the money.
