Steve Gibson (1)

I heard of Brixmis when I discovered Tony Geraghty's [b:Brixmis|1050297|Brixmis|Tony Geraghty|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348578556s/1050297.jpg|1036754].

For those of you that don't know Brixmis was a little known Cold War unit who's role was to obtain as much military intelligence about the Russian forces in East Germany as possible, within the rules laid down in the Robertson-Malinin Agreement made shortly after the end of the war in Europe. The Soviets were allowed a similar mission in West Germany called Soxmis. There were also French and US equivalents.

The original intention was to create a mechanism to facilitate liaison between the occupying military governments, particularly between those of the Western allies and the Soviet Union. The exchange of military liaison missions appeared to offer a convenient solution, however they soon effectively became spying missions.

With only cameras and tape recorders Brixmis were allowed to travel across East Germany and obtained a constant stream of information on Soviet equipment and dispositions despite the constant harrying and in some cases assualts of the STASI and Russian special forces.

Steve Gibson's book complements Tony Geraghty's by covering the Brixmis mission up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and German re-unification.

It's full of tales of derring do, close scrapes with the Stasi and fascinating detail of how they obtained their intelligence.

Well worth a read!… (mehr)