Willy Brandt, the former German Chancellor is rumoured to have been the informant for the US military intelligence Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) for four years prior to coming to power in 1969-1974, as per Der Spiegel, a German magazine.
Brandt was from the Social Democratic Party (SPD). As per Der Spiegel, he provided information to the CIC from 1948 to March 17, 1952.
The magazine writes that the former Chancellor has briefed the CIC about the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ, Free German Youth), a youth wing in the German Democratic Republic (DDR) and the governing Socialist Unity Party (SED).
The magazine claims that Brandt had provided intelligence infrastructures like shipyards, factories, the railways and the telephone network of the Soviet Union’s army.
Brandt has met the CIC liaison officers who had classified him as trustworthy more than 200 times in four years, as per the sources.
The magazine writes that Brandt was an informant for four years, and CIC had registered him with the code ‘O-35-VIII’.
Brandt, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971, quit as the Chancellor when it was discovered that Gunter Guillaume, his adviser and right-hand man, was a DDR spy.
Brandt died Oct. 8, 1992 in Unkel, near Bonn.