Ursel Lorenzen (married name Sturm) was formerly a West German NATO secretary who defected to East Germany in 1979. [1] [2] [3]
After working as a NATO aide for 12 years, where she last worked as a secretary to the British Director for NATO operations, Lorenzen, along with her lover at the time (Dieter Will, the manager of the Brussels Airport Hilton), disappeared. She appeared soon afterward on an East German propaganda broadcasting, and eventually compromised NATO war plans. [4] [5] At the time, Lorenzen's defection was considered to be NATO's greatest espionage case. [6] She eventually married Dieter Will, and they took the name "Sturm". They lived in East Germany until September 1990, when German reunification was imminent. Aware of West German warrants for their arrest, they fled the country. Charges against Lorenzen were dropped in 1999.
As of December 1999, Lorenzen was believed to be living in Libya. [7]
The Spiegel affair of 1962 was a political scandal in West Germany. It stemmed from the publication of an article in Der Spiegel, West Germany's weekly political magazine, about the nation's defense forces. Several Spiegel staffers were detained on charges of treason, but were ultimately released without trial.
The National People's Army were the armed forces of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1956 to 1990.
Uwe Seeler was a German footballer and football official. As a striker, he was a prolific scorer for Hamburger SV and also made 72 appearances for the West Germany national team. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in German football history, Seeler was named one of FIFA's 100 greatest living players by Pelé in 2004. He was the first football player to be awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Michèle Mouton is a French former rally driver. Competing in the World Rally Championship for the Audi factory team, she took four victories and finished runner-up in the drivers' world championship in 1982.
The North Sea flood of 1962 was a natural disaster affecting mainly the coastal regions of West Germany and in particular the city of Hamburg in the night from 16 February to 17 February 1962. In total, the homes of about 60,000 people were destroyed, and the death toll amounted to 315 in Hamburg. The extratropical cyclone responsible for the flooding had previously crossed the United Kingdom as the Great Sheffield Gale, devastating the city of Sheffield and killing nine people.
The Cologne school massacre was a mass murder that occurred at the Catholic elementary school located in the suburb of Volkhoven in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany, on 11 June 1964. The perpetrator, Walter Seifert, also known as "Der Feuerteufel von Volkhoven", attacked the people at the school with a home-made flamethrower and a spear, killing eight pupils and two teachers, and wounding twenty-two others. When police arrived at the scene, Seifert fled from the school compound and poisoned himself. He was taken to a hospital, where he died the same evening.
Gruner + Jahr is a publishing house headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. The company was founded in 1965 by Richard Gruner, John Jahr, and Gerd Bucerius. From 1969 to 1973, Bertelsmann acquired a majority share in the company and gradually increased it over time. After 2014, the company was a fully owned subsidiary of the Gütersloh-based media and services group. Under the leadership and innovation strategy of Julia Jäkel, Gruner + Jahr evolved into a publishing house producing cross-channel media products for the digital society.
Werner Weinhold was a former NVA soldier who shot and killed two East German border guards on 19 December 1975 during a successful attempt to cross the Inner German border from the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany. The escape took place near the town of Hildburghausen, Thuringia.
VapianoSE is a European restaurant franchise company headquartered in Cologne. The chain's restaurants offer Italian food adhering to the fast-casual principle. Vapiano was established in 2002 in Hamburg. Its largest shareholder since 2011 is the private equity firm, Mayfair Vermögensverwaltung. Roughly one-third of the restaurants are operated by the company itself, but the majority are run as franchise or as joint ventures. In April 2017, Vapiano had 180 locations in 31 countries, including Australia, China, Egypt and the United States. On 20 March 2020, Vapiano announced its cash-flow insolvency due to a sharp drop in sales after most restaurants had to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Adelheid Schulz is a former member of the West German terrorist Red Army Faction.
Horst Buhtz was a German football manager and former football player who played as a midfielder.
The Elbphilharmonie, popularly nicknamed Elphi, is a concert hall in the HafenCity quarter of Hamburg, Germany, on the Grasbrook peninsula of the Elbe River. It is among the largest in the world.
Dagobert Biermann was a German Communist and resistance fighter against National Socialism. His son is German singer and former East German dissident Wolf Biermann. He was murdered in Auschwitz.
The National Socialist Underground, or NSU, was a far-right German neo-Nazi terrorist group which was uncovered in November 2011. The NSU is mostly associated with Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe, who lived together under false identities. Between 100 and 150 further associates were identified who supported the core trio in their decade-long underground life and provided them with money, false identities and weapons. Unlike other terror groups, the NSU had not claimed responsibility for their actions. The group's existence was discovered only after the deaths of Böhnhardt and Mundlos, and the subsequent arrest of Zschäpe.
Lübeck was a Bremen-class frigate of the German Navy.
Gabriel Grüner and Volker Krämer were two journalists for Stern magazine who were shot by Yugoslavian soldiers at a check point at the Dulje Pass on the west side of Kosovo, near the village of Dulje, Prizrenski Podgor about 25 km from Prizren, two days after the Kosovo War had ended on June 13, 1999.
Horst Stechbarth was an East German politician and high-ranking military officer in the National People's Army, holding the rank of Generaloberst. He was the Chief of the NVA's Landstreitkräfte and the ex officio Deputy Minister of Defense of the GDR. He was also a member of the Politbüro of the Central Committee of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).
Christoph Ploß is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Hamburg since 2017.
White Rose Hamburg was a resistance group working against National Socialism in Hamburg. Those involved did not call themselves that, and for the most part did not see themselves as resistance fighters. The term, used by researchers after 1945, encompasses several circles of friends and family, some of whom had been in opposition to National Socialism since 1936 and who, following the actions of the White Rose in Munich and their continuation, acted against the Nazi regime and the Second World War from 1942. Although many members belonged to an older generation, the group is classified as a youth and student opposition. There were isolated personal contacts with other resistance groups in Hamburg, but cooperation did not materialize.