Guillaume affair

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The Guillaume affair (German: Guillaume-Affäre) was an espionage scandal in Germany during the Cold War. The scandal revolved around the exposure of an East German spy within the West German government and had far-reaching political repercussions in Germany, the most prominent being the resignation of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1974.

Around 1973, West German security organizations received information that one of Brandt's personal assistants, Günter Guillaume, was a spy for the East German state. Brandt was asked to continue work as usual, and he agreed, even taking a private vacation with Guillaume. Guillaume was arrested on April 24, 1974.

Guillaume had indeed been a spy for East Germany, supervised by Markus Wolf, head of the Main Intelligence Administration of the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi). Brandt resigned as Chancellor on May 6, 1974 (although he remained the Chairman of the Social Democrats and led the party until 1987).

According to Vasili Mitrokhin, when the KGB found out about Guillaume, they ordered Wolf to pull him out because Brandt had been a good friend to the Soviet Union and they wanted him to stay in power.^[1]