WEST GERMANY: The Case of the Bugged Physicist

The problem confronting West German authorities was chilling. A brilliant nuclear physicist with a sure knowledge of how to build the atom bomb was apparently consorting with leftist ideologues and terrorists responsible for such deeds as the hijacking of the Air France plane to Entebbe last June. Was it possible that Dr. Klaus Robert Traube, the absentminded, tousle-haired son of a Jewish dentist who had committed suicide in 1936 rather than go on living under Nazi rule, had passed on secrets to his radical friends?

Watergate am Rhine. The quest for the answer exploded last week in a Watergate-style scandal that aroused deep-seated German concern other than that of nuclear annihilation. The weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel disclosed that agents of the Verfassungsschutz (federal office for the protection of the constitution) had broken into Traube’s home near Cologne last year, photographed his letters and documents and planted a bugging device. After failing to discover any guilt in his associations, the agents surreptitiously entered Traube’s house a second time two months later to remove the bug. These legally questionable acts evoked memories of Nixon-era plumbers and led many Germans to wonder whether the Verfassungsschutz, which is roughly equivalent to the FBI, was functioning in a high-handed style reminiscent of the Hitler era. Der Spiegel’s disclosure that an expert picklock from Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s federal intelligence service had helped in the break-in enhanced the impression of a “Watergate am Rhine.”

The Traube case might have stayed secret had not his employers at Interatom, which manufactures reactors for nuclear power plants, fired him in February 1976. Informed of his risky friendships, Traube’s bosses told him that West Germany’s controversial nuclear energy program would suffer if word of his social life leaked to the press while he was still running Interatom’s program for developing fast-breeder reactors. Not content with a comfortable financial settlement, Traube demanded a federal investigation and instead received a letter exonerating him of any wrongdoing. Nonetheless, he was unable to regain his job—or a position that he particularly wanted with JET, the inter-European nuclear power project. There the matter stood until a source every bit as mysterious as the fabled “Deep Throat” of Watergate turned over the entire Verfassungsschutz file on Traube to Der Spiegel.

Traube admits having joined the Communist youth movement after the war. Now 49, he made contact with younger radicals through Inge Hornischer, a Frankfurt attorney who handled his divorce in 1975. Verfassungsschutz agents, it seemed, regularly tuned in to the telephone of Frau Hornischer, whose radical clientele included Wilfried Böse, a left-wing terrorist killed in the Israeli raid at Entebbe last July 3.

After discovering that the “Klaus” who regularly chatted with Frau Hornischer was one of Interatom’s leading nuclear experts, Verfassungsschutz agents learned to their alarm that Traube had vacationed for ten days in Yugoslavia in 1975 with Hans-Joachim Klein, another young radical who four months later took part in the kidnaping raid on OPEC ministers in Vienna (TIME, Jan. 5, 1976). Verfassungsschutz advised Interatom of Traube’s dubious friendships; they decided against dismissing him immediately on the theory that he might go underground and threaten nuclear revenge. Nine days after the OPEC raid, an agent interrupted Traube on a skiing holiday at St. Moritz to ask him about Klein; meanwhile, others broke into his home and planted the bug.

Different Dilemma. Clearly benefiting from the publicity, Traube now denies having met any terrorists other than Klein. “Maybe I am a little naive,” he said, on learning the bent of some of his friends. He argues that as soon as Verfassungsschutz realized that his relations with them were innocent, the agency should have pressured Interatom to rehire him. Traube is demanding a hearing at which he can confront Interior Minister Werner Maihofer, the man ultimately responsible for the bugging.

In defense of the breakin, Maihofer cited a constitutional clause authorizing “interventions” when needed “to prevent imminent danger.” Three times in 1975, he noted, terrorists had attempted to invade nuclear facilities in France.

For many, the case presents a difficult dilemma. Although the West German constitution states clearly that “the dwelling is inviolable,” observed Writer and Futurologist Robert Jungk, “we are already on our way to a nuclear state” in which “forces are so dangerous that everything must be protected and everyone watched.”