Hans-Dieter Schliack

There is hardly any information available on Hans-Dieter Schliack. In 1961, Schliack had been recruited by Ebrulf Zuber to work for the German foreign secret service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), presumably on the base of Schliack's former Waffen-SS membership. The former Hauptsturmführer of the SS-Verfügungsdivision (2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich) came to work in the Dienststelle 120 ("Department 120") of the BND, charged with information procurement from various Eastern European countries.

According to a publication by the "Independent Historians Commission" (Unabhängige Historikerkommission) appointed by the German government:

"Due to his affiliation to the Waffen-SS, Zuber also recruited in this milieu, e.g. Hans-Dieter Schliack. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at a national political educational institution (Napola) in Berlin-Spandau and in 1937 started working for the Waffen-SS. From 1940 to 1942 he belonged to the SS division Das Reich, then to other SS units. In May 1945 he was Hauptsturmführer and battalion commander. Living under a false name for several years after the war, he worked as a businessman until Zuber recruited him in 1961 out of camaraderie, although Schliack had no intelligence experience whatsoever."1

A newspaper article by ABC in Madrid from October 1, 1949 ran a small story with someone of that name.2

Hans-Dieter Schliack's Odyssey

Bad Neuenahr 30. These days a boy has returned to his German homeland who in the autumn of 1941 was taken prisoner by the Russians on the shores of the Azov Sea. He was transferred to a camp in Moscow, and shortly afterwards Hans Dieter Schliack's parents received the news that their son was among the disappeared.

In the summer of 1942 the young Schliack crossed the Mongolian border, and then the Tibetan border, where he worked in road construction. The parents, who as owners of the Bristol Hotel had previously resided in Berlin, no longer counted on their son's return, and earlier this month had spoken to a sculptor to make a memorial plaque that was to be placed in the family pantheon.

Discharged from the prison camp, it took the young man more than six weeks to cross the Soviet Union, and spent more than two months in the Soviet zone in search of his parents. At last he was granted refuge in the vicinity of Bonn, where he happened to meet a gentleman who had spent some time at the Pfäffle Hotel in Bad Neuenahr. This is how he finally discovered the whereabouts of his parents.

The same night, without anyone recognizing him, he sat with his father in the hall of the hotel. He wore sunglasses, began to talk about this and that, and ended up inviting his father to have a glass of wine with him. When he lifted the glass, he took off his glasses and said: "To your health, Dad."

Deeply moved, the father went to talk to his wife, but the impression was too intense and the young Schliack, now thirty-one years old, collapsed and had to be transferred to Bonn, where he is in a clinic undergoing medical treatment. -Dpa.