Fake Passports and East Germany Escapes: Mission CD Story

For Freedom, One May Even Fake Passports: Escaping East Germany

For the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Dieter Jensch was public enemy number one. For nearly 500 East Germans, he was a lifeline. Between 1962 and 1974, Jensch and his partner Albert Schütz smuggled 487 GDR citizens across the German-German border using forged diplomatic identity cards. What began as a lucky accident became one of the most audacious escape operations of the Cold War.

How It Started

During the winter of 1962 in Mittenwald, Schütz had a drink with a bar owner who showed off a card bearing the letters “CD.” It looked exactly like a real diplomatic passport. The document had been made in Munich, not for espionage, but for playboys who wanted to impress their girlfriends. The “CD” stood not for “Corps Diplomatique” but for “Confederation Diplomatique,” the membership card of a Munich nightclub. It cost 3,000 marks.

Jensch acquired one. On his return through the GDR, he produced it at the Töpen-Juchhöh border crossing on impulse. To his astonishment, border guards waved him through and even stamped a GDR diplomatic visa in his passport. At the crossing into West Berlin, a guard noted with suspicion that only Jensch had a diplomatic passport while his companions did not. After a tense wait, they were allowed through with an apology for the delay. Mission CD had worked.

The Operation Expands

Word spread quickly. Jensch and Schütz began bringing relatives across first, passing through Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. Demand grew fast. Soon they were shepherding brides, wives, uncles, and aunts, all posing as embassy staff from countries around the world.

Western intelligence services took notice. German and Allied agencies paid between 6,000 and 10,000 marks per person to extract contacts at risk in the East. The operation grew into a small enterprise: two couriers, two drivers, five vehicles, and routes through Berlin, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

One of the most complex operations involved a stocking manufacturer from Chemnitz whose relatives were trying to reach a Swiss heir worth millions. The first attempt collapsed when the elderly aunt arrived in a wheelchair, making her cover as an embassy secretary impossible. A second attempt failed when she fell asleep at the meeting point. On the third day, six people were moved in two stages. It worked.

Escalation and Exposure

To avoid detection, Schütz and Jensch rotated their luxury cars constantly. The Munich nightclub cards gave way to other fabricated documents, and eventually to forged United Nations identity cards. A cheaper and more capable printer was found in Spain, where the pair introduced themselves as representatives of the German Consulate General in Barcelona.

They had not anticipated the diligence of Spanish security services. In October 1963, during a routine check of the print shop for anti-Franco pamphlets, secret police discovered the passports. Suspecting a Communist agent network, they detained both men on the street at night. Jensch and Schütz spent seven weeks in the remand prison at Castellón before being released without a verdict. Spanish authorities had quietly confirmed with “corresponding German offices” that the passport operation was anti-Communist in nature. Back in Berlin, they were warmly received by Eberhard Zachmann, the head of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

The Stasi Responds

The GDR was not passive. The Stasi placed Jensch under surveillance and issued an arrest warrant. According to his own Stasi file, the East German secret service drew up a plan to plant counterfeit money in his car and tip off the police anonymously. A kidnapping was also planned. Jensch evaded capture by routing his movements exclusively through Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

The Legal Reckoning

The total revenue from the operation reached 1.5 million marks. Berlin prosecutors, acting on orders from Bonn, opened preliminary proceedings for forgery and abuse of diplomatic immunity.

Both men argued they had operated with the knowledge and assistance of West Berlin authorities. Their attorney, Dietrich Scheid, subpoenaed liaison officers from German and American agencies to testify at the closed hearing. None appeared. The Federal Intelligence Service in Bad Godesberg claimed not to know a witness named Kaiser. American authorities gave the same response for witnesses Werner and Treskow. Senator Zachmann of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution was located but was denied permission to testify by Mayor and Interior Senator Kurt Neubauer. With no witnesses and no further applications permitted, the court suspended the trial.

The Outcome

Mission CD ran until 1974. A total of 487 people were brought to the West. After the operation ended, Jensch returned to his previous trade as a carpet dealer and eventually retired in Berlin.

The forged diplomatic documents used and confiscated during the operation remain among the most striking artifacts of Cold War-era escape history.

 

Tom Topol | Passport Historian & Author
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