Yesterday we blogged about a new investigation by German prosecutors into possible perjury made by a Gazprom executive regarding his past employment by the East German Secret Police, the Stasi. Today we offer the exclusive translation of the Die Welt article which broke the story. (photo of Felix Strehober from DW).
The Stasi Past
German Justice System Takes Aim at Gazprom Manager
According to information made available to WELT ONLINE, the Prosecutor’s Office in Cologne is investigating the financial director of Gazprom in Germany. Felix Strehober is suspected of making a false affirmation in lieu of an oath. He had maintained that he had never worked for East Germany’s Ministry of State Security, the Stasi.
The Prosecutor’s Office in Cologne is investigating the finance director of the German branch of the Russian energy corporation Gazprom. Felix Strehober is being accused of making a false affirmation in lieu of an oath. If convicted, the manager at Gazprom Germania faces up to three years imprisonment or a fine.
Strehober (44), who was born in East Berlin, maintained last year in an affirmation in lieu of oath that he had “never been an employee or otherwise full-time staff member of the Ministry for State Security.” However, according to a file found in the Office of the Federal Commissioner for Preservation of the Records of the Ministry for State Security of the German Democratic Republic, this depiction does not reflect the truth.
According to documents, Strehober in autumn 1985, during his studies at the Humboldt University, committed himself in writing, to do “service in the military profession on the basis of the legal stipulations and regulations decreed to this end in the Ministry for State Security.”
According to the circa 100 pages of comprehensive documentation, Strehober served the GDR secret service as an officer on special assignment until the downfall of dictatorship under the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. These officers belonged to the elite of the GDR secret service and occupied in conspiratorial fashion key positions in society.
Just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the present-day Gazprom manager Strehober joined the Intrac Handelsgesellschaft. With 700 employees, it was the largest company under Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, the GDR’s infamous hard currency procurer and a Stasi officer himself. The accused was not available for a statement; his employer made no comment.
Strehober’s entanglement in the Ministry for State Security is known to Gazprom Germania. WELT ONLINE had reported on Stasi cronyism at the Moscow-based corporation in August 2007. That publication provided the reason for Strehober to make the false affirmation in lieu of an oath.
When the judges of the State Court Cologne then received excerpts from his Stasi file, they called in the Prosecutor’s Office.
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