Eckart Steininger

[A2Keltainen]

This little historical episode should "refreshen" the blood pressure of our resident US/NATO Cold War tankers:

 

[Zoltan]Szabo fingered two other retired U.S. Army noncommissioned officers, both of whom, like [Clyde] Conrad, were married to German women and upon retirement had elected to remain in Germany, outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement. In each case, the retirees had served with Szabo during his twenty-year career. Szabo told German officials that he had recruited the men in the late 1970s and early 1980s. On orders from Budapest, he related, one of the sergeants, a tanker, stole a round of high-explosive antitank (HEAT) ammunition that Soviet scientists could use to develop armor for Red Army tanks.

German investigators located the two men. One of them, retired master sergeant Eckart Steininger, was a Vietnam veteran who had served with Szabo during a tour with a U.S. Army engineer battalion in Germany. German investigators picked up Steininger and confronted him with Szabo's allegation that he had stolen tank ammunition. Steininger admitted to knowing Szabo and did not deny that the two had discussed business opportunities. No fool, he would not admit to espionage.

Szabo had told his Austrian interrogators that Steininger had hidden the stolen projectile under an anthill on the Grafenwoehr tank gunnery range, where Zoltan had personally retrieved it and smuggled it into Hungary. Eventually, Szabo told the Austrians, Steininger had met with the Hungarians in Vienna and Budapest, where the Hungarian service had provided him with expensive dental care and a bonus of 10,000 deutsche marks. It was not the kind of story that one would invent. Certain that the man was guilty but lacking sufficient evidence to prosecute, BKA officials released Steininger.

 

Traitors Among Us

Stuart A. Herrrington

Presidio

1999

 

The author is a retired colonel in US Army counterintelligence. If you really want to spike your blood pressure, read the whole book for a detailed account of how Clyde Conrad sold out V corps war plans, and every other piece of US/NATO secrets he could get his hands on, and how James Hall sold out extremely important and secret parts of US/NATO SIGINT operations.

[Special-K]

I wonder how much these kinds of cases hurt us even today. I'm sure the recent Chinese operation that got inside the NSA in Hawaii will have impacts that will be felt for years.

 

 

 

 

 

-K

[Mote]

I wonder how much these kinds of cases hurt us even today. I'm sure the recent Chinese operation that got inside the NSA in Hawaii will have impacts that will be felt for years.

-K

 

Wasn't there a followup that said that story was a bunch of bunk?

[Lampshade111]

Damn traitor.

[Special-K]

Wasn't there a followup that said that story was a bunch of bunk?

 

 

If so, I haven't hear it. I would love to see it though, as it seemed like real bad news.

 

 

 

 

 

-K

[philgollin]

I would question why the Soviets needed to use a spy to get things like that, when all they had to do was use SOXMIS units. If Grafenwoehr was Suffield, they presumably could find what they required with a metal detector. Whereever you dug in Suffield it was quite common to find ammunition someone else had buried, which you then had to quickly bury again before somebody thought it was yours....

 

It's a good thing we're not down the pub ..... I'll bite, why did people bury ammo ?

 

.

[Manic Moran]

These days, we just send it downrange, even if there's nothing to shoot at. Same reason though, saves on paperwork.

 

NTM

[Ken Estes]

These days, we just send it downrange, even if there's nothing to shoot at. Same reason though, saves on paperwork.

 

NTM

That's because you guys have real ranges, including the Disneyland of the tank world, Graf. At Camp Lejeune, the old ranges where you

had to fire across the inland waterway would get shut down on you and some units did not want to do the turn-in hassel, paperwork, etc. I did

the turn-in, saw the hassels etc., but also knew of discoveries of 90mm, 106mm (RR) and small arms buried on board the base.

[BP]

That's because you guys have real ranges, including the Disneyland of the tank world, Graf. At Camp Lejeune, the old ranges where you

had to fire across the inland waterway would get shut down on you and some units did not want to do the turn-in hassel, paperwork, etc. I did

the turn-in, saw the hassels etc., but also knew of discoveries of 90mm, 106mm (RR) and small arms buried on board the base.

 

Disneyworld is Hood. Graf is the smaller, quainter EuroDisney.

[wilsonam]

Its a snippet I found in an excellent book called 'Try not to laugh Sergeant Major' about peacetime (if thats the right word!) conditions in BAOR. Basically I got the impression that they were issued a certain amount of ammunition that had to be used up in a certain amount of time. Presumably it was a lot of bother handing it in, so squaddies to spare themselves the bother used to bin it. I cant swear they were refering to Tank Ammunition, but certainly it involved small arms ammunition, maybe even mortar rounds.

 

Ill look it out and see If I can find anymore.

From speaking to tankies of the period, they got so few "real" rounds to play with that there was no danger of them getting buried - they were used in the very limited live-fire shoots. I expect they might well have ditched a few training rounds... but somehow I suspect the Soviets wouldn't have learned much from them... I can just imagine the scenario:

 

"Comrade General... the British are now so poor that they are using plastic rounds in their tanks. However, the ones we found buried had some very sinister cans buried with them - labelled 'Compo'. We are deeply concerned that these may constitute some form of deadly poison."

 

And yes, that is a pathetic attempt at humo(u)r for anyone old enough to remember Compo rations

[BillB]

From speaking to tankies of the period, they got so few "real" rounds to play with that there was no danger of them getting buried - they were used in the very limited live-fire shoots. I expect they might well have ditched a few training rounds... but somehow I suspect the Soviets wouldn't have learned much from them... I can just imagine the scenario:

 

"Comrade General... the British are now so poor that they are using plastic rounds in their tanks. However, the ones we found buried had some very sinister cans buried with them - labelled 'Compo'. We are deeply concerned that these may constitute some form of deadly poison."

 

And yes, that is a pathetic attempt at humo(u)r for anyone old enough to remember Compo rations

Only if the Compo can was marked "Cheese, Possessed"

 

BillB

[Wobbly Head]

Only if the Compo can was marked "Cheese, Possessed"

 

BillB

 

Or "Buscuits Brown" you could feed them to the enemy or beat them to death with them, I'm not sure which would be more humane

[History Buff]

This little historical episode should "refreshen" the blood pressure of our resident US/NATO Cold War tankers:

Traitors Among Us

Stuart A. Herrrington

Presidio

1999

 

The author is a retired colonel in US Army counterintelligence. If you really want to spike your blood pressure, read the whole book for a detailed account of how Clyde Conrad sold out V corps war plans, and every other piece of US/NATO secrets he could get his hands on, and how James Hall sold out extremely important and secret parts of US/NATO SIGINT operations.

 

Fascinating book, thanks. I read it over the weekend. I hope James Hall has a special place in hell reserved for him for his role in the death of MAJ. Arthur Nicholson.

Edited January 30, 2008 by History Buff

[rmgill]

And yes, that is a pathetic attempt at humo(u)r for anyone old enough to remember Compo rations

 

Ahh, M&V.

 

though apparently the US troops were happy to trade the corned beef tins the Compo rations had for their cans of evaporated milk the Brits wanted for their tea.

[zaevor2000]

Fascinating book, thanks. I read it over the weekend. I hope James Hall has a special place in hell reserved for him for his role in the death of MAJ. Arthur Nicholson.

 

Don't even get me started on Aldrich (POS) Ames. I just read the book BETRAYAL about Ames. He fingered all our Soviet agents (which led to their arrests and executions) and every piece of Secret/Top Secret material he could get his grubby little paws on just to support his shopaholic wife ($30,00 a month on credit cards, $5,000 a month on her phone bills to call family back in Columbia). What a piece of garbage. He sold out any and everyone he could.

 

May he rot in hell...

 

Frank

[BillB]

Ahh, M&V.

 

though apparently the US troops were happy to trade the corned beef tins the Compo rations had for their cans of evaporated milk the Brits wanted for their tea.

Nah, M&V and Bully Beef were WW2 compo, wilsonam is talking about the 1970s/80s version, which were different in lots of ways. They went over to less cans and more sachets/boil in the bag stuff similar to US MREs in the 1980s, possibly as a result of the post-Falklands shake up.

 

BillB