During the
Cold War, a trio of KGB nitwits stole missiles from a West German military base in a wheelbarrow.
Then the missile was disassembled into parts and sent to the Soviet Union by express delivery.
In 1946, McLean, a physicist in the United States Navy, led a group of people to tamper with lead sulfide proximity fuses.
He found that the fuse was sensitive to infrared rays generated by heat and might be used in air-to-air weapons in the future to Jack off better.
Speaking of it, McCain is a scientist, not an engineer. His job is theoretical research, and no one asks him to design weapons. What
he did was not even to allocate funds, but to rely on his personal interest, and to take the initiative to build capitalism.
With his hard work, in 1950, he finally came up with a more reliable sample.
He designed a missile with a proximity fuse placed in front of the missile, which is sensitive to heat, and can guide the missile to track the enemy aircraft, so as to hit the enemy accurately. The top level of the US military immediately allocated funds for the project, until the middle of 1956, when the world’s first practical air-to-air missile AIM9, the Sidewinder missile, was born.
But what the Americans did not expect was that the first actual combat of the Sidewinder missile was not used by the Americans.
In 1958, the Kinmen artillery battle began. In order to deal with the PLA’s J-5,
Chiang Kai-shek’s Air Force applied for Sidewinder missiles from the United States and put them into actual combat.
But at that time, the quality of the Sidewinder missile was not very stable. Of the many missiles launched by Chiang Kai-shek, one hit our plane but did not explode. It was brought all the way back to the ground by the plane (one said it was picked up on the ground). When
our military experts picked up the missile, they immediately realized the value behind it.
However, at that time, China’s scientific research ability was limited, and the principle of the missile was not understood at all. At that time, Sino-Soviet relations were still acceptable, so China handed over the missile to the Soviet Union. Soviet experts were also shocked
when they saw the Sidewinder missile.
At that time, the Soviets already knew about the existence of Sidewinder missiles through a powerful intelligence network, but the Soviets did not expect to be able to get physical objects in this way. Sokolovsky, the head of the
Soviet engineers, believed that the missile was simply “a university,” and began intensive research as soon as it was brought back to China.
Soon, the Soviet Union’s K13 air-to-air missile was born, and then the Chinese Air Force was equipped with Thunderbolt 2. Through Kaishen Logistics, both China, the United States and the Soviet Union had air-to-air missiles. However, when these missiles are really put into actual combat, we find that its effect can only be described in
two words-tragic.
During the Vietnam War, American and Soviet fighters used a large number of air-to-air missiles.
But at that time, the technology was very immature. Originally, after the missile was launched, the hottest heat source should be found.
As a result, many missiles were very motivated after being launched and went directly to the sun.
From 1965 to 1968, only 28 of the 175 missiles launched by the United States hit the target, with a hit
rate of only 16%; the Soviet Union was even worse, with a hit rate of only 12%. The
technology was so primitive that both the United States and the Soviet Union began to develop and upgrade it.
Of course, the KGB and the CIA are also busy, because both sides want to “peep at the screen” to
see what direction the other side is going to go.
Next, the legendary figure we are going to talk about today, Raminger, the anti-routine spy who stole missiles,
is going to make a grand debut.
In
1930, Manfred Reminger was born in Germany. His father was a bricklayer. Although he was not a rich
family, he had a good life.
But he had bad luck.
He was German, but his home was in East Prussia.
As we all know, in 1941, Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had a little conflict.
With the Soviet Army’s full-scale counter-offensive, Stalin needed to vent
his small emotions in dealing with Germany after the war, so the Soviet Union directly expelled the German residents of East Prussia and demanded
that Germany cede the land to the Soviet Union. It has become the Kaliningrad of Russia.
In 1945, Reminger’s family was sent out of the country by the Soviets.
But the war had destroyed everything in Europe, and Germany was in ruins after the war.
Reminger’s family wandered everywhere and finally settled down in a
region called Krefeld in northern Germany after struggling to walk more than 1200 kilometers.
Because they were surprised to find that there was a city government that was still in operation! The reason why the
local government is reliable is that in March 1945, the 84th Infantry Division of the United States Army occupied the area.
However, the division’s operations here were very difficult because of the language barrier, which seriously affected the operation of the troops.
In a hurry, the division commander ordered the whole division to look for German-speaking people and set up a local administrative team to coordinate
with the troops.
At this time, a Jew who fled to the United States because he was persecuted by Germany came forward. Relying on his proficiency in German and his status as an active duty US soldier,
the young man quickly succeeded in winning over a group
of civil servants who had little to do with the Nazis. It took him only eight days to rebuild the administrative team so that the local people
could live a normal life.
After that, the young man was transferred with the army. When
the Reminger family came here, it was unlikely that they would know the story of the Jewish soldier, but we
were familiar with the Jew, whose name was Henry Kissinger.
Although changed a place, but Reminger’s family craftsmanship did not lose, relying on his father’s bricklaying skills, Reminger
quickly gained a firm foothold in the local. Then he was admitted to Crayfield Engineering College, and a few years after graduation, Reminger became the owner of a construction company, and then his chance came.
In post-war Germany, it was harder to find a whole building than a bag of potato chips without air. After the war, Germany was doing big infrastructure everywhere.
Reminger caught up with this draught and got big orders in a row, and he made a lot of money in a few years.
Relying on the money earned by doing business, Reminger, who was originally a small bricklayer, turned over a salted fish and lived a simple and boring rich life.
In order to pass the boring time, he developed two hobbies.
One is drag racing. Reminger has a rich collection of cars and is nicknamed West German Xiaoxunzong. He has everything from Ferrari to Fiat, and he is a professional racing driver with two championships and one runner-up.
But the second hobby is more special. Reminger, like Cao Cao, loves to hook up with his wife. Because he is famous and rich, he is quite famous in West Germany.
This kind of behavior is simply a Germanic and immoral thing in Europe. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Reminger was the male public enemy of West Germany.
However, after a long time, these two hobbies can not satisfy Reminger.
By 1965, Reminger had had enough of the life of debauchery, the car collection was reluctant to touch, and it was no longer interesting to hook up with his wife.
Empty Reminger can not find the new stimulation of life, the whole person is completely decadent. Although Reminger’s hobby is very unreliable, he is good to his friends and subordinates in his life, so everyone is willing to help him.
Joseph watched with apprehension as his friend grew depressed.
Friends have the righteousness of helping each other, I can not see you slide into the abyss of degeneration, you are irresponsible for your own life!
No, you have to pull yourself together. You can be a spy for the Soviet Union with me!
Joseph, who was three years older than Reminger, was born a Polish Jew in 1927. Born in this place with this identity at
this time, everyone knows that his fate should not be very good. Fortunately,
however, Joseph’s wave of Jews, who were repeatedly transferred between different concentration camps, were rescued by the US Army before the Nazis killed them. After a
narrow escape, he returned to Poland to find his relatives, but his family had been separated. Although
his relatives were not found, the Polish Security Service gave him an offer in 1951.
I don’t know what means the Polish Ministry of Security used, but Joseph became a Polish spy and was sent to West Germany to learn about the local conditions and customs, such as where there were military bases and the stationing of American troops in West Germany. After the establishment of the Nine Intelligence Bureau
in 1947, Poland’s intelligence service was basically equivalent to the KGB office in Warsaw. Because Joseph was still working hard, he was recruited by the KGB as one of his own, and directly gave Joseph an order authorizing him to develop offline in Germany and form an intelligence network with him as the core.
But this order obviously did not take into account Joseph’s social status, although he is a spy, sounds cool, but in West Germany, he is just a small driver, no money and no power, how to develop offline?
He would like to develop the top level of West Germany, but with his position, the only channel to talk to others is the drifting bottle.
So, despite the KGB mandate, Joseph spent ten years in West Germany without developing anyone.
By the mid-1960s, the KGB couldn’t sit still. If you were authorized, you had to achieve something. You couldn’t always fool us with bits and pieces of information? Where’s your downline? What about your intelligence network? Joseph, who was pressed by the
red KPI, felt that he had come to the crossroads of life, and he did not have Garcia’s imagination, so he could not make up an intelligence network.
The KGB not only asked him to develop offline, but also gave him one abnormal task after another, such as stealing an American F4 fighter, or getting the navigation system of NATO aircraft.
Joseph seriously considered whether there was any misunderstanding about his ability in the organization, but he remembered what Plato’s successor Labrador once said-not ruthless enough, how to match the picturesque landscape.
So he decided to start with the people around him.
It happened that Reminger was not living in the sun at this time, so Joseph was ready to start from Reminger. To his surprise, Reminger did not hesitate to face the invitation. It was so exciting that he readily accepted the recruitment.
Not only that, he also turned the tables and took over all of Joseph’s tasks, directly docking with the KGB. The KGB
in Lubyanka were stunned by him, and they said they had never seen such a highly motivated spy.
But subjective initiative could not change the objective reality, and the two brothers still could not steal a plane to the Soviet Union.
Reminger and Joseph discussed it a few times and decided that at least we had to find someone who could fly a plane, right? But where to find it?
While they were worried, one day Reminger and Joseph were playing poker in a tavern. The man who played cards
with them began to blow six whistles at the card table, saying that he was an elite pilot, that he was better than Black Devil in aerial combat, that he could fight hand to hand with the Red Baron, and that there was no plane in the world that he could not handle. After
listening to his blow, two people look at each other, this is really a dung beetle meet dung car-what to think what ah!
The two of them quickly gave generously to the eldest brother and handed over to him. After
some inquiries, they learned that the elder brother was Wolf Knopp, who had been flying fighter planes since 1956, and that there were many advanced equipment of the US Army at the base where he served. In
the face of such a person, it is simply God forbid not to pull in. The two brothers invited Knopp to eat and drink every day. A few days later, Reminger and Joseph had a showdown with Knopp. They
heard that there were a lot of good things in your airport. Someone wanted to charge a high price. Can you come out and sell them for money? When the time comes, you can take the big head, and we two brothers can drink the soup. Knopp, who
was eating like revenge, was stunned after hearing this, and then readily agreed to their request, saying that no one knows the airport better than me, you say, what do you want to bring out?
Reminger was overjoyed and asked tentatively, “Are those F4 Phantom fighters in your hangar OK?”?
In a word, he almost choked Knopp to death. He said, “Brother, you may have some misunderstandings about me. I don’t mind making some contributions to the Soviet Union, but I have thought through it. I haven’t lived enough.”. The noise of
that fighter plane when it took off could be as far as six or seven miles away, not to mention flying it to the Soviet Union. If it didn’t reach East Germany, I would be a box. Can you not make such a big thing, you pick a good one to take!
Reminger thought he had a point, so he dug out the thick mission notes, and several people picked and chose on them, and finally found a target-that, the latest Sidewinder missile in the United States, can you get it out?
For this goal, Knopp said that this thing is easy to do, and when I call you one day, we can drive away.
Reminger, they think you’re using a military base as a rookie station? Take something when you say take something? We have to make a plan. It means something big. What are you planning? One night, you drive here, I’ll take you out of the missile, and then drive away, that’s it, what’s the plan?
Reminger and Joseph tried hard to convince Knopp, but he was really out of touch.
Without his cooperation, the two men who had not entered the base could not make plans, and finally they could only trust him and prepare their cars in the city, waiting for Knopp’s call. On October 21,
1967, Reminger received a phone call. Knopp told him that the weather forecast would be foggy tomorrow. It was better to steal missiles. Come here!
So Reminger picked up a low-key Mercedes and took Joseph all the way to the Neuburg base. After
arriving at the destination, they stayed up outside the base until the evening of the 22nd, and as expected, there was a heavy fog.
So Reminger stood by in the car, and Joseph was ready to meet Knopp.
And then, you think he’s gonna go over the barbed wire to hide from the infrared?
No, after Knopp contacted Joseph, he came out of the base and picked him up, and the two men entered the base through the main entrance.
Because Knopp has a pass, he and the guards at the airport are cannibal tribe BBQ-that’s an old acquaintance.
So, without anyone on the base questioning him and Joseph, the two men swaggered all the way into the airport armory. When he
got to the armory, Joseph turned on his flashlight, took out a picture of a Sidewinder missile and began to look for something. As a result, he was kicked aside by Knopp within a few seconds. What are you looking for with me? Isn’t that thing
on the shelf to your left? Carry it, let’s run!
When Joseph came to the Sidewinder missile, he was also angry. Why didn’t you say its size earlier?
This thing is about three meters long, and it weighs one hundred and seventy or eighty catties? We carried him to the corner of the base, and
we didn’t need to be caught, and we were tired to death!
Knopp said what’s so hard about that? Wait for me for a while!
Then he went to the nearby base to find a wheelbarrow, and the two brothers loaded the missile on the wheelbarrow and pushed
it away.
The two men pushed the missile all the way to the airport wall, and Reminger drove outside the wall.
The two men carried the missile one, two, three away from you, and moved the missile directly outside the wall.
Looking almost alive, Knopp said that you wait for me for a while, and I will go to return the wheelbarrow.
After a few minutes, he put the wheelbarrow back in the warehouse, and then took Joseph out through the main gate of the base
. During the
whole process, the German Air Force base
, with sentries standing guard, military dogs keeping vigil and jeeps patrolling, was not intercepted by anyone, and deserved to be a bridgehead of the Cold War.
As for Knopp and Joseph, you say they stole, and he went in fair and square; you say
they robbed, and they did not use any violence, so what these two men did can only be called taking. Reminger, who was waiting for them
outside, did not expect that they had completed the
task in just over twenty minutes, and sincerely sighed, “What a fast man!”! But they faced another problem-when they came, they did not consider the size of the missile. The back seat of the
car was too narrow to accommodate the missile, which was more than three meters long. The three
brothers threw the missile into the car, but they didn’t put it in until it was almost dawn.
In the end, Joseph kicked the back glass of the car and put the missile through the window
, but in this way, half of the missile was in the car and half of the missile was outside
the car.
Reminger then found a carpet and wrapped the part outside the window. Go! Let’s go home!
Neuburg Air Force Base is about 400 kilometers away from Reminger’s hometown, and it takes more than
four hours to walk on the highway. In broad daylight, the three
brothers drove the car with half of the missile missing all the way back to Reminger
‘s home without any police questioning. After hiding
the missile in the basement, several people began to study what to do?
Things are coming out smoothly, but how can they be handed over to the Soviets?
By land, the border between Germany and Germany is heavily guarded, and it feels a little difficult.
Take the water, cross the Baltic Sea. They don’t have the equipment. What should they do? Reminger’s words
at this time woke up the dreamer-why do you want to carry something so much?
Don’t you send it to Moscow? Can’t you just send it by express?
In the Cold War, although the East-West confrontation was serious, the Soviet Union and Western Europe were not physically isolated, and the logistics and civil aviation communication between the two sides was always maintained.
So Reminger’s method is to disassemble the missile into parts and mail them directly to Moscow by air express. After
hearing Reminger’s plan, Joseph said, “Are you crazy?”? Didn’t the Germans check if they lost the missile? Didn’t you throw yourself into the trap by sending it by express?
Reminger gagged them with a word-so we have to hurry up and send it before the Germans find it!
A few men worked through the night, quickly disassembled the missile into parts, packed it into two large boxes, and then walked to the post office and sent it by air express.
When filling out the declaration form, the content of the article is “inferior metal”.
Neither the shipping company nor the German customs had any objection to the two packages of small express delivery. The two packages of express delivery entered the postal system smoothly. The postage was $75.25, which was good and cheap. After sending
the express, Reminger himself took a plane to Moscow, where he waited for the post office to deliver things every day.
But he can’t wait left or right. Could it be that the matter has been exposed?
So he made a phone call to consult.
It turned out that there were not many people delivering the goods by air express at that time. In line with the principle of not running empty trips, the airline put together the express. The plane that gave the Remingra missile flew to Paris first, and then went to Paris. Finally, after ten days later than expected, the German side delivered the express carrying the missile to Moscow
.
When the delivery was opened and the missile was seen in kind, the KGB officials were stunned.
Originally, everyone did not believe Reminger’s experience. The two men lightly entered
the military base from the main entrance and took out the missile. Which carbon-based organism can believe this?
However, when the missile parts were really in front of them, the world view of Soviet agents was greatly
impacted.
Everyone said to Reminger, “Big brother, we are convinced.”.
Soon after, on the basis of American missiles, the Soviet Union launched a new K13M air-to-air missile,
which greatly improved its performance and gave NATO a huge impact.
As the most important hero, the KGB did not treat Reminger badly. They gave Reminger 92,000
German marks plus $8,500, which is almost equivalent to 500,000 euros today.
Reminger is not short of money, but this thing makes him feel very exciting and cool.
So what is the German reaction to this?
The answer is no, because they
don’t! Hair! Now! For more than a year
after Reminger stole the missile, the German military did not respond
because they did not realize that they were missing a missile at all. More than a year later, when the Germans were checking the warehouse, they found that a rattlesnake was missing from the warehouse.
But they still did not suspect that it had been stolen, but that some pilot had accidentally fallen into the sea?
After confirming that the pilot had not lost it, the Germans could not explain the disappearance of the missile.
Germany and the United States set up a joint investigation team, and they were convinced that there must be a Soviet undercover agent at the top of the base, and the two sides worked together to get the missile away!
As a result, Germany and the United States began a difficult screening operation, and everyone inside the base passed, and the result was naturally nothing.
With the deepening of the American investigation, they gradually found that stealing things from the base is not much more difficult than sweeping a shared bicycle, and there is no need for insiders at all.
If other leaky bases are houses that leak air, this Neuburg base is a scaffold!
But even so, they still can’t confirm who stole the missile. Because this matter has passed for more than a year, and there was no monitoring at that time, the investigation team had no way to investigate. At the
critical moment, a man helped them. After receiving the reward
in the Soviet Union, Reminger went straight back to Germany. Although he had committed such a big crime, he was not afraid at all. Instead, he felt that he was born to be a spy and was ready to carry out a new mission.
He divided the money between his partner Joseph and the pilot Knopp. But this situation is not a big problem, anyway, Knopp usually has a brain atrophy.
The problem was that he still had a habit of bragging, not to mention bragging. One day in October 1968, when Knopp was drunk in a pub, the dung beetle yawned, with a foul mouth, and told the story of his stealing missiles to the people in the pub.
Unfortunately, there was a member of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution in his audience.
After bragging, Knopp was arrested on the spot and immediately carried into the joint investigation team to sober up. After sobering up, the guy was so scared that his blood was cold. He didn’t even need the big memory recovery technique. Joseph and Reminger, who
were unprepared, were arrested and imprisoned without any mention.
After fully understanding the process of this matter, the US military involved in the investigation was also surprised by the friendly countries.
This incident made the West German government lose face. The Federal Procuratorate tried to keep a low profile when launching the prosecution, for fear of attracting media attention. It did not even have the nerve to mention the crime of espionage. It only prosecuted three people for theft and treason.
Moreover, the sentences imposed by the court were very low. In October 1970, Reminger and Joseph were sentenced to four years in prison and Knopp to three years in prison. Being a spy
in West Germany is such a light sentence that it’s no wonder people don’t take being a Soviet spy seriously.
However, with such a light sentence, the three brothers did not squat. When
the KGB heard that the three of them were in prison, they were very loyal. They immediately contacted West Germany and expressed their willingness. West Germany thought it was appropriate to exchange the three stooges for six spies. So in August 1971, the missile trio was successfully released. Freed
, Reminger returned to his hometown of Krefeld and continued to contact the KGB, expressing his willingness to continue fighting for the cause of the Soviet Union. The big men of
the KGB were tired by him and said that you should take a break. We don’t have so many hostage reserves to get you. Reminger, who has
lost his goal in life, can only continue to live the life of a rich man.
In 1997, Reminger, 57, was murdered in an underground car park in Antwerp, Belgium, by two alleged drug-related assassins. Joseph, a
Jew, returned to Poland after he was released from prison, and then there was no news, maybe he continued his career as a spy, maybe he lived quietly somewhere.
As for the most central figure, pilot Knopp, he was naturally expelled from the German army after his release from prison, but he still could not control his great desire to express himself.
After 30 years of hard work, in 2003, his desire to express finally moved like a bastard-the turtle could not stop.
He wrote a memoir called “The Story of Me, the Starfighter Pilot, and the Sidewinder Missile,” which, unfortunately, probably didn’t sell as many as I had in stock.
By this time, Reminger’s friend and driver, Joseph Linofsky, could not sit still.
Develop offline.
As a strict German, Knopp was very dismissive of their craftsmanship.
Copenhagen, back in Germany, gathered the full cargo of the plane before it was ready to go. When
Joseph got the money, he kept a low profile as usual. But after Knopp got the money, he began to spread it everywhere. After Joseph got the money, he kept a low profile as usual. But after Knopp got the money, he began to throw
money everywhere and indulge in debauchery every day.
In exchange for the six NATO spies in their hands, and instead of sending them to the Soviet Union, let them go free.
