Inside Putin's Germany Years: How A Spy Agency Posting Influenced Him

Years before Vladimir Putin became the president of Russia, one of the most powerful leaders in the world, he was a mid-ranking officer in the KGB, the Soviet Union's notorious security and intelligence agency.

His career in the KGB began in the late 1970s. He learned fundamental spy skills such as recruiting sources, counterintelligence, and surveillance techniques. But the real experience went far beyond his job posting.

Putin's Dresden Posting

In 1985, Putin was posted to Dresden, East Germany, marking his first foreign assignment, using a cover identity as a translator. He also acted as a liaison officer with the Stasi, the East German secret police. He lived there for around five years, a time he later described as formative.

Putin's early career in the KGB coincided with the Cold War, when the Berlin Wall divided East and West Germany. The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was a turning point.

When a mob surrounded the Stasi HQ and KGB intelligence office in Dresden, Putin requested Red Army protection but received "devastating silence" from Moscow, saying, "We cannot do anything without orders."

Fearing consequences, Putin and his KGB colleagues burned a huge amount of secret intelligence material to hide what they had been doing. Putin even said, "I personally burned a huge amount of material. We burned so much stuff that the furnace burst."

Putin retired from the KGB in 1991 after the Soviet Union collapsed.

How Dresden Shaped Putin

Jack Barsky, a SPYEX consultant and former KGB sleeper agent, said, "Putin went from being a member of the most powerful organisation, living the good life in East Germany, to somebody who was completely helpless."

"And it motivated him to rebuild—not necessarily the Soviet Union, but greater Russia. This is what he is after," he added.

During his time in Dresden, he was cut off from the familiar Soviet world. Despite being posted in East Germany, he had a front-row view of Western prosperity. In addition, he was involved in surveillance and covert operations. This helped him develop his skills. Years of this work as a spy trained him to read people, anticipate moves, and manage threats discreetly.

Former KGB colleague Vladimir Usoltsev said Putin spent hours leafing through Western mail-order catalogues to keep up with fashions and trends.

How Putin's Formative Years Helped Him

Being in East Germany, especially during the collapse of the communist regime, taught Putin important lessons about how societies and governments work. This gave him ideas about how to build a strong and controlled society.

When Moscow stepped back, Putin realised that to stay safe and influential, there was a need to have a powerful network of allies, while also making him fear that even the strongest leaders can be overthrown easily.

Putin's Approach To Politics In Russia

Unlike the Soviet Union, East Germany had multiple political parties, even though the country was still controlled by the Communist Party.

Boris Reitschuster, a journalist, said that Putin enjoyed living in East Germany. He saw it as a "little paradise" because it seemed orderly, controlled, and well-organised.

Putin was influenced by what he saw in East Germany and tried to recreate a similar system of control and order in Russia.

However, when people started protesting and demanding freedom, it shocked Putin, who was used to strong control and secret police authority. Soon, his "paradise" turned into a kind of KGB nightmare, because it showed how quickly a controlled system could collapse.

"Now, when you have crowds in Kiev in 2004, in Moscow in 2011 or in Kiev in 2013 and 2014, I think he remembers this time in Dresden," says Reitschuster. "And all these old fears come up inside him."

The 2020 Order

In 2020, Putin signed an order which will allow him to stay in power until 2036. Putin registered a landslide victory in the Russian presidential elections in 2024, securing another six-year term. The 72-year-old recieved a massive 87.8 per cent votes, the highest-ever result in Russia's post-Soviet history.

Should he complete this tenure, he will become the longest-serving Russian leader in 200 years. He is only behind Joseph Stalin, the former general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, who led the country for 29 years from 1923 to 1954