Beyond the wall

The warning from his West German handler was clear: "You are in great danger! You must get out now!" Double agent Werner Stiller carefully began planning his escape to the West. His world would soon change forever: either he would leave his homeland - or he would die. In the exciting tradition of William Hood's Mole, Beyond the Wall is the true story of a disillusioned East German superspy driven by his conscience to turn double agent for the West. Werner Stiller was a naive young student recruited into the Ministry of State Security - the powerful Stasi - to acquire nuclear weapon secrets in Western Europe in the 1970s. Before long, he learned firsthand that the Stasi's powerful reach surpassed even the alarmists' most Kafkaesque fears and that the East German security forces constituted a vast, privileged underground world based on fear and intimidation. A smash bestseller in Germany, it reveals the actual tools and methods spies use to do their work. Beyond the Wall is both a concise, intelligent, and pointed account of the once all-powerful Stasi and a uniquely personal window into the real world of highly successful espionage.