Bonn Spy Chief Defects to East : Western Agents in Bloc Nations Imperiled

West Germany’s counterespionage chief has defected to East Germany, it was announced Friday as Bonn’s spy scandal reached the upper echelon of government, endangering Western agents in Eastern Europe and rocking the coalition of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

The East German news agency ADN announced the defection of Heinz Tiedge, 48, in a terse statement. It did not say when he defected, but West German officials reported that a senior officer vanished last Monday.

Tiedge, reported to be a hard drinker with heavy debts, was the fourth suspected West German spy to disappear this month. The three others are also believed to have fled to East Berlin, taking with them various secrets, including details of a bunker in the southwestern Ahr Valley where government officials would flee in case of a nuclear attack.

“Hans (sic) Joachim Tiedge, the longstanding head of counterintelligence in the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has defected to East Germany and asked for asylum. The request is being considered by the responsible departments,” the East German statement said.

‘Close Consultation’

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said in Washington, “We’ll be in close consultation to see what damage may have been done.”

The defection left West German intelligence in disarray, and officials said the service would have to be reorganized. They said West German and other Western agents in Eastern Europe were compromised by the defection.

“We hope that there will be no concrete damage for them. We must take steps to limit that damage,” said Interior Ministry official Hans Neusel.

Kohl, vacationing in Austria, was informed Friday of the security crisis--the most damaging since 1974, when former Chancellor Willy Brandt was forced to resign after his chief aide was unmasked as an East German agent.

Knew Western Spies

Neusel said Tiedge was responsible for hunting down foreign agents, and knew the identities of many Western spies in East Germany.

He gave few other details, but other sources indicated that Tiedge was a heavy drinker and had amassed heavy debts since the recent death of his wife.

Intelligence sources said they assumed that Tiedge was working for East Germany for most of his 19-year career and probably helped dozens of Communist agents move in and out of the country.

In a television interview, his former housekeeper said Tiedge, when drunk, would leave files marked “Top Secret” lying around the house. She said she wrote to warn his bosses, but nothing happened.

‘Considered a Danger”

“I was concerned because I considered him a danger to the country,” she said.

“He was always three sheets to the wind,” said a neighborhood drinking companion of Tiedge.

The defection sparked sharp criticism of Kohl’s government.

“The case of Tiedge was avoidable. It appears that frivolity has prevailed in counterintelligence,” said Franz Josef Strauss, leader of the Bavarian sister party of Kohl’s Christian Democrats.

Liberal Free Democrat spokesman Burkhard Hirsch said he was shocked a man with Tiedge’s problems was allowed to hold his job.

‘Personal Difficulties’

“He was working in an extraordinarily sensitive area, yet had had obviously recognizable personal difficulties,” Hirsch said.

Security officials were studying links between Tiedge and the three other suspected spies. They confirmed that Tiedge had been in charge of surveillance of at least one of the three, Ursula Richter.

Richter, 52, secretary for a refugee agency, is thought to have been planted in Bonn two decades ago to operate a network of East German “sleeper” spies before fleeing 12 days ago after police became suspicious.

The spy scandal emerged with the disappearance on Aug. 2 of Sonja Lueneburg, 61, who for the last 12 years was the confidential secretary to Economics Minister Martin Bangemann.