Wolfgang Vogel, Spyswapper, 1925-2008 (RIP)

Here is Vogel's quote about his life as a Spyswapper, "I was neither a resistance fighter nor a good Samaritan. My paths were neither white nor black. They had to be grey, otherwise it would not have worked." Does it mean the Cold War?

The brilliant thing about Vogel is that he kept the system going, but he did not become a martyr or a victim.

Here is the obituary of Wolfgang Vogel from the Financial Times (Aug 30/31, 2008, p. 8). His nickname was "The Devil's Lawyer."

Does every political era have its moral order? What is ours? Who (what) is in the middle of the "war on terror," keeping it going by doing its dirty work, work it denounces by day?

Comments

Anonymous said…
An interesting question about the moral order of political areas. Though I'm surprised that Vogel's own moral interpretation is taken for granted. The supposedly "grey" path was a little darker. His main source of income was selling GDR prisoners to West-Germany. With this human trafficking the GDR earned over 1.8 billion Euro, and Vogel got his share to finance his luxury life. Some people were imprisoned, just to be sold. And it looks like he was involved in blackmailing prisoners to give away or to sell their GDR property very cheap to his comrades.
August 31, 2008 at 4:30 PM
Anonymous said…
After the Hillary debate, now the Palin sequel. What is Balkan Barbie's take on it? For instance in regard of this blog entry:
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=663
which criticizes the "liberal" take on Palin from a leftist point of view?
September 3, 2008 at 8:47 AM
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