Kommerzielle Koordinierung
secret commercial enterprise in East Germany
Kommerzielle Koordinierung (English: Commercial Coordination), or "KoKo" for short, was a secret commercial enterprise in East Germany, run by Stasi officer Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski.
Origins and development
KoKo developed from the official smuggling operations of the 1950s. Its main goal was to bring foreign currency to the German Democratic Republic. It was officially established in 1966 and was involved in business dealings and industrial espionage in Western countries. It is estimated that between 1966 and 1989 it generated nearly 25 billion DM.
Operations
KoKo operated 180 front companies in the West and brought their hard currency profits to secret accounts in East Germany. Its operations were controlled by Erich Honecker, Erich Mielke, and Günter Mittag. KoKo was involved in illegal arms deals with Iran, Third World regimes, and even the CIA; "selling" East German political prisoners to West Germany; purchasing of high technology products despite a Western embargo; selling antique artworks to the West; and importing luxury items for the top nomenklatura of the Socialist Unity Party.
One of the closest Schalck's partners in the West was Bavarian Prime Minister Franz-Josef Strauss. In 1983, they negotiated an agreement under which Western banks provided a one billion DM credit to the German Democratic Republic in return for the easing of restrictions on the travel of East German citizens to the West.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kommerzielle Koordinierung” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.