It was something of an international sensation when Otto John turned up on 11 August 1954 in East Berlin.
He had gone missing on 20 July while attending a commemoration of the anti-Hitler July plot of 1944. Good-looking, well-built, smartly tailored, charming and blond, John, then 45 years old, looked like a 1930s film actor. He was in fact the head of West Germany's internal security organ, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz or BfV.) At a press conference held in East Berlin John attacked West Germany, warning that the Nazis were again in the ascendancy.
His outpourings were a bitter blow to Konrad Adenauer's government in Bonn, at a time when many abroad were still suspicious of the rapidly developing West German state. However, they were very useful to the Soviets, less sure of themselves after the death of Stalin in 1953 and hoping to gather together anti-Adenauer "national" conservatives to opt for a more pro-Soviet solution to the division of Germany. In December 1955, John reappeared in the West claiming he had escaped. He also claimed he had been drugged by the West Berlin medical practitioner Wolfgang Wohlgemuth and taken to East Berlin against his will. He had spoken at the press conference because he feared for his safety. John's version of events was not believed and he was tried for treason and sentenced, in December 1956, to four years' imprisonment.
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