Dieter Felix Gerhardt (born November 1, 1935) is a South African former commodore in the South African Navy and commander of the strategic Simon's Town naval dockyard, most known for his conviction of high treason as a spy for the Soviets. His life, marked by naval service, espionage, and political motivations, offers a complex narrative of the Cold War era.
Early Life and Naval Career
Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1935, Dieter Gerhardt's early life took a turn when his father persuaded naval chief Hugo Biermann to enlist him in the South African Navy, hoping to instill discipline. Gerhardt graduated from the Naval Academy in Saldanha Bay in 1956, earning the Sword of Honour.
His naval training extended beyond South Africa. In 1962, he attended a Royal Navy mine school in Portsmouth and completed parachute training at RAF Abingdon. Following his training in Britain, he was seconded to the Royal Navy.
Espionage Activities
Gerhardt's involvement in espionage began in his late twenties. He offered his services to the South African Communist Party while still a junior naval officer. His motivation, as he later stated, was rooted in political activism against the apartheid regime. "I did not feel like a traitor or someone who was betraying his colleagues," he said upon his release. "I was a political activist fighting the evil regime of apartheid."
Wife's Awareness
Janet Coggin, Gerhardt's first wife, claimed to have become aware of his Cold War spying activities eight years into their marriage, in 1966. She chose not to report him, fearing his execution and the impact on their children. According to Coggin, Gerhardt eventually pressured her to become a spy, which she refused, leading to their separation.
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Career Progression and Access to Information
As his naval career progressed, Gerhardt gained access to increasingly sensitive information. Upon returning from training in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s, he became the naval liaison officer with the defense company that later became Armscor. From 1972 to 1978, he served as a senior staff officer to the Chief of the SADF in Pretoria. This position allowed him to access South African Army and Air Force secrets and plans regarding the South African Border War.
Later, as commander of the Simonstown naval dockyard, he had access to all South African Naval intelligence reports from the Silvermine listening post near Cape Town, as well as technical details of weapons systems.
Arrest and Conviction
Gerhardt's espionage activities came to an end when Soviet double agent Vladimir Vetrov exposed him. In January 1983, the FBI arrested Gerhardt in New York City while he was pursuing a mathematics degree at Syracuse University.
During eleven days of interrogation by the CIA, he revealed one of his Soviet handlers, Vitaly Shlykov. He was subsequently convicted of high treason for spying for the Soviets for twenty years, along with his second wife, Ruth, who acted as his courier.
Imprisonment and Release
Dieter Gerhardt was considered for inclusion in a 1989 East-West prisoner exchange, but this did not materialize. He remained imprisoned even after F.W. de Klerk unbanned organizations like the ANC and released political prisoners like Nelson Mandela in 1990.
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Following a request from the Swiss government, his second wife, Ruth Gerhardt, was released in 1990. Dieter Gerhardt was eventually released and moved to Basel, Switzerland, to join her.
Karl-Dietrich Roth: A Swiss artist with a similar name
Karl-Dietrich Roth (16 May 1930 - 5 June 1998), often known as Dieter Roth, was a Swiss artist born in Hannover, Germany. He was known for his artist's books, sculptures, and works made of biodegradable materials.
Early life and education
Born Karl-Dietrich Roth in Hannover, he spent his early years in Germany and Switzerland, developing an interest in art and poetry while living with a family of artists in Zürich during World War II. His mother Vera was German; his father Karl-Ulrich was a Swiss businessman. After the beginning of World War II, Roth was to spend each summer in Switzerland at the behest of the Swiss charity Pro Juventute, a group trying to protect Swiss-German children from the worst ravages of the war. By 1943 the exile had become permanent, and Roth was sent to live with a family in Zürich. This house, the home of the family of Fritz Wyss, was shared with Jewish and communist artists and actors. The family moved to Bern in 1947, where Roth began an apprenticeship in commercial art. His clientele includes the local milk association and the cheese union.
Artistic career
Roth left home in 1953 and began collaborating with Marcel Wyss and Eugen Gomringer on the magazine Spirale, of which nine issues would be published (1953-64). Most of his work at this time was in the prevailing Concrete art idiom, exemplified by Max Bill. He took part in a number of local exhibitions, as well as writing poetry, making his first organic sculptures and experimenting with Op art.
His artist's books challenged traditional formats, allowing readers to interact with and rearrange pages. Throughout his career, Roth pushed artistic boundaries by creating biodegradable artworks that evolved over time due to natural decay. His pieces, like "Insel," combined foodstuffs with various materials, showcasing his unique perspective on transformation and impermanence. This processing of found text reached a logical conclusion in his book Literaturwurst (Literature Sausage) 1961. The first copy was made out of a Daily Mirror mixed with spices and foodstuffs from genuine sausage recipes, and stuffed in a sausage skin which he sent to his friend Spoerri. Later copies took books or magazines to create an "ironic"[13] reference to literature.
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In 1960 he won the William and Norma Copley Award, which included Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and Herbert Read on the jury. As well as a substantial monetary prize, the award included the chance to print a monograph; Roth declined, asking instead for funding to pay for a new work. The end result was his most ambitious book to date, the Copley Book, 1965, a semi-autobiographical deconstruction of the process of book making.
A key breakthrough in his attitude to art was witnessing the performance of Tinguely's Homage to Modern Art in Basel, 1961. "It was the club of the untalented who made a verbal virtue of their lack of talent so that nobody could say they had no talent. The modesty that they ascribed to themselves was actually a good insight in that sense. Still, there are a number of instances of his working within Fluxus; most prominently, his contributions to Spoerri's An Anecdoted Topography of Chance, a collaborative work of cumulative anecdotes by Spoerri, Robert Filliou and Emmett Williams, and published by Something Else Press, (although even this book is debatedly not Fluxus [17]). Spoerri himself has stated that "it doesn't relate to Fluxus", coming as it did, before the movement.[20] He also contributed to V TRe, the Fluxus magazine originally edited by George Brecht, and had work published in An Anthology, published by La Monte Young, Jackson Mac Low and Maciunas in 1963.
Later career
In 1964, Roth was commissioned, alongside several other artists, to paint a portrait of the collector and dealer Carl Laszlo to celebrate his fortieth birthday. Roth took a solarized photo of the Swiss collector, and painted over it with processed cheese "in order to get his goat. I thought he would turn blue and green, like cheese."[22] This became the first of his celebrated biodegradable works.
In 1964 he was offered a post at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on the understanding that he would create a constructivist book. Roth wanted to make something three-dimensional instead, and was promptly fired. Roth managed to salvage his position and used the next three months to create 6,000 pieces on paper, photographed, printed, re-photographed, drawn over etc., which ended up tacked to the wall; 500 or so were photographed, to be published as a book recording the whole process. He then held a party inviting the students to remove anything they liked; the college rescinded its offer to publish the book, which ended up as Snow, finally printed in 1970.[24]
He moved on to Rhode Island School of Design at the beginning of 1965, where his tenure involved teaching at the School of Graphic Design, employing his principle of "non-teaching as teaching".[3] This involved sitting by himself working, refusing to tell his students anything. He also used these students to typeset and print his first book of poetry Scheisse. Neue Gedichte von Dieter Rot (Shit. New Poems by Dieter Rot) 1966.
In 1966 his studio in Providence was cleared out for rent arrears; all but one artwork was destroyed in the process.[3] While in the US, Roth divorced Sigriđur but remained on good terms with the family, by now including three children: Karl, Björn and Vera. As his notoriety increased, his work rate became prolific with major bodies of work including books of poetry, artist's books, sculptures, paintings, multiples, sound recordings, collaborations with other artists such as Emmett Williams, Hermann Nitsch and Richard Hamilton, jewellery designs, furniture, posters, prints and installations. The first multiple was an edition of 100 cakes in the shape of a motorcyclist, handed out at the opening to an exhibition of Roth's work at Gallery Hansjorg Mayer.
For his first exhibition in US, at the Eugenia Butler Gallery of Los Angeles (1970), he exhibited a series of 37 suitcases filled with cheese on the floor, below pictures made with cheese on the wall.[31] Called Staple Cheese (A Race), a pun on Steeple Chase, the suitcases were to be opened one a day, whilst the wall pictures included a horizontal line tracking the vertical movement of the cheeses as they slid toward it. However, within a few days the overpowering smell, maggots and flies combined to make it impossible to enter the room. Roth's work became increasingly varied throughout the 1970s. He exhibited manufacturing instructions-the Order Form Exhibitions-for the first show, any buyer could take the directions to a printer of their choice, and create their own print or multiple; second time around, the instructions had to be taken to a baker to create the collector's own baked goods.
The same attitude applied to collectors; his most important collector, the German dentist Hanns Sohm, made his own Literature Sausages to Roth's instructions, including Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Work in 20 Volumes.[21] He published the magazine Zeitschrift für Alles (Review for Everything) 1975-1987, promised to publish anything that anyone sent to Roth, the only editorial constraint being the limit of 4 (later 5) pages. By the time Roth announced its demise, the journal had grown to 1396 pages long.[33] The mid-seventies also saw a comprehensive attempt to republish all of Roth's bookworks. To facilitate my correspondence, since painting and drawing comes more easily to me than thinking and writing, I [Dieter Roth] have been painting over postcards for a quarter of a century, since painting and drawing on unpainted or unmarked paper is harder to do than on paper with something already on it.- Dieter Roth.
Roth's installations became larger over the years, and more open-ended. Gartenskulptor (Garden Sculpture), for instance, had started out as a copy of the multiple P.O.TH.A.A.VFB, a self-portrait bust made of chocolate and birdseed standing on a bird-table, exposed to the elements. Referred to by Roth as a 'dis- and re-assembly object',[37] each new incarnation gradually acquired working drawings, paintings, sculpted rabbits and collages placed on trellises in collector's gardens. It even acquired a real rabbit and the rabbit's hutch for a number of years. The last time it was installed in a garden was in 1989. When it was exhibited indoors in Switzerland, 1992, Gartenskulptor took up an entire room. By 1995 it was 20m long and included all sorts of objects including a fire ladder and television screens. By 2000, in Mönchengladbach, it was 40 metres long, having acquired elements from each of the installations' incarnations, including pebbly earth excavated by the architects Herzog and de Meuron for the facade of the Schaulager, for instance.
Roth's work became increasingly celebrated by the 1980s;[3] a number of retrospectives began to be staged throughout Europe, as well as large scale exhibitions of new work.
Dieter Roth Academy
The Dieter Roth Academy was founded in May 2000 by fifteen close friends and colleagues of Dieter Roth. It now includes many times that number. In his later years, Dieter Roth spoke of his typically innovative idea of an academy an institution unbound to any one place or building or curriculum. As a passionate traveller, he realised that the best experience a young artist can have is travelling and encountering new people and situations. Consequently the Dieter Roth Academy lives there where its members live and work on several continents. The initial aim was to respond to Roth's legacy by continuing activities he was involved in or planned during his last years, not least a "Roth Show/Road Show" featuring art and activities by him and his friends at various venues. As well as initiating new projects that tally with Dieter's plans and thoughts, and providing a forum for his ideas. It meets several times a year in different countries for conferences and discussions, often accompanied by an exhibition of works by the members, friends and students. This has resulted in a number of publications, and an intensification of communications between the members that produces additional projects in line with the DRA ethos. Almost every meeting ends up with stories about Dieter Roth, amusing anecdotes that are also touchstones for future actions. Quite possibly the stories are one of the most important legacies we have. The forum is here to tell stories, to examine the ideas we have received from Dieter's words and practice, and marvel at the changes the Academy undergoes as it acts on its legacy, very much like a Dieter Roth artwork. In short, the Academy is here to promote and develop the artistic and above all human insights he gave us all.
John George Dieter: Early Life and Career
John George Dieter was born in Germany April 20, 1841, a son of John P. Katherine (Ramye) Dieter. where he received his education and learned the trade of a cooper. trade in the city of New York. cavalry. the battle of Wilson's Creek, New Madrid, Island No. engagement. father passing away during this period. up the Kaw valley. one of the founders of Oak Hill. and carried a stock of goods totaling $20,000 in value. building in order properly to care for the wants of his customers. even a better and larger structure than that destroyed. that has made for his success as a merchant. operations in this line of activity have been upon a large scale. received recognition as one of the foremost in his section of the State. until 1910. He is a charter member of Iuka Post, No. On October 8, 1868, Mr. 1850, and came to the United States with her parents in 1868. Sedalia, Mo., and is the wife of the Rev. Louis P. now the wife of T. R. Conkling, M. Kan., the wife of Omer N. Need, M. prominent persons, etc. … selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Transcribed October 2002 by Carolyn Ward. Kansas State Historical Society as microfilm LM196. It is a single volume 3.
Anthony Jacob Henckel: Early Life and Career
The Henckel family is fortunate to have incredible ancestral records dating back to the year 1500 AD in Germany. Anthony Jacob Henckel was born in Merenberg, Germany in 1668. He studied at Giessen University in Germany and was ordained into the Lutheran Church on February 28, 1692. The Reverend Henckel came to America with his wife and seven of their children and arrived in Philadelphia in September 1717. He was hired as the Pastor, of what was known then as the “Swamp Church” prior to leaving Germany, by The Frankfort Land Company. After helping, what is now, New Hanover Lutheran Church build a new church and school, Pastor Henckel helped to form and organized several Lutheran churches in Pennsylvania including: Christ Lutheran Church in Tulpehocken, Goshenhoppen Lutheran, and St. Augustus Lutheran, then known as the the Trappe Lutheran Church. In 1721. Reverend Henckel helped to form and established St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Germantown, Pennsylvania. St. The descendants of Reverend Anthony Jacob Henckel are divided into branches designated for each of his seven adult children who migrated to Pennsylvania in 1717. Anthony Jacob and his family, before leaving Germany for America, were promised by the Frankfort Land Company 500 acres of land in what is today New Hanover, PA. The land in New Hanover was called “The Swamp” by German immigrants who were already living there. We must understand that the German definition of “swamp” is a place with fertile ground that is suitable for farming. As Anthony and his family discovered upon arrival the land was anything but a “swamp”. Past history of the area has lead us to believe that the areas first church was started by Daniel Falkner around 1700. Current history, written in a two volume series entitled “Pastors and People” by Dr. Charles H. Glatfelter, the most respected historian of religion in Pennsylvania, corrects this misconceptions. According to Glatfelter, when the Henckels arrived in September 1717, Anthony Jacob, began to organize the German Lutherans, already in the area, into a congregation. During 1718, 50 acres or land was given to the Lutherans and a new church was built. The log structure took until about 1722 to complete. The new church was known as “The Swamp Lutheran Church”. Anthony Jacob was pastor of the congregation from 1718 until his death in 1728. Towards the end of his life Reverend Henckel was helping to establish St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Germantown, PA. He would attend meeting and conduct services in Germantown as part of his work. During the 40 mile horseback ride to Germantown, which would take a couple of days, he would stop along the way to minister to other Lutherans. On his last trip, while returning home, his horse threw him. He died the following day at Herman Grotehausen’s home. St. In studying the history of St. On the site, we found all kinds of great information on Germantown’s history, fantastic homes that remain from the 17th and 18th Century, and we were able to purchase a picture of the second St. Michael’s Lutheran Church. The first church was completed in about 1732, after Anthony Jacob’s death. The church was enlarged in 1746, and the second church was built in 1816 and demolished in 1865, to make room for the current structure completed in 1896. The picture below is from 1865, right before the second church was demolished.