Interview with ex-E. German Assassin Horst Fechtmann: "I Don't Enjoy Killing"
Horst Fechtmann
DIPLO-DENIZEN: Horst, thanks for agreeing to sit down for this interview. You've had a long and varied career, one that most will agree has been quite out of the ordinary. First, tell us a little about yourself.
HORST: Well, I was born near Karl Marx Stadt a few years after the war--
DD: Which reverted to its traditional name of Chemnitz after the Berlin Wall fell.
HORST: Ah, yes. Many of us still refer to the old name…out of habit.
DD: (silence).
HORST: Anyway, my parents were active in mass mobilization for the Party. I started out in the Freie Deutsche Jugend --Free German Youth. At fourteen, I joined the Gesellschaft fur Sport und Technik (Society for Sport and Technology) and later I became a member of the Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse (Fighting Groups for the Working Class). I was appointed Zugfuhrer. After high school, I enlisted in the Grenztruppen - the Border Troops - serving mostly at the Wall in Berlin. After three years, my high test scores and sharpshooting skills drew the attention of the Ministry for State Security, commonly known as Stasi. I was inducted into the elite Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment.
DD: Did you shoot people trying to escape to West Germany?
HORST: Yes. I was following orders. They awarded me medals and citations for this.
DD: What were your specific duties in the Stasi?
HORST: I was recruited into the Special Operations Unit. They used to say we were the "sword" of the Sword & Shield. I was tasked with targeted terminations.
DD: What exactly is "targeted terminations"?
HORST: Terminating enemies of the state and assisting fraternal socialist nations to do the same.
DD: What were some of your early missions?
HORST: They sent me to Angola and then to Mozambique when those countries were fighting reactionary forces following their struggle to end Portuguese colonialist oppression. I terminated leaders of the counter-revolutionary movements and helped train indigenous forces to do the same. My favorite weapons were the Dragunov sniper rifle and, for close distance terminations, a Glock 17 pistol. Or the Russian 7.62 silent pistol. It makes only a pop sound, but the round is a big one. Very effective.
DD: And later assignments?
HORST: I assisted Soviet forces in Afghanistan. As a sniper, I racked up 237 confirmed kills. Later, I had special missions in Europe and the Middle East.
DD: Can you provide specifics?
HORST: No.
DD: Let's fast-forward. In 1989 the Berlin Wall falls, Germany reunites. Horst Fechtmann is out of a job.
HORST: Yes. For the first time in my life, I was unemployed. Our West German masters -- we called them the Besserwessies - Better-westies, if you will -- had no use for us GDR cadre. So, I was on my own. I needed work. I became a freelancer. And a capitalist. There is no Stasi 401(k), no pension.
DD: You could have gone into corporate security work.
HORST: No. I was blackballed. The Besserwessies saw to that.
DD: Okay. So then what?
HORST: Back to Africa. Rhodesia. South Africa. Equatorial Guinea. Algeria.
DD: How much did you earn per hit?
HORST: I'm afraid that's proprietary, confidential information.
DD: In his bestseller CHASM, author James Bruno reports you got fifty grand from the White House for whacking the Branko brothers.
HORST: No comment.
DD: That's 25 G's per victim.
HORST: No comment.
DD: You're pretty cheap. I might hire you to take out an enemy or two.
HORST: We can talk. After the interview.
DD: Author Bruno describes you as "a specter on a graveyard breeze." And "Fechtmann would lie in wait, like a black puma eyeing its prey, waiting for the right moment to strike with lightning lethality. " His motto is Silence = Death.
HORST: He is referring to the Stasi indoctrination of Geduld, Geheim, Geschwind - Patience, Secrecy, Swiftness.
DD: Do you still get contracts from the U.S. government? The CIA, Pentagon?
HORST: No. That all ended years ago. Something about your peculiar laws and your meddling Congress.
DD: Bruno also writes, "Most of his previous victims had deserved to die, having played a bad hand in the international espionage game." So, do you have a conscience? Or is it simply a service rendered for cash?
HORST: I never terminated a person who didn't deserve to die. I look at it as an extension of war. I don't enjoy killing.
DD: Interesting. Now to your present and future. Bruno states in CHASM, "After this job, the only things he would kill would be flies at his Florida bar." Is that what you're up to?
Cafe Paradiso
HORST: In CHASM, it appears that I, myself, was assassinated. This is only a ruse. Bruno is ingenious. That's why all of his thrillers are Amazon bestsellers. He plans to use me in future stories. Now, all I kill is indeed flies at my fern bar, Cafe Paradiso in Key West. Here is a voucher. Happy Hour is from 4 till 6 every Friday. I serve homemade brockwurst. Bring a date.