Guillaume became West German chancellor Willy Brandt"s secretary and caused his fall. Rising through the hierarchy of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, he became a close aide to West German chancellor Willy Brandt. In 1974, West German authorities discovered Guillaume"s spying for the East German government.
The resulting scandal, the Guillaume Affair, led to Brandt"s resigning the chancellorship.
In 1981, Guillaume was returned to East Germany in exchange for Western spies caught by the Eastern Bloc. In East Germany, Guillaume was received and celebrated as a hero, worked as a spy trainer, and published his autobiography Die Aussage ("The Statement") in 1988.
Guillaume and East German spymaster Markus Wolf have said that Willy Brandt"s downfall was not intended, and that the affair is among the Stasi"s biggest mistakes. After Die Wende and German reunification, the reunified Germany granted Guillaume immunity from any further prosecutions.
He was a supportive witness in Wolf"s trial for treason in 1993.
Guillaume died of kidney cancer on 10 April 1995, in Petershagen/Eggersdorf, near Berlin. Guillaume"s wife died in 2004. The Brandt-Guillaume story is told in the play Democracy by Michael Frayn.
lieutenant follows Brandt"s political career as West Germany"s first left-of-centre chancellor in 40 years, and his fall because of his assistant.
Nazi Party, Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party of Germany.
During the Hitler era, he was a member of the Nazi party NSDAP.