Marcus Klingberg | |
|---|---|
מרקוס קלינגברג | |
 Marcus Klingberg, 2006 | |
| Born | 7 October 1918 |
| Died | 30 November 2015 (aged 97) |
| Nationality | Poland (1918–1948) Israel (1948–2015) |
| Occupation(s) | Epidemiologist, spy |
| Spouse | Wanda Jasinska (Adjia Eisman) |
| Children | Sylvia Klingberg (daughter) |
| Relatives | Ian Brossat (grandson) |
| Awards |  Order of the Red Banner of Labour |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  Soviet Union (1941–1945) Israel (1948–1957) |
| Rank | Captain (Red Army) Lieutenant colonel (IDF) |
Avraham Marek Klingberg (7 October 1918 – 30 November 2015), known as Marcus Klingberg (Hebrew: מרקוס קלינגברג), was a Polish-born, Israeli epidemiologist and the highest ranking Soviet spy ever uncovered in Israel. Klingberg made major contributions in the fields of infectious and noninfectious disease epidemiology and military medicine, but he is most widely known for passing intelligence to the Soviet Union regarding Israel's biological and chemical warfare capacities. Klingberg's espionage is reported to be regarded by Israeli intelligence services as the most damaging ever to the country's national security interests.[1][2]
Originally from a family of well-known rabbis, Klingberg chose a secular education in high school. Entering medical school in 1935 his studies were cut short by the German invasion of Poland in 1939. At the urging of his father he fled Poland for the Soviet Union, completing his medical degree in Minsk and joining the Red Army in 1941 at the start of the war with Nazi Germany. Injured on the front lines, he was reassinged to a military unit dealing with disease outbreaks. In 1943, he would serve as Chief Epidemiologist of the Byelorussian Republic. Repatriated to Poland following the end of the war, he became Acting Chief Epidemiologist at the Polish Ministry of Health.
Having lost his entire family but for a single cousin in the Holocaust, Klingberg migrated to Israel. First serving in the Israel Defence Force from 1948 to 1953, in 1957 he joined the clandestine Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), responsible for the country's biological and chemical weapons, as Deputy Scientific Director. By his own admission, he was motivated by ideological reasons and began passing information to the Soviet Union in 1950, although Israeli intelligence claims his spying began earlier. Despite coming under suspicion by counter-intelligence, he avoided discovery until 1983, when he was arrested and convicted of espionage in secret. Sentenced to 20 years in prison, he was held in solitary confinement for 10 years, with his circumstances only publicly revealed in Israel in 1993. Paroled to home detention in 1998 due to ill health, he was permitted to move to Paris in 2003 to live with his daughter on the condition that he never speak of his work at the IIBR. He spent the remaining years of his life re-engaged in scientific work and completing his memoirs.
- ^ Rimmington 2000, p. 41.
- ^ Shpiro 2011, p. 881.