Guillaume Affair - Aftermath

Aftermath

Guillaume was eventually released and sent to East Germany in 1981 in exchange for Western intelligence agents caught by the Eastern Bloc. Back in East Germany, Guillaume was celebrated as a hero, worked in the training of spies, and published his autobiography Die Aussage ("The Statement") in 1988.

The story of Brandt and Guillaume is told in the play Democracy by Michael Frayn. The play follows Brandt's career from his election to Guillaume's imprisonment. It examines Guillaume's dual identity as trusted personal assistant to the West German chancellor and Stasi spy and examines his conflict as his duty to West Germany's enemies clashes with his genuine love and admiration for the chancellor.

In 2003, Willy's son Matthias Brandt took the part of Guillaume in the film Im Schatten der Macht ("In the Shadow of Power") by German filmmaker Oliver Storz. The film deals with the Guillaume Affair and Brandt's resignation. Matthias Brandt caused a minor controversy in Germany when it was publicized that he would take the part of the man who betrayed his father and made him resign in 1974. Earlier that year - when the Brandts and the Guillaumes took a vacation to Norway together - it was Matthias, then twelve years old, who was the first to discover that Guillaume and his wife 'were typing mysterious things on typewriters the whole night through'.