In the Shadow of Power

Episode 1

The Trap

Spring 1974. Chancellor Willy Brandt is on a campaign tour through northern Germany aboard a special train. The chancellor is accompanied by journalists, his bodyguards, and his party aide Günter Guillaume, who maintains contact with the government headquarters during such trips. Guillaume is Brandt’s “jack-of-all-trades.” Yet for nearly a year, he has been under suspicion of being a Stasi agent, and the chancellor knows it. Brandt has followed the advice of Nollau, the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and Genscher, the minister of the interior responsible for political affairs, to make no changes to the suspect’s responsibilities and to play the part of the unsuspecting party until sufficient evidence has been gathered.