Alfred Zehe

Silverglate used Zehe's case to argue against the 2001 appointment of Robert Mueller to head the FBI. On another occasion, Silverglate argued that the FBI was trying to acquire assets it could trade with Eastern European governments, part of what he termed "spy trading culture."

In his academic career, Zehe's major research fields have been materials science, solid-state electronics, and vacuum physics. He is the author of Tecnologia epitaxial de silicio (2001 with Andreas Thomas) and Herramientas Analiticas de Interfaces Solidas (2002).

On January 29, 1985, U.S. District Judge David S. Nelson denied Zehe's motion to dismiss the case, ruling that the Espionage Act could be applied extraterritorially to both citizens and noncitizens because of the threat to national security that espionage poses.

On February 25, 1985, Zehe entered a plea of guilty. He submitted to a full debriefing in exchange for the promise of a light sentence. He was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

Zehe was released in June 1985 as part of an exchange of four East Europeans held by the U.S. for 25 people held in Poland and East Germany, none of them American. The exchange took place on the Glienicke Bridge linking West Berlin with Potsdam, East Germany.

The East German government posted bail for Zehe in June 1984. He remained in Boston while awaiting trial.

On November 3, 1983, Zehe was arrested while attending the annual symposium of the American Vacuum Society in Boston. He was subsequently charged under the Espionage Act with conspiracy to obtain classified documents related to military technology and deliver them to a foreign government.

In 1982, Zehe was summoned from Puebla to the East German embassy in Mexico City to meet with East German officials, who sought Zehe's expertise regarding recently acquired documents on sonar technology. Unbeknownst to Zehe at the time, the documents had been purchased by East German agents from an undercover U.S. operative in Washington, D.C.

Born in Farnstädt, Germany, Alfred Zehe was trained from a young age to be an underground copper miner. In 1964, he graduated from the University of Leipzig with a degree in physics; in 1969, he received the degree of Doctor rerum naturalium; and in 1975, he received the degree of Doctor scientiae naturalium. He held a chair in Experimental Physics at the Technical University of Dresden from 1980 to 1991, during which time he taught periodically at the Autonomous University of Puebla in Puebla, Mexico. Prior to the 1990 German reunification, Zehe's ability to travel, including his teaching at University of Puebla, was contingent on his consulting with the East German government on matters of national security.

Alfred Zehe (born May 23, 1939) is a German physicist, professor and author. After American authorities charged him with spying for the East German government in 1983, he became part of a high-profile prisoner exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.