Abstract: The Bulgarian State Security (Държавна сигурност, DS) within the Bulgarian ministry of the Interior, as main Bulgarian intelligence service during the Cold War, conducted, like the services of the other communist „satellite states“ of the Soviet Union, several activities of foreign intelligence in Central and Western Europe. Mainly responsible for these actions was from 1925 to mid-1950s the “Section B” (security in foreign countries), and from the 1950s on, as Bulgarian state security got a structure similar to the Soviet Committee of State Security (KGB), the first main directorate (foreign intelligence) and the second main directorate (counterintelligence). Some of its actions became infamous already during the Cold War, like for example the assassination of Georgi Markov on Waterloo Bridge in London in 1978. But besides such spotlights, Bulgarian intelligence activities in Austria during the Cold War are, compared to activities for example by Czechoslovakian or Hungarian services in Austria, almost unexplored.

Key words:  State Security; Austria; DS; intelligence; dissidents; economic intelligence; technology

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