 In his 1999 autobiography Gerstner had indeed written of how he had reported on conversations with foreign diplomats to the HVA (which was the foreign intelligence branch of the Ministry for State Security).In March 2000 he took the opportunity to publish in the Berliner Zeitung a ferocious rejection of Aly's piece, which appeared under the headline "Weder ein Held, noch ein Feigling" ("loosely "Not a hero, nor a coward"") and was described as "Ein besonderer Leserbrief" (""A special [kind of] reader's letter"").Gerstner wrote