Markus Wolf, an East German spymaster who successfully ran thousands of 'moles' and agents in the West at the height of the Cold war, died today at the age of 83.

Wolf directed the Communist state's foreign intelligence network for nearly three decades and boasted that he was the first spymaster to perfect the use of 'Romeo agents'.

But for years Western intelligence agencies did not even know what Wolf looked like and nicknamed him "the man without a face".

The spy chief's step-daughter, Claudia Wall, said that Wolf died in his sleep overnight at his apartment in Berlin on the 17th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Wolf successfully ran more than 4,000 spies across the Iron Curtain during his tenure at the foreign intelligence division of the Stasi secret police from the early 1950s to 1987, infiltrating countless "moles" deep into the West German government administration.

One of them, Guenter Guillaume, caused the downfall of Chancellor Willy Brandt.

Wolf even recruited the head of West German counter-espionage, Hans-Joachim Tiedge.

His agents were said to be so effective that Erich Honecker, the East German head of state, regularly got to read the weekly intelligence digest of West German espionage before the West German chancellor.

Wolf was reputedly the model for the Soviet spy chief Karla in John Le Carre’s Smiley series of novels.

Such was the mystery surrounding him that the West did not even have an authenticated picture of him until he was photographed during a visit to 1978 and an East German defector, Werner Stiller, identified him to West German counter-intelligence. The first public photograph of him was published only in 1982.

Wolf boasted in his memoirs that "if I go down in espionage history, it may well be for perfecting the use of sex in spying".

The Stasi - which at home enlisted spouses and lovers to spy on their partners - sent seductive 'Romeo agents' to the West to steal secrets from lonely government secretaries.

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