BERLIN -- A married couple went on trial in Germany on Tuesday accused of handing hundreds of sensitive NATO and European Union documents to Russia during a two-decade spying career that continued well beyond the end of the Cold War. 

Federal prosecutors accuse Andreas Anschlag and his wife Heidrun -- suspected Russian citizens whose names are aliases -- of entering West Germany in 1988 with forged Austrian passports and fabricating a suburban middle-class existence to cover their espionage. 

So perfect was the subterfuge that even their own daughter did not know of their spying, German media reported. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin worked for the Soviet intelligence agency the KGB in East Germany in the 1980s when the couple are accused of having started their career. 

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"This is a case of treason that has been going on for more than 20 years, involving the entire range of intelligence activity, from trying to recruit new sources to instructing others, all the way to writing their own reports on political and military matters," federal prosecutor Rolf Hannich said. 

"These are documents and evaluations on NATO's policies which are of course of high interest to the other side because they can then adapt their own behavior." 

The couple said nothing at Tuesday's court hearing. In Germany, the accused are not required to submit a plea. 

The indictment said one of the sources for the secret documents procured by the Anschlags was a person working for the Dutch foreign ministry. 

German special forces arrested them in separate raids on their family home in Marburg, central Germany, and on an apartment near the southwestern city of Stuttgart in the early hours of October 18, 2011. 

According to reports, Heidrun Anschlag was at home in the process of receiving radio messages from Moscow when the Marburg raid took place at what they described as a typical, middle-class suburban family house. 

Hannich said the prosecution's task had been rendered more difficult because the couple had already been preparing their return to Russia and had destroyed many documents from before 2008. 

Documents obtained by the couple related to such matters as NATO's political and military affairs, the EU's military, police and civil missions, political negotiations on EU bodies and the situation in eastern European and Central Asian countries. 

Economic ties between Russia and Germany are booming but Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in former communist East Germany, has also criticized Moscow's human rights record and clampdown on political dissent. 

In Germany, spying can be punished by up to 10 years in jail. 

HAVANA -- A Cuban official on Wednesday accused the U.S. government of “lying” about the health of Alan Gross, an American contractor serving a 15-year prison sentence here, in an effort to force his release. 

Denying speculation that the 63-year-old Gross has cancer or is otherwise in poor health, Foreign Ministry official Josefina Vidal said at a press conference in the Cuban capital that the 63-year-old American has "been treated decently and well in prison.”

She also stated that “his health has "not deteriorated" and that he "speaks regularly with friends and family."

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"Gross has been seen by the most qualified Cuban medical specialists," Vidal said. "The U.S. government is lying to suggest that he has cancer and that he is not receiving adequate treatment." If these lies continue, she said, "Cuba will present new evidence that shows Gross is not sick."

Vidal’s statement came in response to increasing pressure from the U.S. government and lawmakers to release Gross, who was convicted in 2009 of "acts against the independence and/or territorial integrity of the state” for  distributing telecommunications equipment to Cuba’s tiny Jewish community.

At the time, Gross was in Cuba on a  tourist visa, working  for Development Alternatives, Inc., a State Department contractor, as an "independent business and economic development consultant" under an $8.6 million contract from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The court that convicted him described the effort as an effort to subvert the Cuban government.

“It was demonstrated that (Gross) illegally introduced telecommunications equipment in Cuba to create internal networks as part of a program of the government of the United States that aimed to promote destabilizing actions in the country and subvert Cuban constitutional order," it said at the time.

Since his imprisonment more than three years ago, Gross has lost more than 100 pounds and developed a mass on his right shoulder blade, which Cuban doctors diagnosed as a non-malignant hematoma that would be reabsorbed within a few months, according to Reuters.

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Gross’ wife, Judy, has been leading a public relations campaign in the United States for her husband’s release on humanitarian grounds. An American radiologist she consulted said last month that the mass had not been properly evaluated and speculated that it could be cancerous. The radiologist, Alan Cohen, said that Gross needed an urgent evaluation – and likely a biopsy of the mass – preferably at a facility in the United States.

At a press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday – the fourth anniversary of her husband’s imprisonment – Judy Gross said her husband “is frail, suffers from chronic pain ... and still doesn’t know whether he has cancer.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner sounded a similar theme on Monday.

“Mr. Gross has lost more than 100 pounds and suffers from severe degenerative arthritis that affects his mobility, and other health problems,” he said in a statement. “His family is anxious to evaluate whether he is receiving appropriate medical treatment, something that can best be determined by having a doctor of his own choosing examine him.”

While resisting calls to release Gross, Cuban officials have floated an alternative to resolve the impasse: They say they will free Gross if President Barack Obama agrees to release five Cuban spies held in the U.S.

The spies – known as the Cuban Five – are national heroes in Cuba as a result of their mission in the late 1990s to infiltrate  anti-Castro exile groups in South Florida that Havana suspected of plotting terrorist attacks inside Cuba. They were convicted in Miami in June 2001 of conspiracy to commit espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, acting as an agent of a foreign government, and other illegal activities.

Vidal referred to this scenario on Tuesday, reiterating “Cuba's willingness to immediately start talks with the U.S. government to find a humanitarian solution that is mutually beneficial to both parties." She also stated that her government would not make a "unilateral" move and release Gross because the "problem also belongs to the U.S." -- referring to the Cuban Five.

Gross himself pushed for a diplomatic solution in a meeting on Nov. 28 with Peter Kornbluh, a Cuba specialist from the National Security Archives in Washington.

"He’s angry, he’s frustrated, he’s dejected — and he wants his own government to step up" and negotiate, Kornbluh told NBC News last week. "His message is that the United States and Cuba have to sit down and have a dialogue without preconditions. … He told me that the first meeting should result in a non-belligerency pact being signed between the United States and Cuba."

Mary Murray is an NBC News producer; NBC National Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff also contributed to this report.

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By Peter Jeary, NBC News

In the 50 years since the first James Bond movie created a lasting impression of a British secret agent, a completely different character is about to emerge.

Britain's intelligence agencies are to recruit their next generation of cyber spies by harnessing the talents of the "Xbox generation."

In an expansion of a pilot program, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced Thursday that up to 100 18-year-olds will be given the chance to train for a career in Britain’s secret services.

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Most of the recruitment is aimed at producing staff for the GCHQ, the electronic communications agency and monitoring station at the heart of Britain’s cyber defenses. However, some recruits will go on to work in the other two intelligence agencies – MI5 and MI6.

The move to recruit school-leavers marks a break with the past, when agencies mainly drew their staff from among university graduates.

Speaking at Bletchley Park, the forerunner of GCHQ and home to Britain's Second World War code-breakers, Hague said it was important to bring in the most talented people to secure the UK's cyber expertise for the future.

“Young people are the key to our country’s future success, just as they were during the War,” Hague said.  “Today we are not at war, but I see evidence every day of deliberate, organized attacks against intellectual property and government networks in the United Kingdom.”

Security Minister James Brokenshire told NBC News the government was always on the lookout for the best people regardless of where they come from.  

“We look at technical innovation, but it’s also looking at attracting people to become involved in the work or our agencies, recognizing the importance of the work that they do,”he said.

The new recruitment program, called the Single Intelligence Account apprenticeship scheme will enable students with suitable qualifications in science, technology or engineering, to spend two years learning about communications, security and engineering through formal education, technical training and work placements.

Officials said apprenticeships would tap into the skills of the "Xbox generation" who had grown up in the world of social media, global connectivity and interactive gaming.

In a bid to widen the Intelligence Services’ pool of cyber talent, Hague also announced GHCQ will introduce an open-door and continuous recruitment strategy, no longer only recruiting annually. And a university degree will no longer be a prerequisite, but consideration will be given to anyone with relevant experience.

The Director of GCHQ, Iain Lobban, welcomed the announcement, saying, “It should ensure that GCHQ continues to develop the skills and attract the talent it needs to meet today's challenges around cyber security.”

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A Soviet-legacy oil nation is emerging as a hotbed of global espionage as tension escalates between Israel and Iran.

Azerbaijan, which links Russia to the Middle East, has strategic importance as a bridgehead for the West in its war of diplomacy with Tehran.

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A secular dictatorship with a long border with Iran, it is one of the few remaining countries than can act as a reliable listening post for America and Israel, turning its capital, Baku, into a hotbed of intelligence activity.

“Like Casablanca in World War II, Baku is now also a center of monitoring Iranian mischief,” Ariel Cohen, senior research fellow at the Washington-based Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, part of the Heritage Foundation, told msnbc.com. “This is understandable taking into account visa-free regime of travel between the two countries and aggressive Iranian intelligence tactics.”

NYT: US defines first move in new talks with Iran

Recent events have lifted the lid on some of the international maneuvering in Baku. In March, Azeri security services arrested 22 people they say were trained by Iran to carry out terrorist attacks against the US and Israeli embassies.

In January, two accused of plotting to kill teachers at a Jewish school were also held.

'The Israelis are more subtle'
Most experts agree there are many Mossad agents in Azerbaijan working for Israel.

“The Iranians act in the open, they want everyone to know that they are here,” Dr. Arastun Orujl, director of the east-West Research Center in Baku told Britain's Times newspaper. “The Israelis are more subtle, like the Americans. But in the end everyone knows they are here, too.”

Iran lawmaker: We can produce nuclear weapons

So why does Azerbaijan matter? Not only does its geography make it an ideal place for the U.S. and its allies to face down Tehran, but its political history entangles it in the current tensions with Israel.

Millions living in northern Iran are ethnic Azeris, theoretically binding the two nations. But Azerbaijan has allied itself increasingly with Israel and the West as it uses its oil wealth to leverage its global standing.

“It was one of the first countries to back America after 9/11,” Gerald Frost, director of the Paris-based Caspian Information Centre told msnbc.com. “It is as politically helpful to the West as its position close to the Middle East will allow. America needs to pay it close attention.”

While the country has made concessions to the West, it remains a dynastic dictatorship under the rule of Ilham Aliyev, who inherited power from father Heydar Aliyev, a former Soviet leader who reinvented himself as a nationalist during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ilham took over in a 2003 election described by Human Rights Watch as “fraudulent” and which it said was “followed by protests that turned violent, plunging Azerbaijan into a human rights crisis from which it has not recovered”.

Israel last year established a factory in Azerbaijan making parts for its military drones, and has supplied the country with $1.6 billion worth of military equipment.

The BBC reported Russia President Vladimir Putin "surprised Western leaders" in 2007 by offering to let America use its radar base in Azerbaijan to defend Europe against any missile attack from Iran.

Cohen says Iran has been trying undermine Azerbaijan's secular position in the hopes of turning it from a dictatorship into a theocracy, echoing the transition of countries such as Libya and Egypt that now appear destined to be ruled by conservative Islamists.

Mark Perry, in a Foreign Policy article titled "Israel’s Secret Staging Ground", claimed Obama administration officials now believe that the security cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel is actually "heightening the risks of an Israeli strike on Iran".

Azerbaijan has denied it would allow the U.S. or Israel  to launch airstrikes, although Frost noted that it could provide associated support since it already allows the U.S. military into its airspace to reach Afghanistan and to evacuate injured troops.

While ties with Israel deepen, the future relationship with the United States is less clear because Washington does not currently have an ambassador in Baku. The last holder of the post, Matthew Bryza, left last year after his appointment was not confirmed by Congress, a decision Frost believes is likely to have been influenced by America's powerful Armenian lobby.

Cultural boom
Meanwhile, its strategic importance is being echoed in a cultural boom. Baku is enjoying a Dubai-style explosion of luxury hotels and designer fashion stores. "It is all very glitzy, very much reflecting the way Azeris want to be seen as an establish European-style country rather than a backwater," said Ben Illis, co-author of a new Time Out guide to Baku, which is due to be published next month.

It has launched a major tourism advertising campaign, and its ambitious bid to host the 2020 Olympic games found its way onto the IOC shortlist.

This spring is expected to see the unveiling of the $350 million Flame Towers – three glass-sided skyscrapers up to 620ft in height inspired by the country’s ancient association with fire. Human Rights Watch says “thousands of residents” have been forcibly evicted to make way for some of these projects.

However, billing itself as tourism destination may be a challenge for a country that still has a very poor human rights record and still is often confused with Kazakhstan, home of comic creation Borat.

An unlikely litmus test of its political ambitions will come next month when it hosts the Eurovision Song Contest, a live music competition beamed across Europe that is a byword for kitsch (it was once won by a transsexual representing Israel). Baku's bitter enemy, neighboring Armenia, pulled out of the contest in disgust when an Azeri duo won last year.

"This will perhaps be a good indication of how far the regime is prepared to go to further its relationship with the west," said James Nixey, of British think tank Chatham House.

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They foiled plots and cracked Nazi codes, but Britain's spies were unable to solve the mystery of Charlie Chaplin's birth.

Although the entertainer is celebrated as one of London's most famous sons, newly declassified files reveal that Britain's MI5 domestic intelligence service found no records to back up Chaplin's claim that he was born in the city on April 16, 1889.

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Uncertainty about Chaplin's origins linger to this day — a mystery Chaplin himself may have helped to nurture.

The previously secret file, released Friday by Britain's National Archives, shows that MI5 investigated the silent film star in the 1950s at the request of the FBI, which had long suspected him of communist sympathies. MI5 historian Christopher Andrew said the FBI's red-hating chief, J. Edgar Hoover, privately denounced Chaplin as "one of Hollywood's parlor Bolsheviks."

To the spies' surprise, there was no record of the performer's birth.

"It would seem that Chaplin was either not born in this country or that his name at birth was other than those mentioned," MI5 concluded.

Chaplin's life is a Dickensian rags-to-riches story. Raised in London in a family of music-hall entertainers, he moved to the United States in 1910 and became one of Hollywood's first megastars with his shabby, bowler-hatted everyman persona, the Little Tramp.

He was a box office sensation in movies such as "The Gold Rush," "City Lights" and "The Kid," but his left-wing friends and activities alarmed the FBI, which began tracking the actor in the early 1920s.

In 1952, as fears of Soviet infiltration raged in the U.S., the FBI asked MI5 to investigate Chaplin's political allegiances and personal background, including a long-standing rumor that Charlie Chaplin was an alias and the performer's true name was Israel Thornstein.

But British spies could find no trace of him in the birth records at London's Somerset House under Chaplin, Thornstein or Harley, his mother's stage name.

Ex-UK official: Spies did use fake rock in Moscow

The spies also checked French records amid rumors that he might have been born in the town of Fontainebleu — but that, too, drew a blank.

Elsewhere in the file, agents speculate that Chaplin might have Russian roots. There was an allegation that he had once spoken of "going back to Russia."

"This might refer to paying another visit, or it might denote his origin as Russia," noted senior MI5 officer W.M.T. Magan, speculating that Chaplin might have come from a Jewish family fleeing pogroms at the end of the 19th century.

Film historian Matthew Sweet said rumors about Chaplin's roots had been swirling well before the 1950s. The French claim stemmed from a fan magazine article from the 1910s that suggested Chaplin was born while his performer mother was on tour. The idea he was Jewish appears to have been an assumption by some fans that came to be widely believed. Chaplin did little to correct the record.

"The borderline between fact and fiction about celebrities was much less clearly policed than it is today," Sweet said.

MI5 seemed content to let the mystery of Chaplin's birth remain. British agents were skeptical of American claims that the star was a communist threat, with John Marriott, the head of MI5's counter-subversion branch, calling the U.S. allegations "unreliable."

"It is curious that we can find no record of Chaplin's birth, but I scarcely think that this is of any security significance," he wrote in 1952.

The U.S. thought differently and Chaplin was refused re-entry to the United States in 1952. He settled in Switzerland and lived there until his death in 1977.

The dossier shows MI5 continued to track Chaplin for several years. It contains newspaper clippings about the actor, snatches of conversation from suspected radicals who knew him and letters sent from Russia to "Comrade Charly Chaplin" via the communist magazine Challenge.

But by 1958, MI5 had concluded Chaplin was not a threat.

"We have no substantial information of our own against Chaplin, and we are not satisfied that there are reliable grounds for regarding him as a security risk," the agency noted. "It may be that Chaplin is a Communist sympathizer but on the information before us he would appear to be no more than a 'progressive' or radical."

Nonetheless, a taint of impropriety lingered. Files released in 2002 showed that the British government blocked a knighthood for Chaplin for nearly 20 years because of American concerns about his politics and private life — he was married four times, twice to 16-year-old girls. He eventually became Sir Charles Chaplin in March 1975, two years before his death at age 88.

Chaplin's origins remain cloudy, although the 1891 census records the then 2-year-old as living in south London with his mother and elder brother Sydney.

Evidence unearthed last year added another layer of mystery.

In a locked drawer of a bureau left behind after Chaplin's death, his family found a letter from a man in England named Jack Hill. It claimed Chaplin had been born "in a caravan (that) belonged to the Gypsy Queen, who was my auntie" in a Roma community near Birmingham in central England.

Chaplin had alluded to Roma roots in his autobiography, writing that "Grandma was half-Gypsy. This fact was the skeleton in our family cupboard."

Sweet said the letter was not proof of Chaplin's birthplace but evidence he cultivated the mystery of his origins.

"It is very widely accepted that he was born in London in 1889, but the piece of paper just isn't there," Sweet said.

"That letter is not proof that he was born in a Gypsy encampment. It is proof that he was terrifically attracted to the idea of that story, enough to keep the letter and lock it away and think of it as something important.

"The idea of the mystery of his own birth is something that he quite enjoyed, I think."

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