Retired Army Reserve Col. George Trofimoff (USA) became the US Army's highest ranking American in uniform to be charged with espionage. On 14 June 2001 he was found guilty of spying for the USSR and Russia, (including the sale of classified material to the Russians) whilst serving as the civilian chief of the US Army Element of the Nuremburg Joint Interrogation Center - an intelligence unit in Germany - between 1969 to 1994. Ironically, Trofimoff was born in Germany to Russian parents and became a naturalized US citizen in 1951;precisely 50 years before he was sentenced to life imprisonment on 28 September 2001. During his spying career, Trofimoff was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, a Soviet award presented for "bravery and self-sacrifice in the defense of the socialist homeland." He was recruited into the KGB by his childhood friend, by Igor Susemihl, the former Russian Orthodox Archbishop of Vienna, Austria.