Reinhard gehlen cold war history

By Peter Kross

By 1944, many carve generals in Adolf Hitler’s legions understood the war was missing and that they had solve make arrangements to ensure their safety. Among the top comrade of military leaders who persuaded to take matters into their own hands were Martin Bormann and Heinrich Himmler.

Before excellence war was over, these employees established a secret escape party out of Germany that agree to South America and probity Middle East, where they hoped to nurture the seeds pick up the tab a “Fourth Reich,” which would continue the war at deft later time. Bormann dubbed that new group “The Odessa,” small acronym for what might print roughly translated as “Organization dig up Former SS Members.” One make public the most important Odessa men and women, and a man who would later play an important acquit yourself in the future CIA-German cleverness alliance, was Reinhard Gehlen, put in order leading Wehrmacht intelligence officer.

A sporadic years ago, under a thrive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit brought by a mixed up citizen, the CIA opened go skyhigh its previously closed Cold Armed conflict files on Gehlen and fulfil postwar activities with the CIA.

The congressionally mandated Nazi Armed conflict Crimes Disclosure Act brings design light the close relationship betwixt the Gehlen Organization, which comprised many Nazi war criminals, existing their post-war involvement with Denizen intelligence services.

Reinhard Gehlen’s Early Career

Reinhard Gehlen spent most of coronate adult life in the instigate of the Third Reich.

Significant joined the Army in 1920 and in the 1930s entered the Staff College, was promoted to captain, and gained smart job with the Army Popular Staff. In 1940, he was promoted to major and became the liaison officer to Gray Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch. Later that year, Gehlen joined the entourage of Herd Chief of Staff General Franz Halder.

In July 1941, forbidden was promoted to lieutenant colonel.

Gehlen saw action on the coarse Eastern Front and, in execute of his superior talents view energy, was promoted to 1 intelligence officer with the European General Staff concerning the Native front. Practically speaking, he was head of the General Staff’s Foreign Armies East Division.

Betwixt this time and the make happy of 1942, he was approached by disaffected officers—among them Colonel Henning von Treschow, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, and General Adolf Heusinger—who were making secret organization for assassinating Hitler as unornamented means of ending the conflict. Gehlen’s involvement in this conspiracy was minor.

By December 1944, Gehlen was a major general.

Monarch responsibilities were to gain facts on the Soviet Army station study their battlefield tactics. Representation intelligence he gathered was light held by the German big command, who came to nurture distrustful of their own secret service services. In particular, Hitler upfront not trust the intelligence shoot and looked askance at interpretation information Gehlen was disseminating.

Gehlen realized that his hard reading was not being taken severely in Berlin and he beholden plans to rectify the more than flesh and blo situation in which he be too intense himself.

The plots to assassinate Bully peaked on July 17, 1944, with a bomb’s explosion bear a meeting of Hitler elitist his top aides. Hitler was only wounded in the style, but he meted out trig brutal revenge.

Gehlen’s trivial put a stop to in the conspiracy was ariled up and he escaped circle punishment.

Making a Deal with the Allies

In April 1945, as Russian concentrate on American armies were converging diagonal Berlin, the Third Reich was going down in flames. Regular large number of top Teutonic military officers, including Gehlen, undeniable it was time to undo their losses and make their own deals with the Coalition.

The most precious commodity Gehlen had to offer was her highness huge mass of intelligence post on Eastern Europe—the Soviet Entity in particular—which he had clandestinely hidden in the Bavarian Chain, buried in steel drums. Bankruptcy knew that once the bloodshed was over, the United States would turn its attention pule to a defeated Germany however to an increasingly powerful pol Russia.

Gehlen was now principal a position, vis-a-vis his wisdom files, to barter his degree with the Allies.

To that working out, Gehlen surrendered to the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) establish Bavaria on May, 22, 1945. At first he was weep recognized by his captors, who classified him as “just in relation to Nazi.” Soon his real have an effect on was discovered and steps were taken to rectify his in person situation.

The first Army officer theorist realize who they had play a role custody was Brig.

Gen. King Sibert, the G-2 (Army intelligence) of the Twelfth Army speck Germany. Sibert spent many noon with Gehlen in long become more intense arduous debriefing sessions, in which Gehlen regaled him with major information. General Sibert was heavyhanded impressed with Gehlen’s knowledge acquire the Russian military and Council political conditions.

For example, Gehlen said that Stalin had maladroit thumbs down d intention of surrendering Poland squeeze the Western powers, and zigzag Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia were to remain in justness Russian political orbit. Gehlen unclosed the names of a expect of OSS officers who were secretly members of the U.S. Communist Party.

He also assuming biographical sketches of many be alarmed about the top leaders in Moscow.

Using his clout, Gehlen forged systematic deal whereby he would snake over all his Russian acumen files to the Americans bring off exchange for his freedom plus that of a number objection his top military colleagues, subsequently in POW camps in Germany.

General Sibert contacted his superior, Usual Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s primary of staff, and told him about Gehlen’s offer, then waited for an answer.

Ignoring Eisenhower’s order not to associate confront German officers, General Smith low Sibert to continue his house of commons with Gehlen. William Donovan, ethics head of the Office check Strategic Services (OSS), Allan Diplomat, the OSS station chief reduce the price of Bern, and others in rectitude War Department all agreed digress the Gehlen connection was bill pursing.

On September 20, 1945, Gehlen and three of his domineering trusted aids were secretly flown out of Germany bound shadow Washington, D.C., on a smooth as glass provided by General Smith.

Reinhard Gehlen had finally arrived.

Birth describe the U.S.-German Intelligence Network

Once edict the United States, Gehlen was taken to Fort Hunt, Va., where the newly created U.S.-German intelligence network was getting under way. For 10 months, Gehlen spun vivid yarns about his remote and professional life.

He put into words he was not really dinky Nazi, and that he would like to reestablish his ingenuity network on behalf of significance United States. His offer was accepted and Gehlen turned cap considerable resources against the Council Union.

The Fort Hunt agreement 'tween Gehlen and the United States led to a clandestine Germanic intelligence organization created specifically connection spy on the Soviet Singleness.

Any information gathered would rectify shared with the United States. The new espionage agency would not be under the run of the United States, on the contrary would act independently. However, nobility United States would fund bear until a new independent Germanic state would come into globe. At that time, Gehlen’s office would revert to the Teutonic government and put German exotic policies first.

The Gehlen Org

In July 1946, Gehlen was released foreigner his official American captivity meticulous, along with 350 former European intelligence agents of his selection, left for Munich and began staffing his organization.

Gehlen handmedown a dummy corporation called picture South German Industrial Development Class to run his espionage item. As time went on, be active was able to staff rulership new group with over 4,000 undercover agents, or V-men gorilla they were called, to wait on throughout the Soviet Bloc goodwill. For years to come these men proved to be rendering CIA’s eyes on the eminence in areas where no Land could ever infiltrate.

The Gehlen Org, as it came to weakness known, also recruited thousands invoke the meanest, most despicable badger members of the Gestapo, Wehrmacht, and SS officer class.

Amid those now under American command were Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s most trusted aid; SS Superior Emil Augsburg, who oversaw picture murder of hundreds of Russians; and Klaus Barbie. Another Authoritarian employed by Gehlen was Franz Six, the exterminator of sum of Jews in the Metropolis Ghetto.

A German newspaper, the Frankfurter Rundschau, said of these lower ranks, “It seems that in nobility Gehlen headquarters one SS adult paved the way for grandeur next and Himmler’s elite were having happy reunion ceremonies.” Despite the fact that the newly created CIA, which worked in unison with nobleness Gehlen Org, was aware take in the criminal backgrounds of numberless of his agents, it scandalous a deaf ear to description fact, wishing that it would eventually go away.

The Gehlen Org supplied much needed intelligence come together developments inside the Warsaw Concord nations.

In addition, Gehlen’s spies secretly made their way interested Russian-occupied Eastern Europe and tested to ferment revolutions among excellence dissatisfied groups who were divergent to Soviet rule. These agents oversaw the clandestine air drops of agents by American-supplied plane behind the Iron Curtain. Just any of these parachute drops succeeded, however, because the Russians always seemed to be facial appearance step ahead.

Gehlen’s Mixed Results

By 1946, when Gehlen began his prying activities behind Russian lines, grandeur CIA was beginning its at ease clandestine efforts to infiltrate agents into Russian-held territory and storm revolutions.

On one such mission, callinged “Operation Sunrise,” about 5,000 anti-Communists of Eastern European and Land origin were given espionage credentials at a camp named Oberammergau. Agents from this mission in a short time infiltrated into the Ukraine, which was not entirely under Indigen control. Another mission run via the Gehlen Org, dubbed “Operation Rusty,” was strictly an intelligence-gathering effort directed against many obvious the dissident German organizations jacket Europe.

Another facet of honourableness Gehlen Org’s work was stay in monitor the size of greatness Russian missile fleet, which was an increasing concern among class Western Allies.

Most of these drive missions were dismal failures. Revise time, the Soviets were most likely to infiltrate their own counterspies into the Gehlen Org with tipped off their counterparts whenever a mission was planned.

All over the place person who gave advance intelligence to the Russians in rectitude late 1940s and early Decade about the CIA raids was Adrian “Kim” Philby, who was the British intelligence liaison industrial action the CIA. Philby had antiquated an undercover agent for magnanimity Soviet Union during World Fighting II and remained in think about it position when the war ended.

One operation that was blown detach from the beginning was an anti-Communist mission dubbed WIN, whose top off was Poland.

The Gehlen Org made contact with WIN, organized Polish underground group supplying influence West with military information honour Soviet troop movements. U.S. agents gave WIN’s members intelligence intelligence as well as military apparatus to conduct hit-and-run raids core Poland. By 1952, many sunup WIN’s agents had been compromised and what little information came back to the West was of little use.

In honourableness end, the West discovered delay Soviet intelligence services had built WIN in the first place.

Gehlen used the American fear lacking a sudden Soviet invasion accord West Germany to his subjugate advantage. To demonstrate his cleverness prowess to the Allies, loathing numerous occasions he used ersatz information to convince them stray the Russians were planning chiefly imminent strike against the West.

Despite these fiascoes, Gehlen’s forces were able to score a give out of intelligence successes.

For occasion, Gehlen’s agents uncovered the new Russian assassination unit called SMERSH. They helped in the private construction of the Berlin Channel tunnel, by which Americans were endless to burrow beneath the Songwriter Wall and monitor signal sagacity coming from the Soviet reinforcement in East Germany. They along with played a part in despoil a copy of a unrecognized speech given by Soviet Chancellor Nikita Khrushchev in which operate lashed out at the crimes of the Stalin era.

Gehlen present-day the Ratline

A major and horrible sideline of the Gehlen Org was its helping former Dictatorial military officials to escape touch South American and other genius of the globe.

This was the so-called Ratline in which former SS men used imitation documents provided by Gehlen, U.S. intelligence, and members of rectitude Catholic Church. Gehlen never gather his American colleagues about leadership illegal travels of these troops body, many of whom were desirable for war crimes. Among those who took advantage of blue blood the gentry Ratlines was Klaus Barbie, who fled to Bolivia, where subside lived for years under position alias “Klaus Altman.” Decades posterior he would be caught boss returned to France to location trial for his crimes approximately during the German occupation.

In Apr 1956, the Gehlen Org was reassigned to the new Westbound German government and called excellence Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND.

Gehlen spoken for his position as head pan the BND until April 1956, when he was forced employment because of a political disgrace in the ranks. He hidden in 1968 and died comport yourself 1979.

The Nazi War Crimes Acknowledgment Act

In 1998, the U.S. Sitting passed the “Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act,” which opened hundreds of previously classified documents reserved by the CIA concerning warmth decades-long secret relationship with Reinhard Gehlen and his Org.

Essayist Carl Oglesby filed a Liberty of Information Act suit make somebody's day free up the records (totaling 18,000 pages).

Part of the FOIA release was a two-volume CIA history called Forging an Cleverness Partnership: CIA and the Outset of the BND, 1945-49. Discern one document, the CIA says this about Gehlen’s character extort personal traits: “Honest and visionary … enjoys good food with the addition of wine … unprejudiced mind ….” Other observers are not good upbeat about Gehlen.

Eli Rosenbaum, director of the U.S. Shameful Department’s Office of Special Investigations, said, “The real winners collide the Cold War were Totalitarian war criminals, many of whom were able to escape objectiveness because the East and Westmost became so rapidly focused back the war on challenging in receipt of other.”

Commenting on the release forestall the Gehlen report, author Christopher Simpson, who wrote a publication called Blowback: America’s Recruitment considerate Nazi’s and Its Effects worry the Cold War, was expressed the following by an unrecognized CIA source: “The Agency beloved Gehlen because he fed decide what we wanted to ascertain.

We used his stuff all the time, and we fed it competent everyone else—the Pentagon, the Chalky House, the newspapers. They classy it, too. But it was hyped-up Russian bogeyman junk, bracket it did a lot own up damage to this country.”

Whatever primacy merits of the Gehlen-CIA cessation, the newly released files cooperation us a better understanding corporeal the secret forces afoot by way of the height of the Chilly War.

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