Reinhard Gehlen
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Reinhard Gehlen (April 3 1902 – June 8 1979) was a Major General in the German Wehrmacht during World War II, with the position of chief of intelligence-gathering on the Eastern Front. He was subsequently recruited by the U.S. military to set up a spy ring directed against the Soviet Union.
He ran the West German intelligence apparatus until 1968, and is considered one of the most legendary Cold War spymasters. He organized the Gehlen Org, axe of Gladio NATO secret structure, and later became President of the Federal Intelligence Bureau. He is supposed to be central in the ODESSA organization.
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Military service
Reinhard Gehlen joined the Reichswehr in 1920 and entered the German Staff College in the 1930s. He was promoted to captain and was attached to the Army General Staff. In 1940, promoted to major, he became the liaison officer to Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch. He was transferred to the Army Chief of Staff General Franz Halder. In July, 1941, he became a lieutenant colonel. Gehlen worked extensively on the Eastern Front and because of his superior talents and expertise was promoted to senior intelligence officer with the German General Staff on the Russian front.
In 1942, he was approached by Colonel Henning von Tresckow, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and General Adolf Heusinger to participate in an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. His role was minor. When the plot culminated in the failed bomb plot of July 20, 1944, Gehlen's role was covered up and he escaped Hitler's brutal retaliation against the traitors.
In December 1944, Reinhard Gehlen reached the rank of Major General and was tasked with concentrated intelligence gathering directed at the Soviet Union and its battlefield tactics.
Knowing the end was near for the Third Reich, Gehlen laid plans for his eventual capture by the Americans and concealed his files on the Soviet army and political leaders in a drum in the Bavarian Alps. In May 22, 1945, Gehlen surrendered to the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) in Bavaria. The first American recognition of the importance of this prisoner was made by Brig. General Edwin Sibert, the G-2 (Army intelligence) of the Twelfth Army. Gehlen impressed Sibert with his knowledge of Soviet military and political affairs. Gehlen also revealed a number of OSS officers who were secret members of the U.S. Communist Party.
Post WWII
Using his new-found influence with the Americans, Gehlen offered a deal to the Americans to bring his resources to bear for them in exchange for his liberty and that of his fellow colleagues now imprisoned in American POW camps in Germany. General Sibert contacted his superior, General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower's chief of staff, who then worked with William Donovan and Allen Dulles, then the OSS station chief in Bern, to make arrangements. On September 20, 1945, Gehlen and three close associates were flown to the United States to begin work.
In July 1946 Gehlen was officially released from American captivity and flown back into Germany where he began his intelligence work by setting up an organization of former German intelligence officers called the Gehlen Organization. He set up a dummy organization in Munich called the South German Industrial Development Organization to mask his undercover operation and spy ring.
Gehlen handpicked 350 former German intelligence agents to join him; that number eventually grew into 4000 undercover agents. They were called V-men and for many years they were the only eyes and ears of the CIA on the ground in the Soviet Bloc nations during the Cold War. This group was soon to be given the nickname the "Gehlen Org."
Gehlen Org
The Gehlen Org was pivotal in supplying the West with intelligence on Warsaw Pact nations. The organization infiltrated these countries and tried to foment uprisings against Soviet control, while supporting other groups opposed to Soviet rule. The CIA worked closely with the Gehlen group: the Gehlen Org supplied the manpower while the CIA supplied the material needs of the clandestine operations, such as money and airplanes.
A successful mission was "Operation Sunrise" which infiltrated some 5,000 anti-communists of Eastern European and Russian ancestry. These agents were given espionage training at a camp named Oberammergau. Another mission by the Gehlen Org was "Operation Rusty" that carried out counter-espionage activities directed against dissident German organizations in Europe.
The mission of the Gehlen Org was severely compromised by communist moles within the organization itself and traitors within the CIA and the British MI5, particularly Adrian "Kim" Philby. The WIN mission to Poland was a complete failure due to the compromising of the mission by counter-spies; as it turned out, the WIN organization within Poland had been created by the Soviet intelligence services in the first place.
Despite these setbacks, the Gehlen Org was successful in discovering the secret Russian assassination unit called SMERSH. They also helped in the successful Berlin Tunnel which was constructed under the Berlin Wall to monitor East German and Soviet electronic communications.
The Gehlen organization employed hundreds of ex-Nazis. It also allegedly helped many to escape to South America, although this has not been proven. They are supposed to have provided forged documents and passports to SS men to escape Allied occupation of West Germany; the CIA is said to have turned a blind eye, and indeed actively participated in some cases, presumably because of the exigencies of the Cold War. (See ODESSA for details.)
Bundesnachrichtendienst
When this organization was reassigned to the West German government in April 1956 as the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND, the Federal Intelligence Bureau), Reinhard Gehlen held the top leadership post until forced out due to a political scandal in the ranks.
He retired from the BND in 1968 and passed away in 1979, aged 77.
References
- "Intelligence" by Peter Kross, Military Heritage, October 2004. pp 26–30.
- "Gehlen: Spy of the Century" by E.H. Cookridge, 1971
- "The Service — The Memoires of General Reinhard Gehlen" by Reinhard Gehlen (transl. David Irving), 1971
- "The Old Boys — The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA" by Burton Hersh, 1992
External links
- Brief description of the Gehlen Org with details of many who worked for it
- "Disclosure" newsletter, Information promulgated by the U.S. National Archives & Records Administration