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20 - ORGANIZATIONS/GOVERNMENT/INTERNATIONAL/Gehlen Organization.md

@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ The Gehlen Organization (Organisation Gehlen), commonly called "the Org," was a
 
 ### Origins: The Gehlen Deal
 
-In April-May 1945, anticipating German defeat, Gehlen had the files of Fremde Heere Ost microfilmed and the film containers buried in the Austrian Alps, as Gehlen's memoir states. The CIA history's statement by Gehlen's deputy Gerhard Wessel records that after Hitler relieved Gehlen on April 9, 1945 the microfilmed Fremde Heere Ost files were moved by army truck and dispersed in three places in southern Germany: near the Wilder Kaiser, near Marquartstein and near Schliersee.[^2] He surrendered to U.S. Army forces on May 22, 1945, and immediately proposed a bargain to his American captors: his organization, its accumulated records on the Soviet military and political structure, and its agent networks in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, in exchange for American protection, funding, and operational support.
+In April-May 1945, anticipating German defeat, Gehlen had the files of Fremde Heere Ost microfilmed and the film containers buried in secret locations in the Bavarian mountains, as Gehlen's memoir states. The CIA history's statement by Gehlen's deputy Gerhard Wessel records that after Hitler relieved Gehlen on April 9, 1945 the microfilmed Fremde Heere Ost files were moved by army truck and dispersed in three places in southern Germany: near the Wilder Kaiser, near Marquartstein and near Schliersee.[^2] He surrendered to U.S. Army forces on May 22, 1945, and immediately proposed a bargain to his American captors: his organization, its accumulated records on the Soviet military and political structure, and its agent networks in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, in exchange for American protection, funding, and operational support.
 
 The offer was accepted by the Strategic Services Unit, successor to the Office of Strategic Services, and Gehlen was transported to the United States in August 1945 for debriefing at Fort Hunt, Virginia. He returned to Germany in 1946 to begin operations under American supervision. The CIA, formally established in 1947, inherited the arrangement from its predecessor organizations and took over direct management of the Gehlen network.[^1]
 
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ The first Historians' Commission volume, by Christoph Rass, rests on a random sa
 
 ### Former SS and SD Staff in the CIA's Name Files
 
-The CIA acknowledged an intelligence relationship with Gehlen for the first time in an October 2000 court filing in Oglesby v. Army; the Disclosure Act processing released the Army's 2,100-page Gehlen file and nearly 2,100 further pages from CIA files.[^8] The Interagency Working Group historians found that nine of fourteen second-tier CIA name files involved individuals who had contact with the Organization.[^9] Emil Augsburg, an SD major and Wannsee Institute department director, was taken on by 1953 and regarded as a "shining star" of counterintelligence; Gehlen required him in 1954 to work outside Pullach, and he was dismissed in 1966.[^9] Wilhelm Krichbaum, former head of the Wehrmacht Secret Field Police, was a district chief in the Organization; a 1963 document apparently from the BND concluded he had worked for the Soviets since 1950.[^9] Hans Sommer, a Gestapo official, was recruited for counterespionage in early 1950 and dropped in 1953; Wilfried Krallert was picked up in 1952; Franz Six was reported to have joined in the mid-1950s.[^9] In 1963 the East German media charged that Gehlen had transferred a number of former SS and SD officials, among them Six, Augsburg and Franz Goering, to camouflaged positions.[^9] Friedrich Panzinger, released from Soviet custody in 1956 with a mission to penetrate the BND, reported it and was used as a double agent until his suicide in 1959.[^9]
+The CIA acknowledged an intelligence relationship with Gehlen for the first time in an October 2000 court filing in Oglesby v. Army; the Disclosure Act processing released the Army's 2,100-page Gehlen file and nearly 2,100 further pages from CIA files.[^8] The CIA's records on Gehlen had been withheld under the Director of Central Intelligence's obligation to protect intelligence sources and methods, and the agency pledged to acknowledge the relationship in records processed under the Act. The Working Group describes Gehlen as a man who "is not considered a Nazi war criminal" but who "had served as Hitler's senior military intelligence officer on the Eastern Front," and states that the Organization "included operatives and agents with Nazi, collaborationist, and war criminal backgrounds."[^8] The Interagency Working Group historians found that nine of fourteen second-tier CIA name files involved individuals who had contact with the Organization.[^9] Emil Augsburg, an SD major and Wannsee Institute department director, was taken on by 1953 and regarded as a "shining star" of counterintelligence; Gehlen required him in 1954 to work outside Pullach, and he was dismissed in 1966.[^9] Wilhelm Krichbaum, former head of the Wehrmacht Secret Field Police, was a district chief in the Organization; a 1963 document apparently from the BND concluded he had worked for the Soviets since 1950.[^9] Hans Sommer, a Gestapo official, was recruited for counterespionage in early 1950 and dropped in 1953; Wilfried Krallert was picked up in 1952; Franz Six was reported to have joined in the mid-1950s.[^9] In 1963 the East German media charged that Gehlen had transferred a number of former SS and SD officials, among them Six, Augsburg and Franz Goering, to camouflaged positions.[^9] Friedrich Panzinger, released from Soviet custody in 1956 with a mission to penetrate the BND, reported it and was used as a double agent until his suicide in 1959.[^9]
 
 The CIA's own records, as disclosed through Freedom of Information Act releases, documented awareness of the Nazi personnel inheritance. Agency officials weighed the operational value of Gehlen's network against the security and political risks of employing former Nazis, consistently prioritizing operational continuity. The arrangement created long-term political vulnerabilities when the personnel roster became more widely known.[^1]
 
@@ -60,8 +60,12 @@ The CIA's own records, as disclosed through Freedom of Information Act releases,
 
 The Org was penetrated by Soviet intelligence from its early years. The most serious known penetration was [[Heinz Felfe]], who joined the Org in 1951 and rose to become chief of counterintelligence (the CIA study describes him as deputy chief of the section, in practice its real chief). Felfe was a former SS officer who had been recruited by Soviet intelligence and operated as a KGB agent within the Org and its successor the BND for approximately a decade before being exposed in November 1961. His position in counterintelligence gave him access to the operations, agent identities, and procedures that he was tasked with protecting - a near-ideal placement for a Soviet penetration agent.[^1]
 
+The CIA's documentary history states that the service "suffered devastating penetrations by the KGB as seen by the Hans Clemons and Heinz Felfe spy scandals of the early 1960s" and that the KGB's exploitation of former Nazis led to further Stasi penetrations until 1989.[^12] Gerhard L. Weinberg, chair of the Working Group's Historical Advisory Panel, wrote that the newly released records would make clearer the story of an intelligence operation "financed for years by American taxpayers but largely run from Moscow."[^13]
+
 Additional penetrations were identified over the years, and the extent of Soviet knowledge of Org operations has never been fully assessed. The KGB had specific and well-founded interest in penetrating the Gehlen network given both its CIA connection and its operational focus on the Soviet bloc.[^1]
 
+The CIA's documentary history records that in 1950 James H. Critchfield cut Gehlen's projects from 150 to 49 and then to 10 and told Gehlen that his organization was "considered definitely second class in any intelligence activity of a more difficult or sophisticated nature." In 1953 Deputy Secretary of Defense Roger M. Keyes criticized the agency's role in Germany, and Deputy Director of Plans [[Frank Wisner]] answered that there was "no adequate answer or correction of the assumption that we rely very largely upon the [Gehlen Organization] effort for intelligence on Eastern Europe generally," adding that the CIA had its own independent operations.[^11]
+
 ### Transition to the BND
 
 When West Germany recovered sovereignty in 1955 and joined [[NATO]], negotiations transferred the Gehlen Organization from American to West German government control. The BND was formally established on April 1, 1956, with Gehlen as its first president. The BND retained the Pullach compound, its personnel roster, and its operational assets. The CIA-BND liaison relationship that replaced the CIA-Org relationship maintained close cooperation on Soviet bloc intelligence through the remainder of the Cold War.[^1]
@@ -80,3 +84,6 @@ The CIA held the Organization in what its own history calls "trusteeship" from 1
 [^8]: Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, *Final Report to Congress*, April 2007, Figure 12. https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/reports/final-report-2007.pdf
 [^9]: Breitman, Richard, "Historical Analysis of 20 Name Files from CIA Records," Interagency Working Group, 2001. https://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-263-cia-records/historical-analysis-by-breitman.pdf
 [^10]: Central Intelligence Agency, *Forging an Intelligence Partnership: CIA and the Origins of the BND, 1949-56*, Vol. 1, declassified 2007. https://archive.org/details/CIAAndTheOriginsOfTheBND1949-1956
+[^11]: Central Intelligence Agency, *Forging an Intelligence Partnership: CIA and the Origins of the BND, 1945-49*, Vol. 1, introduction, p. xxvii. https://archive.org/details/CIAAndTheOriginsOfTheBND1945-1949
+[^12]: *Forging an Intelligence Partnership*, Vol. 1, introduction, pp. xxvii-xxviii.
+[^13]: Gerhard L. Weinberg, "Perspectives," in Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, *Final Report to Congress*, April 2007, p. 104. https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/reports/final-report-2007.pdf