Gehlen Organization

At the time of the defeat of the Nazi regime in Germany, Major General Reinhard Gehlen ( German: Reinhard Gehlen ) managed to save his archive in the Bavarian mountains. Shortly before the Red Army launched an assault on Berlin , Gehlen and a group of officers from the Foreign Armies of the East department of the General Staff were already on their way to the so-called Alpine Fortress. In Upper Bavaria, near Lake Spitzingsee, they decided to wait for the Americans to arrive. May 20, 1945, 12 days after the surrender of the Wehrmacht , the US military police command reached Alma . After about a month and a half, Reinhard Gehlen managed to meet with Brigadier General Edwin Siebert, the head of intelligence in the US occupation zone.

Having received the first impression of the amount of information Gelen had, the Americans took him to Washington . In 1946, he was transferred to the Fort Hunt Interrogation Center in Virginia . In July 1946, Reinhard Gehlen returned to Germany and gathered his former subordinates near Oberursel , who served in the Foreign Armies of the East department. At the end of the year, an agreement on cooperation was reached between Helen and US military intelligence.

1. The created German intelligence organization will be engaged in intelligence in the East.
2. The organization will work together with American employees.
3. The organization will operate under German leadership, which receives assignments from the United States , as long as there is no government in Germany .
4. The organization is funded by the United States . For this, the organization transfers all intelligence information received to the Americans.
5. As soon as a sovereign German government is created, this government must decide whether work will continue or not.
6. If an organization ever finds itself in a situation where the interests of Germany and the United States diverge, the organization has the right to represent German interests.

For the first year, Americans paid $ 3.4 million to 50 employees ^[2] . In April 1953, the transfer of the Gehlen Organization to the jurisdiction of the German government began. On April 1, 1956, the organization was transformed into the German Federal Intelligence Service .

Robert Baag. Das Erbe von „Fremde Heere Ost“. Vor 50 Jahren: Aus der “Organization Gehlen” entsteht der Bundesnachrichtendienst (Neopr.) (April 1, 2006). Date of treatment July 17, 2011. Archived on May 14, 2012.