Gehlen Organization
intelligence agency
| Gehlen Organization link | |
|---|---|
| Successor | BND |
| Formation | June 1946 |
| Founder | Reinhard Gehlen |
| Extinction | 1956 |
| Type | intelligence agency |
Under the leadership of founder Reinhard Gehlen. "Anti-fascist" Dave Emory suggests that this group was welcomed by the CIA until reports suggested that they could not control it. He suggests that it became a highly significant deep state group, spawning what he has dubbed "The Underground Reich".[1]
Successor
- Full article: BND
- Full article: BND
The Federal Intelligence Service, the foreign intelligence agency of modern Germany, is the direct continuation of the Gehlen Organization.
Front companies
A 1955 CIA document described the extent of the organization's creation and use of front companies. It also infiltrated numerous agents in large companies during the post-war economic boom, or recruited their employees. The clandestine activity covered many industries: heavy industry (Rheinmetall-Borsig), insurance companies (Gerling), logistics (Kühne + Nagel) food manufacturers (Bahlsen), medical technology (Draeger), banks (Süddeutsche Boden-Kreditbank).[2]
In addition, there were dozens of institutions in which spooks were also placed, such as the Institute for Contemporary History, the Red Cross Bavaria, the German Esperanto Association, the Bavarian Spas Association, the office of the Protestant Bishop of Munich, the Order of Malta.[2]
Gehlen also set up a network of fake companies. Usually they consisted of only one room with a telephone, but also companies that actually participated in business life. His experts for psychological warfare worked at the Munich electrical company Barth & Söhnlein, specialists for [[Poland] and the Soviet Union were in the "Lichtbildverlag" publisher, their colleagues responsible for the Balkans were in the "Süddeutsche Industrieberatungen".[2]
