Gehlen.Org …
Modern German Intelligence Service’s Nazi Origin
In July 1941, Lieutenant-Colonel Reinhard Gehlen was posted to the Eastern-Front and assigned as senior intelligence-officer to the FHO, the German eastern army. Gehlen re-organised the Eastern intelligence service and assembled a staff of army linguists, lawyers and geographers. They assembled data on the social, economic and political life of the Soviet Union that contradicted the Nazi concept of Slavic inferiority.
Sensing the imminent victory of the Soviets, Gehlen ordered the FHO intelligence files copied to microfilm. The paper files were stored in water-tight drums and buried in various locations in the Austrian Alps.
Gehlen surrendered to the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) of the U.S. Army in Bavaria on 22 May 1945 and immediately used his hidden files as a bargaining chip for his personal negotiations. The Army recognised his “expert knowledge” and he was flown to the United States where he struck a deal that allotted him the task of heading a secret service in Germany at the behest of the CIA.
The Gehlen Organization was born and headquartered at Pullach, Munich, W-Germany. Protected by Germany’s first post-war government under the Christian Democratic leader Konrad Adenauer, Gehlen worked with Nazi criminals, generals and Wehrmacht officers as well as former SS and Nazi Secret Service officers. Its divisions were concerned with subversion, counterintelligence, and foreign intelligence.
Gehlen Org. operated till the formation of the official German Government’s BND (Federal Intelligence Agency) in 1956. Gehlen assumed control of it.