Fremde Heere Ost

[Stug50]

I'm currently researching the FHO (Fremde Heere Ost ) and its future relationship with the CIA, I'm also trying to find out more about the FHO's work in the Soviet Union during WW2. It appears that the FHO was a relatively small intelligence service but they must have been involved in some serious business because the USA took a very deep interest in them. The FHO was headed by Reinhard Gehlen, this was the gentleman that predicted the collapse of the National Socialist Party and start of the Cold War, Hitler eventually sacked Gehlen because he felt that his intelligence reports were a little pessimistic, even though his reports were quite accurate. At the start of the Cold War, Gehlen was recruited by the USA to set up a spy ring, it was known as the (Gehlen Organization) So I think that it would be fair to say that Gehlen was a pretty switched on individual. He was in charge of the Bundesnachrichtendienst during the Cold war and eventually became the head of the Federal Intelligence Service BND.

I'm looking for any links, archives, vids or books on the subject of the FHO and BND. If anyone could help me I would greatly appreciate it.

[hucks216]

Are you aware of these books?
Hitler's Fremde Heere Ost. German Military Intelligence on the Eastern Front 1942-45 (ISBN: 978-1910777084) by Magnus Pahl

Gehlen: Spy of the Century (978-0552090117) by Edward Henry Cookridge (one version has 288 pages and another has 480 pages)

[Stug50]

Excellent, many thanks for the book titles.

[steve248]

You can now write to the BND and ask to examine files. You will need to be specific about your wants as they don't seem to like file trawling.
They use their database (you don't) to find the key phrase you are looking for.
They will send you by e-mail the application forms to complete - these are nothing specials, and exactly like the forms used used at the Bundesarchiv.

And you need to go to Pullach to examine the files when they make them available; they only have a small reading room for researchers so they find you a slot.

On the other hand, a mountain of information at US NARA, College Park. They will give you a trolley full of files keeping you going for a week. Assuming you ordered the right number of boxes. You might even get two trolleys.

And thirdly, you might consider BStU Berlin - the Stasi files on the Gehlen Org. How the KGB and Stasi saw "the enemy" and their use of moles (Clemens, Sommer etc).

[Lanternentraeger]

Another interesting book on the man and the organization he ran is The General Was A Spy: The Truth About General Gehlen and His Spy Ring by Heinz Hohne and Hermann Zolling.

[Ifor]

Can someone please clarify an issue concerning Gehlen? I've read conflicting opinions about him, one, that he was a bit of a fraud and the other that his intelligence analysis on the Eastern Front was pretty sound. A recent programme was not very flattering.

[stg 44]

Can someone please clarify an issue concerning Gehlen? I've read conflicting opinions about him, one, that he was a bit of a fraud and the other that his intelligence analysis on the Eastern Front was pretty sound. A recent programme was not very flattering.

I think the current consensus now that we have some access to Soviet archives is that he was overrated by a lot. He was better than the guy before him without question and wasn't actually that bad at his job, but having to politically sanitize his estimates compromised the value of it, because Hitler was getting pissed at him for telling him the truth rather than what Hitler wanted to hear. In the end Gehlen did exactly the best that could be expected when it came to running spies in the USSR, but the Soviets were the best in the world at counterintelligence, so all his spies were captured or turned and all the successes he thought he had were in fact double agents. Later on when he was working with the Americans he had fake or at least highly compromised stay behind networks he sold to the US and a German-Jewish expat that worked for the OSS and then CIA was convinced that all the men they were sending into the USSR post-war to meet up with Gehlen's contacts were sent to their deaths and was trying to convince his bosses that Gehlen was an idiot or at least not good at his job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sichel
Sichel has done several interviews, the one with the above info was on Spycast, a podcast about the reality and history of spying put out by the Spy Museum in Washington D.C. I highly recommend the interviews done with Sichel, they were fascinating about the work of the OSS and early CIA.
https://www.spymuseum.org/multimedia/sp ... ia-part-2/

Later it came out there was Soviet infiltration of the BND under him as one of his SS underlings worked for the USSR and he was fired as a result. On balance as far as we know he was a decent intelligence analyst, but had a terrible track record of running spies during and after WW2 and was repeatedly bested by the USSR. In the end his major failure of having a Soviet agent at the core of his organization ended his career.

Ironically the BND is probably one of the better intelligence agencies in the world today, which only came after Gehlen was forced out and the organization reformed.

[steverodgers801]

as far as tactical intelligence the Germans were very good. But due to a number of factors, they were completely outclassed in strategic intelligence. The Germans under Gehlen failed to detect a single major Soviet offense as far as scope and objective

[Michate]

Actually the BND was often delivering quite good information on the Soviet forces in the DDR, as well as political and economic situation in that state even during its early times, as shown in this book: https://books.google.de/books/about/BND ... edir_esc=y

[stg 44]

Actually the BND was often delivering quite good information on the Soviet forces in the DDR, as well as political and economic situation in that state even during its early times, as shown in this book: https://books.google.de/books/about/BND ... edir_esc=y

No one was saying the Gehlen years lacked any successes, but beyond the DDR they were a flawed organization and Gehlen masterfully deceived the US into buying his self-preserving nonsense. I think Sichel had the ability to see through it due to his field experience, education, and the fact that he was a native German who really did understand the way the German mind worked, unlike the high level Americans who really seemed stuck in the idea of the Germans as being hyper competent and scary, when in fact the Nazi regime was fully of incompetents who got really lucky early on, during period the Allies had yet to develop competence. It amazes me to what degree the Americans really had an inferiority complex regarding the Europeans, despite the US actually generally developing more competence than any of the Europeans by the end of the war. Of course it could just have been the American political class was just as stacked with incompetents as the rest of the world, who couldn't recognize what talent they had within their technical class.

[Michate]

No one was saying the Gehlen years lacked any successes, but beyond the DDR they were a flawed organization

Which was actually quite helpful, given that noone else had the means to spy as effectively even in the DDR.
In addition, the Americans got a pretty large database of Soviet army units and their OoB, which was also quite helpful, given that they themselves had little information on the Red Army.
Gehlen was also quite helpful to the Israelis, providing their Mossad spies with German identities.

I think Sichel had the ability to see through it due to his field experience, education, and the fact that he was a native German who really did understand the way the German mind worked, unlike the high level Americans who really seemed stuck in the idea of the Germans as being hyper competent and scary, when in fact the Nazi regime was fully of incompetents who got really lucky early on, during period the Allies had yet to develop competence.

Perhaps Gehlen understood quite well how the American mind worked, exaggerated Yankee boastings about their own, oh so superior, competence not withstanding. BTW, Gehlen was a general staff officer with little connection to the Nazi regime, at least before his taking over the spying business in the East brought him into closer contact with some circles by the sheer nature of some of its activities.

It amazes me to what degree the Americans really had an inferiority complex regarding the Europeans, despite the US actually generally developing more competence than any of the Europeans by the end of the war. Of course it could just have been the American political class was just as stacked with incompetents as the rest of the world, who couldn't recognize what talent they had within their technical class.

AFAIK, despite all that talent in the American technical class, NATO was never very competent in penetrating the Soviet security apparatus before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nor does that technical class appear all that talented in its machinations in the Middle east.

[stg 44]

Which was actually quite helpful, given that noone else had the means to spy as effectively even in the DDR.
In addition, the Americans got a pretty large database of Soviet army units and their OoB, which was also quite helpful, given that they themselves had little information on the Red Army.

Um you do know that the BND/Gehlen Org was pretty much funded by the CIA for a while and the CIA effectively outsourced their DDR operations to West Germany because it made no sense to run parallel operations when the BND was effectively a branch of the CIA anyway, right? The Gehlen/BND info was suspect for a while and the US military did have it's own operations running in East Germany by the 1960s to get their own info.

Gehlen was also quite helpful to the Israelis, providing their Mossad spies with German identities.

Not really a plus IMHO.

Perhaps Gehlen understood quite well how the American mind worked, exaggerated Yankee boastings about their own, oh so superior, competence not withstanding. BTW, Gehlen was a general staff officer with little connection to the Nazi regime, at least before his taking over the spying business in the East brought him into closer contact with some circles by the sheer nature of some of its activities.

Initially Gehlen took advantage of American ignorance of Russia to save his and his friends' asses from justice. Peter Sichel, a German Jewish exile that worked for the OSS and CIA saw through his lies pretty quickly and protested to his superiors that the guy was untrustworthy, which eventually the US intelligence service figured out and realize they had been bilked, but it was too late and any prosecutions would make them look like idiots. Eventually though they developed their own sources in the USSR independent of Gehlen's fake spy network. Gehlen's career was based on working with Hitler. To say that any high level army post had no connection to the Nazi regime is dangerously close to the 'clean Wehrmacht' myth. As it was the German Army had been infected with Nazism from 1932 on with the von Blomberg appointment and political purges of the ranks he initiated without prompting by Hitler; in fact Hitler asked him to slow down his purges so the army could expand first. Gehlen was the FHO assistant chief, so he was well acquainted with Hitler prior to taking over and in fact was promoted because he was familiar already with the office and Hitler.
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/
Let's not forget that Gehlen lost his job because one of the former SS men working for him was a Soviet spy, who was betraying missions left and right and getting agents killed.

AFAIK, despite all that talent in the American technical class, NATO was never very competent in penetrating the Soviet security apparatus before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nor does that technical class appear all that talented in its machinations in the Middle east.

The US actually had a lot of success penetrating the USSR. Ironically it was certain betrayals that undermined that (Philby and later Pollard), but there were a fair number of spies in the USSR working for the US from the 1960s on. Not only that there were a number of major defections that yielded huge info. Modern failings of the US efforts in the Middle East are mostly a function of the mistakes of the political class in their leading of the professionals. Take for example the purge of the intelligence services in the 1980s of first and second generation immigrant agents out of the fear of potential double agents. Then the move away from HumInt to SigInt to avoid agent losses and leverage American superiority in technology and funding. Certain major mistakes like the Bagrham Airbase suicide bombing that killed agents in the field only made that tendency worse.

[Michate]

Um you do know that the BND/Gehlen Org was pretty much funded by the CIA for a while and the CIA effectively outsourced their DDR operations to West Germany because it made no sense to run parallel operations when the BND was effectively a branch of the CIA anyway, right? The Gehlen/BND info was suspect for a while and the US military did have it's own operations running in East Germany by the 1960s to get their own info.

So what? The net result was that during a time when it had little intelligence channels of its own, the CIA got information on the Soviet forces through the BND/Gehlen Org. that it would not have gotten otherwise.

Gehlen's career was based on working with Hitler. To say that any high level army post had no connection to the Nazi regime is dangerously close to the 'clean Wehrmacht' myth. As it was the German Army had been infected with Nazism from 1932 on with the von Blomberg appointment and political purges of the ranks he initiated without prompting by Hitler; in fact Hitler asked him to slow down his purges so the army could expand first. Gehlen was the FHO assistant chief, so he was well acquainted with Hitler prior to taking over and in fact was promoted because he was familiar already with the office and Hitler.
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/

Do you have anything more concrete than the usal "guilt by association" stuff à la Gehlen was a Wehrmacht officer, so he must have been guilty, somehow, of ... whatever?

Gehlen was a general staff officer, he had been employed as Halder’s personal aide (the same Halder who for some time harboured plans to kill Hitler) and then in the Operationsabteilung before transferred to FHO. He was selected to head FHO by Halder, not by Hitler, and during his whole career met Hitler exactly four times (so far concerning "working with Hitler"), to present intelligence on the Soviet forces. (The normal procedure was that Gehlen, or his deputy Wessels, reported daily to the chief of the general staff, who later presented the received FHO information, as well as that of other staff branches, to Hitler).

Gehlen was probably aware that some of his general staff colleagues were implicated in plots to kill Hitler. And Hitler did not seem to harbour any special sympathy for him or his work. At least if the anecdotal evidence of Guderian and Zeitzler is to be believed.

I think you overestimate this whole spy business. By his whole upbringing, Gehlen was a military analyst rather than a spymaster, and his work in FHO certainly bears that out. Most of it was simply digestion of a large body of enemy information created from normal military information sources (radio and signal traffic monitoring, air reconnaissance, interrogation of captured enemy soldiers, reading of captured enemy documents), then collected bottom up through the army's intelligence reporting channel (Ic-Dienstweg) and analysed from the perspective of a trained staff officer.

Let's not forget that Gehlen lost his job because one of the former SS men working for him was a Soviet spy, who was betraying missions left and right and getting agents killed.

Also, let’s not forget that in the 1940s and 50s the American administration and military in general and the CIA’s precursor organisation OSS in particular was riddled with Soviet spies as well.
Like e.g. Julius Rosenberg, Charles Kramer, Victor Perlo, George Silverman, Maurice Halperin, Donald Wheeler, Franz Leopold Neumann, Alger Hiss, or Harry Dexter White, just to name a few.

[Ifor]

I apologise for posting this thank you so late, away with the clouds!! Anyway, thank you to all that replied.