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(U) Did You Know that the CIA Established the German Intelligence
Service?
FROM: (S//SI)
SUSLAG (Special US Liaison Activity Germany)
Run Date: 09/23/2005
(U) James Critchfield, a US Army officer turned CIA agent, gathered up the remnants of the
Wehrmacht's Fremde Heere Ost (Foreign Armies East) military intelligence (MI) establishment
and set them to work on the Soviet intelligence problem. His principal implement was General
Reinhard Gehlen, chief of MI on the Russian Front, although over the years it became
increasingly difficult to tell who was using whom. Critchfield worked in Pullach, a suburb of
Munich, out of a Nazi-era compound known as the Martin-Bormann-Settlement, now BND
(German intelligence) headquarters, in Bormann's own office in a building known as the White
House.
(U) Distinguished visitors like our own PDFA (Principal Director, Foreign Affairs) will be very
familiar with this office, as it has been the office of the President of the BND since Gehlen first
assumed that title. Ironically, this fact is compounding the difficulty BND is having in their
attempt to relocate to Berlin. BND had planned to finance the move by the sale of their existing
headquarters. Although it is prime real estate in an exclusive area, it is proving difficult to sell
for redevelopment, since the White House and much of the Martin-Bormann-Settlement are
under an order of historical preservation.
(U) Some relevant dates follow:
22 May 1945 - Reinhard Gehlen surrenders to the US Army Counter Intelligence Corps
(CIC).
July 1946 - Gehlen released from US captivity.
1946 - CIA begins building a foreign intelligence service in occupied Germany under the
name "Organization Gehlen."
1947 - Organization Gehlen moves into the Martin-Bormann-Settlement in Pullach by
Munich.
1949 - With the promulgation of the Federal Republic of Germany, Organization Gehlen
begins to serve two masters, the FRG and the CIA.
1956 - BND is officially established with Gehlen as its first president.
1968 - Gehlen retires as President of the BND.
1979 - Reinhard Gehlen dies on 8 June at the age of 77.
(U//FOUO) This article is reprinted from the Foreign Affairs Digest, August edition (originally
titled "Back in Time").
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108