German Foreign Intelligence From Hitler S War To The Cold War

In the Allies' post-war analyses of the Nazis' defeat, the "weakness and incompetence" of the German intelligence services figured prominently. And how could it have been otherwise, when they worked at the whim of a regime in the grip of "ignorant maniacs"? But what if, Robert Hutchinson asks, the worldviews of the intelligence services and the "ignorant maniacs" aligned more closely than these analyses—and subsequent studies—assumed? What if the reports of the German foreign intelligence services, rather than being dismissed by ideologues who "knew better," instead served to reinforce the National Socialist worldview? Returning to these reports, examining the information on enemy nations that was gathered, processed, and presented to leaders in the Nazi state, Hutchinson's study reveals the consequences of the politicization of German intelligence during the war—as well as the persistence of ingrained prejudices among the intelligence services' Cold War successors. Closer scrutiny of underutilized and unpublished reports shows how during the World War II the German intelligence services supported widely-held assumptions among the Nazi elite that Britain was politically and morally bankrupt, that the Soviet Union was tottering militarily and racially inferior, and that the United States' vast economic potential was undermined by political, cultural, and racial degeneration. Furthermore, Hutchinson argues, these distortions continued as German intelligence veterans parlayed their supposed expertise on the Soviet Union into positions of prominence in Western intelligence in the early years of the Cold War. With its unique insights into the impact of ideology on wartime and post-war intelligence, his book raises important questions not only about how intelligence reports can influence policy decisions, but also about the subjective nature of intelligence gathering itself.

During World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, Richard W. Cutler was an officer with the elite X-2 counterintelligence branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and with its successor, the Strategic Services Unit (SSU). Counterspy offers a rare firsthand account of the secret war against Hitler and the postwar competition with the Soviets for German intelligence assets.While with X-2, Cutler analyzed the super-secret Ultra intercepts and vetted agents about to be sent into Nazi Germany. Cutler provides an insightful overview of OSS operations during the war and their contribution to the Alliesa victory. This is also one of the few books to describe the role of the OSS and the SSU in the postwar occupation of Germany. Cutleras first job after the German surrender was to vet all of Allen Dullesas wartime sources inside Germany, who were aptly nicknamed the Crown Jewels. Just as the OSS was reorganized into the SSU, Cutler moved to Berlin, where his first task was to collect intelligence from former Nazis. Soon he became chief of counterespionage in Berlin. Soviet intelligence had already begun recruiting former German intelligence officers to spy on Americans, so Cutleras top priority was to uncover Soviet objectives and either neutralize or double their agents. Cutler reveals previously unpublished case histories of double agents against Soviet intelligence and details agentsa recruitment, missions, methods of operation, successes and failures, and fates. All of these events are recounted against the fascinating background of postwar Germany. He provides a vivid picture of the mood of the German people, how they rationalized war guilt, and how they coped with the devastation throughout the country. With photographs and a foreword by bestselling author Joseph E. Persico (Rooseveltas Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage), Counterspy is a unique account of espionage during the momentous years of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War."

This edited book examines the East German foreign intelligence service (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, or HVA) as a historical problem, covering politics, scientific-technical and military intelligence and counterintelligence. The contributors broaden the conventional view of East German foreign intelligence as driven by the inter-German conflict to include its targeting of the United States, northern European and Scandinavian countries, highlighting areas that have previously received scant attention, like scientific-technical and military intelligence. The CIA’s underestimation of the HVA was a major intelligence failure. As a result, East German intelligence served as a stealth weapon against the US, West German and NATO targets, acquiring the lion’s share of critical Warsaw Pact intelligence gathered during the Cold War. This book explores how though all of the CIA’s East German sources were double agents controlled by the Ministry of State Security, the CIA was still able to declare victory in the Cold War. Themes and topics that run through the volume include the espionage wars; the HVA's relationship with the Russian KGB; successes and failures of the BND (West German Federal Intelligence Service) in East Germany; the CIA and the HVA; the HVA in countries outside of West Germany; disinformation and the role and importance of intelligence gathering in East Germany. This book will be of much interest to students of East Germany, Intelligence Studies, Cold War History and German politics in general. Kristie Macrakis is Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Thomas Wegener Friis is an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern Denmark’s Centre for Cold War Studies. Helmut Müller-Enbergs is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Southern Denmark and holds a tenured senior staff position at the German Federal Commission for the STASI Archives in Berlin.

No country can rival the sheer diversity of intelligence organizations that Germany has experienced over the past 300 years. Given its pivotal geographical and political position in Europe, Germany was a magnet for foreign intelligence operatives, especially during the Cold War. As a result of this, it is no wonder that during certain periods of history Germany was probably busier spying on its own citizens than on its enemies. Because of the Gestapo and the SS of Nazi Germany to the Stasi of the German Democratic Republic, the fear of domestic abuse by security agencies with police powers runs far deeper in German society than elsewhere in the West. The Historical Dictionary of German Intelligence presents the turbulent history of German intelligence through a chronology, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on the agencies and agents, the operations and equipment, the tradecraft and jargon, and many of the countries involved. No military reference collection is complete without it.

This groundbreaking book explores the treatment of the millions of refugees and tens of thousands of spies that flooded Germany after World War II. Drawing on newly declassified espionage files, Keith R. Allen uncovers long-hidden interrogation systems that were developed by Germany’s western occupiers to protect internal security and gather intelligence about the Soviet Union. He shows how vetting in the name of public order brought foreign intelligence officials into practically every venue, from train stations to corporate boardrooms to private dwellings, in postwar West Germany. At the heart of efforts to extract insights were extensive, personalized efforts by law enforcement and security officials to manipulate desires and emotions involving dearest family members, closest friends, and trusted colleagues. Linking personal narratives of those interrogated to the international context of postwar politics, Allen reveals a compelling world inhabited by spies and refugees. Allen's study illuminates the places, personalities, and practices of refugee interrogation in one of Europe’s most successful postwar states. As calls for intense scrutiny of refugees have grown dramatically, Allen illustrates how decisions to shortchange the rights of migrants in periods of heightened ideological and military tension may contribute to long-term threats to personal liberties and the rule of law.

The first full account of Hitler's extensive intelligence network-and the dramatic story of how Germany lost the battle of the secret services in World War II.

This report is based on findings from newly-declassified decades-old Army and CIA records released under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998. These records were processed and reviewed by the National Archives-led Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group. The report highlights materials opened under the Act, in addition to records that were previously opened but had not been mined by historians and researchers, including records from the Office of Strategic Services (a CIA predecessor), dossiers of the Army Staff's Intelligence Records of the Investigative Records Repository, State Dept. records, and files of the Navy Judge Advocate General. This is a print on demand report.

This is the first detailed study of Britain's open source intelligence (OSINT) operations during the Second World War, showing how accurate and influential OSINT could be and ultimately how those who analysed this intelligence would shape British post-war policy towards the Soviet Union. Following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the enemy and neutral press covering the German occupation of the Baltic states offered the British government a vital stream of OSINT covering the entire German East. OSINT was the only form of intelligence available to the British from the Nazi-occupied Soviet Union, due to the Foreign Office suspension of all covert intelligence gathering inside the Soviet Union. The risk of jeopardising the fragile Anglo-Soviet alliance was considered too great to continue covert intelligence operations. In this book, Wheatley primarily examines OSINT acquired by the Stockholm Press Reading Bureau (SPRB) in Sweden and analysed and despatched to the British government by the Foreign Research and Press Service (FRPS) Baltic States Section and its successor, the Foreign Office Research Department (FORD). Shedding light on a neglected area of Second World War intelligence and employing useful case studies of the FRPS/FORD Baltic States Section's Intelligence, British Intelligence and Hitler's Empire in the Soviet Union, 1941-1945 makes a new and important argument which will be of great value to students and scholars of British intelligence history and the Second World War.