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Federal Intelligence Service
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== History == [[File:CIA report on negotiations to establish the BND.gif|thumb|CIA report on negotiations to establish the BND (1952)]] The predecessor of the BND was the German eastern military intelligence agency during [[World War II]], the ''{{lang|de|[[Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost]]}}'' or FHO Section in the General Staff, led by {{lang|de|[[Wehrmacht]]}} Major General [[Reinhard Gehlen]]. Its main purpose was to collect information on the Red Army. After the war Gehlen worked with the U.S. occupation forces in West Germany. In 1946 he set up an intelligence agency informally known as the [[Gehlen Org#Gehlen Organisation|Gehlen Organization]] or simply "The Org" He recruited some of his former co-workers at Gestapo Trier: Dietmar Lermen, Heinrich Hädderich, August Hill, Friedrich Walz, Albert Schmidt, and Friedrich Heinrich Busch.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-10-13 |title=Geschichte im Ersten: Mörder bevorzugt – Wie der BND NS-Verbrecher rekrutierte |url=https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/geschichte-im-ersten/moerder-bevorzugt-bnd-und-ns-verbrecher/das-erste/Y3JpZDovL2Rhc2Vyc3RlLmRlL2dlc2NoaWNodGUtaW0tZXJzdGVuLzFhM2VkMzYxLTU2ZTMtNDk3Ny05ODQyLTNjNjUyOTY2Y2Q3MA |access-date=2022-10-12 |language=de}}</ref> Many had been operatives of Admiral [[Wilhelm Canaris]]' wartime {{lang|de|[[Abwehr]]}} (counter-intelligence) organization, but Gehlen also recruited people from the former ''{{lang|de|[[Sicherheitsdienst]]}}'' (SD), [[SS]] and [[Gestapo]], after their release by the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]]. The latter recruits were controversial because the SS and its associated groups were notoriously the perpetrators of many [[Nazi atrocities]] during the war.<ref>Höhne, Heinz & Zolling, Hermann, ''The General was a Spy''. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc. 1972, p. 66</ref> The organization worked at first almost exclusively for the CIA, which contributed funding, equipment, cars, gasoline and other materials. On 1 April 1956 the ''Bundesnachrichtendienst'' was created from the Gehlen Organization, and was transferred to the [[West Germany|West German]] government, with all staff. Reinhard Gehlen became President of the BND and remained its head until 1968.<ref>Höhne & Zolling, p. 248</ref> === The BND and the Gestapo === Several publications have criticized Gehlen and his organizations for hiring ex-Nazis. An article in ''[[The Independent]]'' on 29 June 2018 made this statement about some of the BND employees:<ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-06-29 |title=Himmler's daughter worked for Germany's foreign intelligence agency in 1960s, officials admit |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/himmler-daughter-germany-bnd-foreign-intelligence-ss-nazi-hitler-war-criminals-evaded-justice-a8422726.html |access-date=2022-08-07 |website=The Independent |language=en}}</ref> <blockquote>"Operating until 1956, when it was superseded by the BND, the Gehlen Organisation was allowed to employ at least 100 former Gestapo or SS officers. ... Among them were [[Adolf Eichmann]]'s deputy [[Alois Brunner]], who would go on to die of old age despite having sent more than 100,000 Jews to ghettos or internment camps, and ex-SS major [[Emil Augsburg]]. ... Many ex-Nazi functionaries including [[Karl Silberbauer|Silberbauer]], the captor of [[Anne Frank]], transferred over from the Gehlen Organisation to the BND. ... Instead of expelling them, the BND even seems to have been willing to recruit more of them – at least for a few years".</blockquote> The authors of the book ''A Nazi Past: Recasting German Identity in Postwar Europe'' state that Reinhard Gehlen simply did not want to know the backgrounds of the men that the BND hired in the 1950s.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Messenger | first1=D.A. | last2=Paehler | first2=K. | title=A Nazi Past: Recasting German Identity in Postwar Europe | publisher=University Press of Kentucky | series=EBL-Schweitzer | year=2015 | isbn=978-0-8131-6057-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MrONBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA288 | page=288}}</ref> The American [[National Security Archive]] states that "he employed numerous former Nazis and known war criminals".<ref>https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm, The CIA and Nazi War Criminals, 2005, Released Under Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 146</ref> [[James H. Critchfield]] of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] worked with the Gehlen Organization from 1949 to 1956, and defended Gehlen. In 2001, Critchfield wrote in ''[[The Washington Post]]'' that "almost everything negative that has been written about Gehlen [as an] ardent ex-Nazi, one of Hitler's war criminals ... is all far from the fact." Critchfield added that Gehlen hired former [[Sicherheitsdienst]] (Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS) men "reluctantly, under pressure from German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to deal with 'the avalanche of subversion hitting them from East Germany.'"<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lardner |first=George Jr. |date=2001-03-18 |title=CIA Declassifies Its Records On Dealings With Ex-Nazis |language=en-US |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/03/18/cia-declassifies-its-records-on-dealings-with-ex-nazis/2fa93bad-62ee-42f2-833a-b1d04bc63079/ |access-date=2022-08-07 |issn=0190-8286}}</ref> From 2011 to 2018, an independent commission of historians studied the history of the BND in the era of Reinhard Gehlen. The results are published in comprehensive studies. So far (as of April 2020) eleven volumes have been published.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wolf|first=Thomas|year=2020|title=The origins of the BND and "official history" in Germany|url=https://perspectivia.net/publikationen/ausgewaehlte-vortraege-dhimoskau/wolf_origins|journal=Selected Lectures of the German Historical Institute Moscow|volume=2020|issue=1}}</ref>
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