BND

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Group.png BND   WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
Formation1 April 1956
Parent organizationGermany
Typeintelligence agency
Interest ofAristide Brunello, Richard Christmann, Katherine Horton
SubpageBND/President

The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany.[1]

History

The BND was formed in 1956 on the basis of the Organisation Gehlen controlled by former Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen, who remained as head until 1968.[2]

The U.S. army intelligence (CIC) working in Germany 1945 was interested in Gehlens files which he hid at the end of World War II before contacting CIC. The common enemy was now (communist) Russia and Gehlen had sensitive information on them. In Operation Rusty the CIC recruited and funded the former German service. One of the many released memos under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act[3] read:

"[...] my meeting with General Gehlen, June, 1945 [...]

Colonel Philip was very favorabley impressed with the men [of Gehlen] and with their intelligence capabilities. He agreed that they would be a desirable unit working for General Siebert as Theater G-2 [Red Army controlled areas] and thenceforth supported the project to the fullest.

[...]

In order to keep up the morale of the Gehlen Group, we arranged that those who were within a day's visit of their family should visit their homes. In the case of those who were further removed, I arranged to have Lt. Landauer make a round trip, taking letters and a few items of American stores to their families.

[...]

General Siebert wanted the men and the documents kept together, and that General Siebert had agreed with my recommendation that we reconstitute the group as far as possible." - John R. Boker, Jr.[4]

In 1946 Gehlen is transferred to the U.S. with part of his staff, another part stays in Germany. In the words of a CIA analyst: after the Nazis' return they work "first under U.S. Army and later CIA trusteeship, then [1956] accepted by Bonn as the BND."[5]

Strategy of Tension

Full article: Operation Gladio

The BKA runs a stay-behind network subordinated to NATO's Central Planing Committee (CPC).[6] The CPC is a secretive body run by CIA and U.S. Army officials in Brussels.

The stay-behind network consists of paramilitary right-wingers and Nazi Parties with access to weapons and explosives depots. For these groups over 1000 "issues" are recorded per year in Germany, including murders and bombing campaigns. Control has shifted from the BND to other German services like MAD (military intelligence) and VS (FBI analogue).[7]

When the German Nazi Party NPD (Nazionalsozialistische Partei Deutschlands) should be forbidden in 2003, the German High Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) refused to decide on the grounds that the higher echelons of the party are run by secret agents of the VS and the NPD "misses distance to state organs". Ironically, the politicians who first initiated the case would later refuse to tell the court the identities of those agents.

In an interview in Die Zeit, former chancelor and political insider Helmut Schmidt said:

„Ich habe den Verdacht, daß sich alle Terrorismen, egal, ob die deutsche RAF, die italienischen Brigate Rosse, die Franzosen, Iren, Spanier oder Araber, in ihrer Menschenverachtung wenig nehmen. Sie werden übertroffen von bestimmten Formen von Staatsterrorismus“.

Translation:

"I have a suspicion that all terrorisms no matter if it is the German RAF, the italian Brigate Rosse, the French, Irish, Spaniards or Arabs are similar in their contempt for mankind. They are seconded only by certain forms of state terrorism."[8]

Asked what he meant by state terrorism he responded: "Let's leave it there. But I really mean what I say."


Iraq

Curveball

The BND was responsible for briefing the Iraqi defector known as Curveball after he claimed asylum in Germany in 1999. His stories would form the basis of a claim in George W. Bush's 2003 state of the union address that Iraq had mobile biological weapons labs .[9]

People

Presidents

Vice Presidents

Structure

  • Directorate GL: Situation Centre
  • Directorate UF: Specialised Supporting Services
  • Directorate EA: Areas of Operation/Liason
  • Directorate TA: Signals Intelligence
  • Directorate LA: Region A Countries
  • Directorate LB: Region B Countries
  • Directorate TE: Terrorism and International Organised Crime
  • Directorate TW: Proliferation, NBC Weapons
  • Directorate SI: Security
  • Directorate TU: Technical Support
  • Directorate TK: Technical Development
  • Directorate ZY: Central Services
  • Directorate UM: Relocation[11]

 

Employees on Wikispooks

EmployeeJobAppointedEndDescription
Erich DethleffsenLeader of Analysis SectionJuly 19581968
Willi KrichbaumHead of the General Agency L19481961Former Deputy Gestapo Chief
Arndt Freytag von LoringhovenBND/Deputy Director20072010

 

Related Documents

TitleTypePublication dateAuthor(s)Description
Document:Did German bungling lead to Pan Am 103?Article24 September 1989Gavin HewittThe blunders of "Operation Autumn Leaves" didn't end with the case of Marwan Khreesat. One of those arrested in the 26 October 1988 sweep was a Palestinian by the name of "Ramzi Diab" which was not his real name, it turned out. That name had been taken from an Israeli passport stolen in Spain. The German police suspect he may actually have transported the Lockerbie bomb.
Document:Privatization for Dummies – The Nuts & Bolts of The World's Biggest Scamarticle21 March 2019Ronald Thomas West
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References

  1. About BND, Bundesnchrichtendienst, accessed 5 September 2009.
  2. Daniele Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, Frank Cass, 2005, pp.200-201.
  3. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 146, Released Under Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, February 4, 2005, accessed Nov 23, 2014, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm
  4. CIC Memo: Report of Initial Contacts with General Gehlen's Organization, John R. Boker, Jr., May 1, 1952. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/doc06.pdf
  5. CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM, The Service: The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen by Reinhard Gehlen. Book review by Anonymous, 2 JULY 96, accessed Nov 23, 2014, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol16no3/html/v16i3a06p_0001.htm
  6. CIA memo: CPC Support to SACEUR, Sept 6, 1984, accessed Sept 8, 2013, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1705143/ZUBER,%20EBRULF%20%20%20VOL.%202_0110.pdf
  7. Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund (NSU), Jul 31, 2013, accessed Nov 24, 2014, http://ueberhauptgarnix.blogspot.de/2012/09/uwe-mundlos-mitglied-der-nsu.html
  8. Giovanni di Lorenzo, "Ich bin in Schuld verstrickt", Interview with Helmut Schmidt, Die Zeit, Aug 30, 2007, accessed Nov 24, 2014, http://www.zeit.de/2007/36/Interview-Helmut-Schmidt/komplettansicht
  9. Bob Drogin, Curveball, Ebury Press, pp.366-367.
  10. Die Präsidenten des Bundesnachrichtendienstes, Das Bundesarchiv, accessed 5 September 2009.
  11. Structure, Bundesnachrichtendienst, accessed 5 September 2009.