US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[Jan Klimkowski]

As all DPF members know:

Gehlen Organization or Gehlen Org was an intelligence agency established in June 1946 by U.S. occupation authorities in the United States Zone of Germany, and consisted of former members of the 12th Department of the Army General Staff (Foreign Armies East, or FHO). It carries the name of Reinhard Gehlen.

Gehlen had all along been under the tutelage of US Army G-2 (intelligence), but he wished to establish and succeeded in establishing an association with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in 1947. In alliance with the CIA, the military orientation of the organization turned increasingly toward political, economic and technical espionage against the Eastern bloc and the moniker "Pullach" became synonymous with secret service intrigues.[1]

The Org was for many years the only eyes and ears of the CIA on the ground in the Soviet Bloc nations during the Cold War. The CIA kept close tabs on the Gehlen group: the Org supplied the manpower while the CIA supplied the material needs for clandestine operations, including funding, cars and airplanes.

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The Gehlen Org employed hundreds of ex-Nazis. Gehlen initially rejected hiring ex-SS personnel, but later as justification for their recruiting he insinuated that the East German State Security Service had been largely run by ex-SS personnel, i.e., it takes one to catch the other.[7]

(snip)

On April 1, 1956, the Gehlen Org was formally established as the Bundesnachrichtendienst (or Federal Intelligence Agency) of the Federal Republic of Germany, which exists to this day. Reinhard Gehlen stepped down as president in 1968 after reaching retirement age.

World War II was only twenty years earlier. Those in charge of the police, the schools, the government they were the same people who'd been in charge under Nazism. The chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, had been a Nazi. People started discussing this only in the 60's. We were the first generation since the war, and we were asking our parents questions. Due to the Nazi past, everything bad was compared to the Third Reich. If you heard about police brutality, that was said to be just like the SS. The moment you see your own country as the continuation of a fascist state, you give yourself permission to do almost anything against it. You see your action as the resistance that your parents did not put up.
Stefan Aust, author of Der Baader Meinhof Komplex[20]