Gehlen Organization

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.

Unheralded tasks, such as observations of the operation of Soviet rail systems, airfields, and ports were as important as was infiltration in the Baltic States using former Kriegsmarine E-boats,[3] manned by German crews and skippered by Lieutenant-Commander Hans-Helmut Klose [de].

By penetrating a Czech-run operation, the Org uncovered another network – a spy ring run by the Yugoslav secret service in several cities in western Europe.

An Org informant in Prague reported that the Red Army had been issued an advanced, multi-usage detonator of Czech design but manufactured in a defense plant in Kharkiv.

James Critchfield, former chief of the CIA's Near East and South Asia division, stated to The Washington Post in 2001, "I've lived with this for 50 years," and that, "Almost everything negative that has been written about Gehlen, in which he has been described as an ardent ex-Nazi, one of Hitler's war criminals – this is all far from the fact.

Two and half years later, on 10 August 1954, Delmer wrote that "Gehlen and his Nazis are coming" implying in his story that a continuation of nothing less than Hitler's aims was at hand through the Org's "monstrous underground power in Germany".

[11] In 2006, after reviewing selected declassified CIA documents on the Gehlen Org, a Guardian article offered a new perspective on this attempt to fight communism with some ex-Nazis "... for all the moral compromises involved [in hiring former Nazis], it was a complete failure in intelligence terms.

[13] Alois Brunner, alleged to be an Org operative, was formerly responsible for the Drancy internment camp near Paris and linked to the murders of 140,000 Jews during the Holocaust.

The article states:[16] "CIA documents turned up by the BND's historical department show that the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, was also informed about the matter.

According to these documents, Reinhard Gehlen, head of the Org and later president of the BND, told the Bundestag's Committee on European Defense on Dec. 11, 1953, that around 40 of his employees came from the SS and SD.

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.

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'"[19] There were also reports of "moles" within the agency, which undermined its credibility.