During the Cold War, the East-West camp was characterized by fierce intelligence warfare, with agents from all sides fiercely competing on various stealthy fronts. The two main protagonists of the United States and the Soviet Union were the intelligence agencies of the CIA and the KGB. At the forefront of the East-West confrontation, on the edge of the Iron Curtain, were East and West Germany. Among them, the East German intelligence agency was Stasi, and the West German intelligence agency, the predecessor or founder of the German Federal Intelligence Service, was the famous Nazi intelligence expert - Reinhardt Galen.
The predecessor of the German Intelligence Service was called the "Galen Organization". The Galen Organization was formed in 1946 by Reinhard Galen. The Gehlen Organization was established in June 1946 by the U.S. occupation authorities in the U.S.-occupied territories of Germany and was composed of the xiith Division of the former German General Staff (i.e., the Outer Military Division of the Eastern Front). Major General Reinhard Galen of the Wehrmacht was the head of the organization, who was the head of the German intelligence apparatus on the Eastern Front during World War II.
After graduating from the German Military Staff Academy, Galen worked for two years in the General Staff, where he was promoted to major in 1939 as a liaison officer to the Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, Walter Braušić, and the Chief of the Army General Staff, Franz Halder.
Franz Hallde
Galen was promoted to major general in 1942 and served as head of the Eastern Branch of the German Military Intelligence Service. At the beginning of his tenure, he reorganized the Eastern Front Bureau and recruited a large number of experts from all walks of life. Regardless of their background, ethnicity, and political attitudes, he boldly uses them whenever he thinks it is conducive to raising the level of intelligence organizations. At that time, the Eastern Front was the most dynamic branch of the German intelligence apparatus, and it was also very effective in intelligence gathering and counter-espionage work for the Red Army. His report reached hitler and was appreciated by the Führer.
Galen in his youth
Beginning in the autumn of 1944, his analysis of military intelligence was fraught with pessimism, which hitler greatly disliked. But it was not until the spring of 1945 that Hitler dismissed him. Galen had long been aware that Germany would lose, so he prepared himself for the way back.
He selected important materials to make into miniature film, put them into waterproof steel drums, and hid the drums in several different places in the Austrian Alps. He systematically shipped out 50 boxes of intelligence files and buried them in the mountains of Upper Bavaria.
On 22 May 1945, he surrendered to U.S. forces in Bavaria. After questioning, the American immediately realized his worth. His report was soon submitted to Edwin Seibert, a senior intelligence officer in the 12th Army. Galen offered to trade the files and intelligence networks in his hands for the freedom of himself and his colleagues in U.S. prisoner-of-war camps.
With Seibert's support, Galen's treasured archives were secretly shipped to the U.S. military base, and the people on his list were quietly removed from the prisoner-of-war camp. Eventually, Galen's case was transferred to Walter Smith, Eisenhower's then chief of staff and later the second CIA director.
smith
Smith was also in the U.S. Strategic Intelligence Agency at the time, and was close friends with william Donovan, the former head of the intelligence service, and Alan Dulles, the current director of the intelligence service in Switzerland. They quickly made a series of arrangements. On September 20, 1945, Galen and three of his men secretly flew to the United States on Smith's special plane.
Galen gave a detailed account of the distribution of Soviet military power throughout Eastern Europe to the Pentagon, the General Directorate of Intelligence, and the Senate Intelligence Committee, including the organizational structure of the Soviet army, the situation of troop strength, weapons and equipment, rail transportation, logistics supplies, military-civilian relations and relations with the troops of the host country, and the strategies and tactics that the Soviets were good at, which surprised the Americans in detail, which made the Americans more firm in their determination of Galen's value.
After the war, when former allies became enemies, the U.S. authorities realized that their intelligence capabilities against the Soviet Union were almost zero. Galen's arrival made them a treasure. Throughout the Cold War, the agency was the only eye and ear of the CIA on the battlefield against the Soviet Union. While honoring Galen as a guest of honor, the Americans and Galen discussed in depth and decided that the Americans would allocate funds to let Galen convene the old ministry and set up an intelligence organization specifically targeting the countries of the Soviet bloc. In addition to money, Americans provide all the necessary tools, including cars and airplanes. Galen organized themselves into the eyes and ears of the Soviets. Galen sent people to carry out intelligence activities, and the CIA provided material support for its clandestine activities, including funds, vehicles, and aircraft. The location of galen's organization, "Prach", became synonymous with the secret service.
However, control of the Galen Organization is in the hands of the United States. Of course, the Americans promised not to allow the organization to do anything to the detriment of West Germany, nor was it an affiliate of the U.S. Intelligence Service. The Americans also stressed that once the West German government began exercising sovereignty, the Galen organization would be accountable only to the West German government. So in 1946, before Galen returned to West Germany by plane, the United States announced his release with great fanfare. With the acquiescence of the American authorities, many former SS members were released early, from which Galen carefully selected 350 people, and his organization soon spun up and running at high speed.
The name of the "Galen Organization" is "South German Industrial R&D Company." Galen quickly established branches in the name of commercial companies in East and West Germany, such as wine wholesalers, some specializing in paper stationery and office supplies, some selling furniture, and some employment agencies and transport companies. The organization's offices were first in Uther near Frankfurt and then moved to Plach near Munich. Prach has a compound of more than 20 2-3 storey buildings and garages, which are separated from the rest of the town by a concrete wall. It was once the residence of Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, the Air Force Command Center of Marshal Kesselring, and the site of the U.S. Postal Inspection After the war. Later, galen organized to become the West German Intelligence Directorate, and this compound was naturally also taken over by the General Intelligence Directorate.
In the early 1950s, the official membership of the Galen Organization was more than 4,000, and nearly 5,000 undercover agents were active in various countries of the Soviet bloc. Many of the official agents were Galen's former subordinates in the Eastern Front, as well as many former Wehrmacht officers or SS officers. Among them, there were many staff officers, such as Guderian's son Guderian, who is known as the "father of the armored army" in Germany. These staff officers were already good at gathering and analyzing intelligence, and their arrival made Galen more powerful.
In 1955, when the Federal Republic of Germany formally established the Wehrmacht, Galen organized a large number of talents, many of whom became senior officials of all branches of the Wehrmacht, including Guderian Jr. Between 1947 and 1955, every prisoner of war who had returned to West Germany from the Soviet Union, Galen's agents, had to visit them. Those who were forced to work in Soviet factories and construction companies were more than willing to tell the agents everything they knew. This made much of the less readily available valuable information about the Iron Curtain countries quickly mastered by the West.
Galen also cooperated with immigration organizations in Eastern Europe and anti-government organizations in various countries, and successively established one spy network after another in the Soviet Union itself and its satellite countries, infiltrating the railway systems, airports, and ports of the Baltic states. The most successful of these was, of course, East Germany. It is said that many important members of the East German government or their assistants were spies of the Galen Organization.
For many years, 70 percent of soviet intelligence held by the United States came from the Galens. It was Galen who shared information on the Soviets' secret arming of East German troops and the success of test flights of the MiG's new aircraft with the United States and Britain. The Galen organization exposed Yugoslavia to secret intelligence circles in several Western European countries, and they also prevented several assassinations planned by the Soviets.
An informant in Prague reported that the Red Army had produced multi-purpose bombs designed by czechs at the Kharkiv Arsenal in Ukraine. A few weeks later, galen stole this latest Soviet product and all technical information. The Czech engineer who designed the weapon and his family were then smuggled to West Germany for transfer to the United States. This was the "Bohemian Operation" that shocked the intelligence community at the time. ”
In 1956, the Galen Organization developed into the Federal Intelligence Service of West Germany. The agency appointed Galen as its director, and his former staff became key members of the Federal Intelligence Service.
Galen was five feet seven inches tall in the fifties, his body had begun to gain weight, his hair was almost bald, and his beard was gray. As Newsweek described him, he was like "a cold chaplain of the German General Staff."
Galen retired from the post of Director of West German Federal Intelligence in 1968. He died in 1979 and is considered the head of the most legendary spy organization of the Cold War.