The CIA Covenant
Nazis in Washington
Muller's Journal's
by Gregory Douglas
Monday, 3. September, 1951
An interesting and very profitable trip to New York this weekend. Went with Angleton (Dulles is
in Rome) to meet with a certain Porter, head secretary for the Anglo Iranian Oil Company. He was due to
arrive on the Cunarder “Britannic” at eleven so we took two suites at the Plaza under the usual fake names
and then went out on a Customs boat to meet the liner in quarantine.
J.R. Porter had a special piece of baggage for us. He was traveling with a fellow named Schick, a
gentleman with whom I have a passing acquaintance. Mr. Schick is now living in Peru.
Warm day, slightly overcast, as we came up on the boat and went up the ladder.
Porter, a stout man with a red face, waited for us on the deck with his luggage. Credentials were
shown to the Immigration people and off we went, scrambling down the ladders and the Porter bag stuck
into a sling.
Back to the Cunard docks on 52nd Street and then, by limousine, to the Plaza.
This all was part of Operation Ajax, the overthrow of Persian prime minister (Mohammed, ed.)
Mossadegh who had come to power, was considered to be a dangerous populist and was threatening the
stranglehold the AIOC had on the Persian oilfields.
American and British interests were livid and of course, as always, the CIA rushed to assist their
moneyed friends.
Porter, at the suggestion of MI 6, came to the United States with a bag stuffed full of large
denomination American bills. One million dollars to be more exact.
This was the price his company was prepared to pay to the CIA for murdering their new enemy,
Mossadegh.
We all went to one of the suites, sat around on comfortable chairs and had various cool alcoholic
beverages while discussing the state of affairs in Persia.
The CIA wants the Shah installed, as they own him down to the shoelaces but M. is a clever devil
and very popular. The A.O.I.C and the British government want him dead but the CIA does not.
Much friendly conversation with Porter, a nice luncheon served by room service and then, after a
few more drinks (Porter does like his liquor) we got down to business.
With dramatic flourishes, he opened his large leather suitcase and dumped out the money on the
coffee table. My, such a pleasant sight! I always like to see money, the more the better.
Solemn promises to remove Mossadegh. Much shaking of hands and so on and we put the money
back into the suitcase and left him in the suite with a wheeled cart full of bottles and an ice bucket.
Back in our suite, Angleton and I counted out the money into two large piles. One he put in his
own suitcase, which he had to empty first, throwing clothes into the wastebasket. I had the Teutonic
foresight to bring an empty bag so had no trouble.
Angleton, who has a disgusting smoking habit, was about half drunk and was absolutely gleeful
over his part of the take. He explained to me that he wanted to “meet some friends” later and wondered if I
would mind getting another suite. I had no problem with this and stuck my loaded suitcase under the bed
and went off to a movie.
An Irish movie, “The Man of Aran” and a pleasant dinner elsewhere. It was trying to rain when I
got back. I had forgotten something in what was now Angleton’s suite and as I had the key, I let myself in.
He was in the bedroom, entirely naked, with what appeared to be a very drunken and equally
naked male college student so I simply got my briefcase and left quickly.
He was far too involved to notice me; the lights were out in the living room and I admit I did look
around for his suitcase. It was not in sight, unfortunately. If I had found it, I would certainly have lightened
it a bit. He would never tell anyone his collegiate lover had taken the British assassination money.
I spent Sunday sleeping in and around three, got a call from Angleton asking me to have dinner
with him. The college student had obviously gone away but he should air the suite out. It smelt like a
French whorehouse in July in there.
A. said he had been entertaining several “very important sources” who had not departed until
very late.
Bought a nice gift for Bunny and something for the baby. Angleton wants to be the godfather but I
told him the President was going to fulfill that position and he shut up.
The less I have to do with Angleton, the more I like it.
I noticed in the paper that while we were out on the water, a fishing boat capsized off Long Island,
drowning a significant number of people. Too bad Angleton doesn’t fish!
Back home on Monday and time to relax. Fortunately, the baby is in the new nursery and his cries,
when they happen, cannot be heard.
The money is always welcome and it will be pleasant to get home again.
The CIA’s Nazi employees
The agency which initially interviewed Heinrich Muller in 1948 was the newly-formed CIA. The
CIA, or the Company as it was known in the intelligence community, won a bidding war against British
intelligence for Muller’s services only to lose him to the US Army’s military intelligence after 1952 after a
furious interdepartmental campaign.
Heinrich Muller was not the only German general officer involved in the intelligence game who
worked for the CIA. Another general was Reinhard Gehlen, former head of the German Army’s Fremde
Heer Ost or Foreign Armies East.
In 1944, Admiral Nicholas Horthy, Regent of Hungary, secretly negotiated with the Soviets to
surrender and prevent a Soviet invasion of Hungary, a country which is difficult to defend from a
geographical point of view. German intelligence caught wind of this and in a quick coup, removed Horthy
and replaced him with Ferenc Szalasi, head of the pro-Nazi and violently anti-Semitic Arrow Cross Party.
Szalasi formally requested Himmler, through his senior officer in Budapest, to remove the Jews from
Hungary. Ever eager for more free labor, Himmler readily agreed and informed Heinrich Müller, whose
Gestapo oversaw such transports, that as many of the Hungarian Jews as possible were to be deported as
slave labor to Auschwitz.
Muller, in turn, passed this unpalatable mission on to his chief deputy and friend, SS-Oberführer
(Senior Colonel) Willi Krichbaum. Krichbaum then went to Budapest along with Adolf Eichmann, the
Gestapo official directly in charge of the human shipments which eventually totaled over 350,000 Jews.
Most of these Jews did not survive the war.
Muller, Krichbaum and Eichmann survived the war and went their separate ways. Muller and
Krichbaum found new careers with the victors. Eichmann escaped to South America where he was later
kidnapped. After a trial, he was found guilty and executed by the State of Israel.
On May 22, 1945, a German Wehrmacht General, Reinhard Gehlen, the former head of the
German Army High Command’s Foreign Armies East, surrendered along with his key staff members to the
United States military at Fischhausen in southern Germany.
Gehlen’s unit was responsible for gathering and analyzing military intelligence on the Soviet
Union,. His staff accomplished this by interrogating prisoners in army POW camps—captured Soviet
military personnel and, in their headquarters—Soviet defectors. They also studied battlefield intelligence
from captured Soviet documents, maps and code books. Further material was obtained by signals
intelligence which listened to Soviet non-coded, low-level combat unit radio traffic. These methods of
gathering combat intelligence are standard procedures still used by all armies.
During the war, Gehlen did not have intelligence agents in the Soviet Union. The General was not
accustomed to gathering and analyzing Soviet political data. Unlike Müller, whose radio playback section
had direct contact with very high-level Soviet intelligence agents inside Russia, Gehlen dealt strictly with
combat intelligence.
Reinhard Gehlen was born in 1902 in Erfurt, Germany, the son of a publisher in Breslau. In 1920,
he joined the Reichswehr, rising slowly through the ranks as an artillery officer. In 1933 he was sent to the
General Staff college, and in 1935, Gehlen became a captain, the lowest rank in the General Staff.
Except for a brief period in 1938 when he was posted to the 18th Artillery Regiment as a battery
commander, Gehlen spent his entire career in the German Army as a General Staff officer. On April 1,
1942, Lt. Colonel Gehlen of the General Staff was appointed head of Foreign Armies East in the High
Command of the Army (OKH), a position he held until April 9, 1945 when he was fired by Hitler.
Like Müller, Gehlen had microfilmed all his files before the end of the war and he offered them,
plus himself and his staff, to US Army intelligence. The offer was accepted. On August 26, 1945, Gehlen
and four of his closest assistants were flown to Washington for substantive talks with US authorities.
Gehlen was the subject of an inter-agency struggle when Allen Dulles of the OSS, once their station chief
in Switzerland during the war, and General William Donovan, commander of the agency, attempted to
secure Gehlen and his files for themselves. Dulles eventually won and his assistant Frank Wisner was
appointed to oversee the former head of Foreign Armies East.
The Gehlen team was based at Fort Hunt, near Washington. Gehlen began his new career by
preparing a series of reports which were well received. In July of 1946, Gehlen returned to Germany, and
set up shop at Pullach, a former housing project for elite Nazi officials such as Martin Bormann. Gehlen
was instructed to build an intelligence agency capable of conducting the highest level surveillance of the
Soviets. His microfilmed files were sold to US intelligence for $5 million. Considering that these files only
contained material on Soviet military units that had long been disbanded or were no longer combat ready,
Gehlen was very well paid for very cold coffee.
Since Gehlen had no experience with internal Soviet intelligence or with their foreign intelligence,
he was hard-pressed to use his former army staff officers to supply the US with relevant material. In 1946,
Gehlen hired Willi Krichbaum, formerly the deputy chief of the Gestapo, as his senior agent recruiter.
While Gehlen had no experience with Soviet spies, the Gestapo certainly did, and Krichbaum immediately
sought out to hire many of his old associates.
At the same time, Krichbaum contacted his former chief, Heinrich Müller, who was now a
resident in Switzerland, and a respected and wealthy citizen. Müller was, by no means, inactive in his
enforced retirement and was in contact with Krichbaum almost from the beginning of his exile. Lengthy
handwritten reports from Krichbaum to Müller spanning nearly three years exist and, while Müller’s
correspondence to Krichbaum is not in his files, the Krichbaum correspondence indicates without a doubt,
that “Gestapo” Müller was supplying his former deputy with reams of information on prospective
employees for the new Gehlen organization, as well as a flood of concise directives on the structure
necessary to implement the needs of the US intelligence.
In 1946, Gehlen began the construction of his new agency, while the Soviet military machine in
the East Zone of Germany was in the process of down sizing. The Second World War had proven to be a
terrible economic disaster to Stalin. His troops were in the process of dismantling German factories which
were still intact, ripping up the railroad system, and sending their spoils back to Russia.
The American armed forces were also being sharply reduced, since the war in the Pacific had
ended in 1945. Military units were disbanded and their soldiers returned to civilian life as quickly as
possible. On the economic front, businesses that had enjoyed lucrative government military contracts found
themselves with empty assembly lines and tens of thousands of laid off workers.
It has been said that there never was a good war nor a bad peace. While the latter was certainly
beneficial to the Soviets and permitted them to rebuild their economy, it certainly was not beneficial for
either the rapidly-shrinking military or business communities in the United States.
This situation permitted the development of the Gehlen organization and secured its position as a
vital American political resource. The US had virtually no military intelligence knowledge of the Soviet
Union. But the Germans, who had fought against them for four years, had. Gehlen and his military staff
only had knowledge of wartime Soviet military units which were either reduced to cadre or entirely
disbanded. However, this was of no interest to the senior officials of US intelligence. Gehlen was to
become a brilliant intelligence specialist with an incredible grasp of Soviet abilities and intentions. This
preeminence was almost entirely fictional. It was designed to elevate Gehlen in the eyes of American
politicians including President Truman and members of Congress, and to lend well-orchestrated weight to
the former General’s interpretation of his employer’s needs.
In 1948, Stalin sent troops into Czechoslovakia after a minority but efficient communist coup
which overthrew the Western-oriented government. This act, in February of 1948, combined with the
blockade of West Berlin, then occupied by the British, French and Americans in June of the same year,
gave a group of senior American military leaders a heaven-sent opportunity to identify a new and
dangerous military enemy—an enemy which could and would attack Western Europe and the United States
in the immediate future.
To facilitate the acceptance of this theory, Gehlen was requested to produce intelligence material
that would bolster it in as authoritative a manner as possible. This Gehlen did and to set the parameters of
this report, Gehlen, General Stephen Chamberlain, Chief of Intelligence of the US Army General Staff, and
General Lucius D. Clay, US commander in occupied Germany met in Berlin in February of 1948,
immediately after the Czech occupation but before the blockade.
After this meeting, Gehlen drew up a lengthy and detailed intelligence report which categorically
stated that 135 fully-equipped Soviet divisions, many armored, were poised to attack. General Clay
forwarded this alarming example of creative writing to Washington and followed up with frantic messages
indicating his fear that the Soviets were about to launch an all-out land war on the United States.
Although the sequence of events might indicate that Clay was involved in an attempt to mislead
US leaders, in actuality, he was misled by Chamberlain and Gehlen. They managed to thoroughly frighten
General Clay and used him as a conduit to Washington. He was not the last to fall victim to the
machinations of the war party.
The Gehlen papers were deliberately leaked to Congress and the President. This resulted in the
Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. This was not a historical first by any means.
Elements in England at the beginning of the 20th century, alarmed at the growing economic threat of a
united Germany, commenced a long public campaign designed to frighten the British public and their
leaders into adopting a bellicose re-armament program based on a fictional German military threat.
Gehlen and his organization were considered vital to US interests. As long as the General was
able to feed the re-armament frenzy in Washington with supportive, inflammatory secret reports, then his
success was assured.
The only drawback to this deadly farce was that the General did not have knowledge of current
Soviet situations in the military or political fields. He could only bluff his way for a short time. To enhance
his military staffs, Gehlen developed the use of former SS Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and Gestapo people,
brought to him by Krichbaum, his chief recruiter.
At the same time, a joint British-American project called “Operation Applepie” was launched with
the sole purpose of locating and employing as many of the former Gestapo and SD types now being
employed by Gehlen. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all. During the course of this hunt, the
prize was considered to be former SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Muller, then in Switzerland. Contact with
the former Gestapo Chief was through Krichbaum, acting on Muller’s specific instructions.
In the resulting bidding war, the Americans easily defeated the British, and the British public was
spared the possible discovery of Muller appearing, under a new name, on their New Year’s Honors List
instead of being made a Brigadier General of Reserve in the United States Army under a new name.
The recently uncovered files on “Applepie” are of such interest that they will be the subject of a
further in-depth publication. Other document series of equal importance will include the so-called
Robinson papers and a series of reports on the British use of certain former Gestapo and SD personnel in
Damascus, Syria by John Marriott of the Security Intelligence Middle East (S.I.M.E). Robinson (or
Robinsohn as he was known to the Gestapo officials) was a high-level Soviet agent captured in France as a
result of the Rote Kapelle investigations. Robinson’s files came into Muller’s possession and reveal an
extensive Soviet spy ring in Great Britain. Such highly interesting and valuable historical records should
also encompass the more significant intercepts made of Soviet messages by the Gestapo from Ottawa,
Canada to Moscow throughout the war. These parallel the so-called Venona intercepts which have been
fully translated and are extraordinarily lengthy.
In 1948, control of the Gehlen organization was assumed by the new CIA and put under the
direction of Colonel James Critchfield, formerly an armored unit commander and now a CIA section chief.
Smith
Donovan
At this point, Gehlen had a number of powerful sponsors in the US military and intelligence
communities. These included General Walter Bedell Smith, former Chief of Staff to General Eisenhower
and later head of the CIA; General William Donovan, former head of the OSS; Allen Welch Dulles, former
Swiss station chief of the OSS and later head of the CIA; Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, first head of
the CIA; General Edwin Sibert of US Army military intelligence and Generals Chamberlain and Clay.
American military intelligence officers were well aware that the Soviet Army threat was hollow and that
the Soviets’ act of dismantling the eastern German railroad system was strong proof that an attack was not
in the offing, but they were strongly discouraged by their superiors from expressing their views.
In 1954, General Arthur Trudeau, chief of US military intelligence, received a copy of a lengthy
report prepared by retired Lt. Colonel Hermann Baun of Gehlen’s staff. Baun, who had originally been
assigned to the German High Command (OKW) as an Abwehr specialist on Russia, eventually ended up
working for Gehlen’s Foreign Armies East which was under the control of the Army High Command
(OKH). Baun was an extremely competent, professional General Staff officer who, by 1953, had taken a
dim view, indeed, of the creatures foisted on him by Gehlen. Baun detested Gehlen who had forced him
out of his post-war intelligence position with the West. Baun’s annoyance was revealed in a lengthy
complaint of Gehlen’s Nazi staff members which set forth, in detail, their names and backgrounds.
General Trudeau was so annoyed with this report that in October of 1954, he took West German
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer aside as Adenauer was making an official visit to Washington, Trudeau
passed much of this information to the horrified Adenauer, who had spent time in a concentration camp
during the war. Adenauer, in turn, raised this issue with American authorities and the matter was leaked to
the press. Allen Dulles, a strong Gehlen backer and now head of the CIA, used his own connections and
those of his brother, John, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, to effectively silence Trudeau by transferring
him to the remote Far East.
Trudeau’s warning to Adenauer did not have a lasting effect and on April 1, 1956, former General
Reinhard Gehlen was appointed as head of the new West German Federal Intelligence Service, the
Bundesnachrichtendiesnt or BND. In this case, as in so many other similar ones, virtue is certainly not its
own reward.
Who, then, were the Gehlen organization people Colonel Baun took exception to working with?
The first person on the list was former SS-Oberführer or Senior Colonel, Willi Krichbaum whom we have
met before. Krichbaum was an associate of Muller 7
and later the Deputy Chief of the Gestapo. Krichbaum
was in charge of the deportation of the Hungarian Jews in 1944—a deportation that took nearly 300,000
lives. According to Müller’s files, Krichbaum is also the man who shot Raoul Wallenberg. The Geheime
Feld Polizei or the Secret Field Police which Krichbaum had commanded 8
was responsible for all manner
of atrocities, including the killing of Soviet prisoners of war.9
Although Russia was not a member of the
Geneva Convention, Germany was a signatory and this Convention forbade the execution of prisoners of
war. Krichbaum, of whom Müller once said, “war mit Blut verschmiert” (was smeared with blood) was
not only Gehlen’s chief recruiter, mostly of former Gestapo and SD people, but also informed Muller of
the inner workings of the Gehlen organization which was considered a highly secret American intelligence
resource. Krichbaum continued to work for Gehlen, according to an interview with Colonel Critchfield,
until at least 1956 when the West German government took over control of the group.
The second name on the list was SS-Standartenführer or Colonel Walter Rauff who had a most
interesting career. In 1942, Walter Rauff was chief of the SD units attached to the AOK Afrika, Rommels’
Afrikakorps. In 1943, after the collapse of the DAK, Rauff worked in Italy as the chief of the SD in Milan.
In this capacity, Rauff was involved with SS General Karl Wolff’s negotiations to surrender the German
troops in Italy in 1945. This was a pet project of Allen Dulles and was called “Operation Sunrise.” During
the course of the negotiations, Dulles became very friendly with Rauff. Consequently, as the new Gehlen
organization was formed, Dulles was instrumental in acquiring Rauff for an advisory position with them.
In 1941, Rauff had been involved with the SD anti-partisan activities in the captured areas of the
Soviet Union. Rauff conceived, constructed and personally supervised the use of gas vans. These vans had
the exhaust pipes vented inside the rear compartments which were then filled with Jews who died of
carbon monoxide poisoning. While it spared some SD men from the guilt associated with murdering large
numbers of civilians, it did have certain negative aspects—the collection of bodies in the back of the van.
When the rear door was opened to remove the dead, the stench proved to be a serious occupational hazard.
An ingenious man, Rauff had a special fitting constructed that helped alleviate this unfortunate problem. A
lengthy file on Rauff’s gas vans is stored at the National Archives.
At the end of the war, Rauff was imprisoned in Italy. He later emerged in Germany, happily
working for the Gehlen group. Unfortunately for him, his presence became known to the wrong people,
and he found it necessary to move to Syria where he continued to represent Gehlen’s interests. As the
stress of discovery there became too much for Gehlen to bear, it was decided that Rauff should move to
Chile. His friend and later protector, Allen Dulles, also a good friend of Heinrich Muller, ordered that he
be given new identity papers and funds for travel and relocation. While in Chile, the loyal Rauff continued
to provide intelligence reports to Gehlen and his other protectors.
Another senior Gehlen aide was former SS-Oberführer Dr. Franz Six. Six was an intellectual
academic, Professor of Political Science at Königsberg University. Six joined the SS on April 20, 1935 and
became a member of the SD. In 1941, Six was in command of an Einsatzgruppe and was directly
responsible for the murder of the Jews in the Russian city of Smolensk. Following this military triumph,
Six was made the head of Section VII of the R.S.H.A. In 1943 he was sent to the Foreign Ministry where he
was in charge of the Cultural Division. In 1946, Dr. Six was an early member of the Gehlen organization
but was eventually tracked down and his supporters were unable to prevent his standing trial in April of
1948 for his actions. He received a sentence of 25 years. However, US authorities interceded on his behalf
and on September 30, 1952, Six was released and at once returned to his duties with Gehlen.
SS-Sturmbannführer (Major) Alois Brunner was a Gestapo official who worked directly under
Adolf Eichmann in the deportation department. Ambitious and energetic, Brunner was an instigator of the
notorious razzia carried out in France in 1942 against the Jews of Paris. So outraged was his putative chief, Muller, that Brunner was transferred to Sofia in Bulgaria. He was sentenced to death by a French court, in
absentia because Brunner had gone to Damascus, Syria, as Gehlen’s resident agent. He used a number of
names including “Georg Fischer” and “Waldo Munk.” Brunner was later made a part of a CIA-directed
program to train the security forces of Abdel Nasser and Israeli agents attempted to blow him up with a letter bomb but failed. In addition to the French death sentence, Brunner was also on the wanted list of the C.I.C.
7
Critchfield’s chief recruiter had extensive World War I combat experience, was a Freikorps activist, was
an anti-communist, and an early Party member.
8
From the beginning of the war.
9
Krichbaum was still carried on the rolls of the RSHA as a SS-Oberführer and Colonel of Police. He was
never an army officer.
Probably the worst offender of all was SS-Gruppenführer Odlio Globocnik, once the Gauleiter of
Vienna until fired by Hitler for theft and pillage. Globocnik went on to run the Lublin camps in Poland
where he stole millions more and was responsible for the gassing of large numbers of Jews and Poles. His
stolen millions saved him from prosecution. After working for a time for the British, he eventually ended
up as an American resource, also in Damascus. The name of the program that sent him there was called
“Argos.”
Like its Biblical counterpart, the 20th century road to Damascus was traveled by converts to the
new religion of the West.
There were many more individuals connected with the Gestapo or SD who openly worked for
Gehlen including SS-Standartenführer Frederich Panziger, another old friend of Muller’s who had married
into his family. Panziger was not responsible for wartime atrocities but was a key player in the break-up of
the Rote Kapelle, a Russian spy ring considered to be of great value to Gehlen.
If retired Lt. Colonel Hermann Baun had thought to damage his nemesis Gehlen, he was in error.
His lengthy and detailed report only made Gehlen more popular with the US intelligence agency that ran
him and, through them, with the US-controlled puppet government of West Germany—a government that
did exactly what it was told and clicked its heels together while doing it.
What did the CIA and those in the more elevated US positions of command know about the
flawed membership of their prize German possession? Was the quickly suppressed Baun report the only
indicator that had surfaced between 1948 and 1956? If there was any substantive material on this subject, it
certainly would never be made available to anyone and would, undoubtedly, be sequestered in some remote
place in Arizona or perhaps even somewhere on the grounds of an academic institution closer to hand.
The Douglas’ correspondence and conversations with colonel James Critchfield, once the CIA
overseer of the Gehlen organization during its tenure as an American agency, has shed considerable light
on the subject.
Critchfield initially acknowledged awareness of the use by the CIA-run Gehlen agency of a
number of the individuals encountered earlier in this chapter. However, the Colonel, now living in
comfortable retirement in Williamsburg, Virginia, stated that aside from Dr. Six, he had no knowledge of
any of the allegations of war crimes against his former employees, which he termed “outrageous.” He
stated finally that Krichbaum, whom he had earlier claimed to have played a “very important role in our
history” was certainly not a member of the SS, not Muller’s Deputy Chief of the Gestapo, not involved
with the deportation and deaths of the Hungarian Jews, and could never have shot Raoul Wallenberg. The
question of the Wallenberg killing comes solely from Muller’s statements and no corroboration of it can be
found though it is unlikely that Muller would admit on the record that he had ordered such a potentially
damaging act unless he actually had. The membership of Krichbaum in the SS, his rank, and his position
inside the Gestapo organization is absolutely beyond doubt. All of Willi Krichbaum’s official history, as
that of the others included in this study is presently available for public inspection in the US National
Archives records in Washington.
Also beyond doubt is the participation of a significant number of unsavory individuals in the CIA controlled
Gehlen organization and no question whatsoever as to the atrocities they committed while
members of the SD and Gestapo.
From 1945 on, the US had control of the Berlin Document Center, which was the repository for
all SS, Gestapo and SD personnel files. US investigators were required to check the backgrounds of all
potential German employees against their records. In addition, C.R.O.W.C.A.S.S (Central Registry of War
Crimes and Security Suspects) files contained the names of suspected or wanted war criminals. The
C.R.O.W.C.A.S.S information was widely circulated to American agencies, including the CIA, which were in a
position to hire or come into contact with such people. These files, which contained a great deal of
potentially damaging information on German nationals, were turned over to Gehlen in 1948, no doubt to
assist his recruitment drives.
When pressed, Colonel Critchfield acknowledged the existence of the background and personal
history files and dossiers but averred that the investigation of his employees had been a matter for the
Central Registry of the C.I.C. When asked if he had ever been advised by this agency that many of his
senior functionaries were on the wanted lists, Critchfield gave no response.
Intelligence agencies have a tendency to place former military personnel in positions of
responsibility precisely because they are trained to obey, without questioning, orders from superiors.
Reinhard Gehlen is not the actual focus of this study. The actual focus is the use by American
intelligence agencies of persons who had no particular substantive intelligence value and whose
employment by them was then and is now, indefensible. The knowing employment of the CIA of
Krichbaum, Dr. Franz Six, and many others whose names can be found in the Baun report and the fact that
this specifically led US intelligence to depend heavily on these badly flawed individuals is the issue.
By their dependence on these people, the US agencies permitted ideological Germans with a strong and
pervasive detestation of the Soviet Union and an overriding urge to seek revenge for their defeat by this
country to promote, often with great success, their own agendas which in most cases were self-serving and
certainly not in the best interests of the American public.
In 1996, the San Jose, California, Mercury-News published material alleging that elements of the
CIA knowingly permitted and encouraged the sale of narcotics by Latino drug dealers to essentially black,
inner city residents. The strong implication contained in this report is that the wave of dangerous,
disruptive and fatal drug sales and use in the black communities stemmed, in large part, from CIA
instigation, and an attempt on their part to finance the Contras of Nicaragua who were then engaged in
guerrilla warfare with the Marxist Sandinistas. The CIA has long and often been accused of utilizing
monies from the transportation and sale of illegal drugs, in the main heroin and cocaine, to fund many of its
operations for which they were unable to obtain official Congressional monetary support.
In the case of the Mercury-News coverage, the resultant uproar from the outraged black
communities brought responses from the CIA that were both predictable and instructional.
The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, once known as friendly resources for official
Washington, rushed into print with rebukes of both the San Jose newspaper’s stories, editors and its
reporter—a theme eagerly seized upon by other such media outlets. There is an old adage that “Once a
newspaperman, always a whore.” This is an erroneous and insulting statement. Whores perform their acts
solely for money and nothing else. A slut, on the other hand, conducts her sexual rampages merely because
it feels good. In the interest of accuracy and in defense of the character of whores, it might be better said
that with few exceptions, the media are sluts ready to work for free for the US intelligence community.
John Deutsch, embattled Director of the CIA, made a public relations trip to Los Angeles where
he spoke at an open meeting of the black community. He was booed and insulted by them, disbelieving his
pious denials and promises of a “thorough investigation” into the allegations.
A predictable Congressional hearing into the issue was regaled by testimony from former Contra
leaders who denied any of the published allegations. Again, their testimony was greeted with vocal
outbursts from the audience who claimed that the business was being officially covered up, not unlike the
previous hearings on the massacre at Waco, which were full of official sound and fury, signifying nothing.
The statements contained in this chapter concerning the known use by the US intelligence community of
identified war criminals are based solidly on fact and record. This will certainly not prevent those in
government service, both official and unofficial, from following a parallel course to the countering of the
Mercury-News coverage.
For some years it has been said that a controversial issue does not gain credibility in the eyes of
the public until it has been officially denied in Washington. To this official denial must be added
confirming attacks by the media, the official public relations outlet for the government. No one believes
them either.
A very significant number of the German nationals belonging to the CIA-controlled Gehlen
Organization have been discovered to have belonged to either the Gestapo or the R.S.H.A, the
Reichssicheitshauptamt. This was the blanket organization for all German State and Party intelligence and
counterintelligence agencies.
The fact that an individual was assigned to the R.S.H.A does not mean that they were involved in
anything more sinister than clerical work in an office. But included in this list are a number of individuals
whose wartime record indicates their activities were of a criminal nature and their inclusion in any U.S.
sponsored and controlled agency has no justification whatsoever.
The American members of this group (the Gehlen Organization was entirely controlled by the
U.S. CIA from 1948 through 1956) will be included in a subsequent study. The listing here of some, and it
must be emphasized that this treatment covers only the most serious offenders, is alphabetical and not by
rank.
SS-Sturmbannführer Emil Augsberg, SS No. 307 925. Born May 1, 1905. Subject was a member
of the R.S.H.A, the adjutant to S.S-Gruppenführer Globocnik who was S.S and Police Leader in the Polish
district of Lublin. He was the head of the concentration camps of Treblinka and Belzec. Augsburg later
was a member of the Wannsee Institute in Berlin where he was a specialist in Polish problems. He ended
the war on the personal staff of Heinrich Himmler.
S.S-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Fritz Baader, SS No. 278 278. Born April 9, 1909. Dr. Baader was
on the staff of the Senior S.S and Police Leader in Hungary.
S.S-Sturmbannführer Otto Barnewald, SS No. 6 469. Born January 10, 1896. Subject was on the
staff of the Concentration Camp, Buchenwald.
S.S-Sturmbannführer Ernst Biberstein, SS No. 272 692. Born February 15, 1899. Biberstein was a
member of the R.S.H.A. He also commanded Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C. The Einsatzgruppen
were composed of R.S.H.A personnel and operated behind the front lines in warfare against partisans. The
activities of these groups often far exceeded their briefs and many of them were responsible for dreadful
atrocities against partisans, civilians and Jews. Biberstein’s activities were such as to secure a death
sentence by an Allied court after the war, a sentence that was commuted in 1951, permitting him to work
for the Gehlen organization.
SS-Sturmbannführer Ludwig Boehme, SS No.249 802. Born August 21, 1898. Subject was on the
staff of the Concentration Camp at Auschwitz.
SS-Brigadeführer Christoph Diehm, SS No.28 461. Born March 1, 1892. Diehm was chief of staff
of the Kaminiski Brigade. This unit was commanded by a Russian named Kaminiski and was involved in
fighting partisans on the East Front. The unit took part in the fighting in Warsaw in 1944 where its
behavior was so brutal that it was ordered disbanded and its leader shot.
SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Döring, SS No 67 310. Born February 5, 1903. Subject was on the staff
of the Concentration Camp at Dachau. He was later the postwar West German Ambassador to the
Cameroons.
SS-Sturmbannführer Dr.Max Eberl, SS No. 680 352, Born December 26,1892. Dr. Eberl was a
member of the R.S.H.A and was involved with euthanasia at Treblinka Concentration Camp under
Globocnik.
SS-Standartenführer Hans Eichele, SS No. 21 640. Born May 1, 1901. Eichele was
Standortkommandat at the Concentration Camp, Dachau
SS-Sturmbannführer Walter Huppenkoethen, SS No.126 785. Born December 31, 1907.
Huppenkoethen was a member of the RSHA and Commanding Officer of the SD & Police in Lublin and
Cracow (Poland). He was tried after the war for his activities.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Erich Isselhorst, SS No.267 313. Born February 5, 1906. Subject
was Commander of the Police and SD at Strassburg and also Inspector of the SD, Stuttgart . He was also
Commanding Officer of Einsatzkommando 8 of Einsatzgruppe A.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Oswald Poche, SS No. 267 316. Born January 28, 1908. Poche was
commanding officer of the Security Police and SD, Tromsö, Norway.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Albert Rapp, SS No.280 341. Born November 16, 1908. Subject was
Inspector, Security Police and SD, Braunschwieg and commanding officer of Einsatzkommando 7,
Einsatzgruppe B.
SS-Standartenführer Walter Rauff, SS No. 290 947. Born June 19, 1906. Rauff was a member of
R.S.H.A and with Senior SS and Police Commander, Italy (Karl Wolff). Rauff was responsible for the
construction of the gas vans and eventually had to move to South America to avoid prosecution.
SS-Oberführer Dr. Franz Six, SS No.107 480. Born August 12, 1909. Dr. Six was a member of
R.S.H.A, and Commanding Officer of Einzatzgruppe Vorkommando Moscow. Six was an early member of
the Gehlen Organization, but was finally arrested and tried for his activities in 1948. He was sentenced to
life in prison, but released in 1951. Six worked for Porsche and Gehlen after his release.
SS-Standartenführer Eugen Steimle, SS No. 272 575. Born December 8, 1909. Subject was a
member of R.S.H.A and commanding officer of Einsatzgruppen B and later C. He was subsequently
convicted by an Allied court and sentenced to a long term in prison, but released in 1951.
SS-Sturmbannführer Alois Thaler, SS No.347 142. Born November 28, 1909. Subject was a
member of R.S.H.A and was Senior SS & Police Commander, Italy.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. Ernst Weimann, SS No. 263 985. Born August 5, 1906.
Commanding officer, Security Police & SD, Bergen, Norway
SS-Sturmbannführer Kurt Weisse, SS. No. 563 159. Born October 11, 1909. Subject was a
member of SS Regiment Dirlewanger. Oscar Dirlewanger was a convicted child molester and friend of
Himmler. His unit was made up of paroled convicts and used to fight the partisans. Like the Kaminiski
unit, their record was so appalling that they were withdrawn from combat by Hitler’s order. Dirlewanger
vanished at the end of the war
SS-Sturmbannführer Eugen Wenner, SS No. 200 581. Born November 15, 1912. Wenner was a
member of RSHA and was with the Senior SS and Police Commander, Italy.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Wiebens, SS No.16 617. Born March 17, 1906. Subject was a
member of RSHA and Commanding Officer of Einzatzkommando 9 under Einsatzgruppe B.
These names represent only a small percentage (less than 4%) of the names found on a listing of
all personnel of the Gehlen Organization from 1945 onwards. These are only the names of higher ranking
officers in the SS/SD and Police. The names of many lower rank SS/SD and Police members are still being
verified as of this writing, but the names of thousands of Croatians, Slovenes, Balts and Russians are
impossible to locate in existing files so they are excluded from this study.
The international uproar attendant upon the discovery that Klaus Barbie was gainfully employed
by the U.S. C.I.C after the war, even after it became well known that Barbie was wanted for his Gestapo
activities in Lyon, France, would pale to insignificance when the full impact of the Gehlen Organization’s
complete list becomes a matter of public record.
The Gehlen group was controlled completely by the U.S. Army from 1945 until 1948. It was then
taken over and controlled directly by the Central Intelligence Agency under the command of Colonel
James Critchfield until 1955-56, when the group was taken over by the Federal Government of Germany
and renamed the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) or State Intelligence Service.
The excuse will doubtless be offered by all controlling parties that they had no way of knowing
that their ranks contained such a significant number of Gestapo and SD officials, and many who were on
the wanted lists called C.R.O.W.C.A.S.S. This acronym stands for Central Registry of War Crimes and
Security Suspects instituted by U.S. Intelligence in May of 1945, and eventually discontinued in 1948.
These lists were contained in a total of forty books and were responsible for the apprehension of many
wanted war criminals. It should be pointed out, that from 1945 until 1948 when the control of the Gehlen
Organization passed to the CIA, it was mandatory that all German nationals who were employed by U.S.
authorities in occupied Germany had to be checked both through C.I.C Central Registry as well as the
C.R.O.W.C.A.S.S lists!
There is absolutely no possibility that a valid claim of ignorance of the makeup of the Gehlen
group can be made at this point in time. In fact, in 1948, all of the C.R.O.W.C.A.S.S files were turned over to
Gehlen and the CIA, very effectively blocking any possible inquiry into the makeup of the German American
spy network.
Because Gehlen had no knowledge of the inner workings of the Soviet Union, and being limited
in his wartime duties of establishing Soviet order of battle, it was necessary for him to seek the services of
German, Croatian, Baltic and Russian individuals who had a much broader background in non-military
intelligence.
During the Second World War, Reinhard Gehlen was in charge of the German Army’s Foreign
Armies East (Fremde Heer Ost) branch of the High Command. In retrospect, his projected views of Soviet
military moves were more often wrong than right, but Gehlen was both ambitious and egocentric, a
combination which effectively precluded him from considering any views other than his own. Hitler
eventually fired him for incompetence.
The American military had very little knowledge of the inner workings of the Soviet state because
during Roosevelt’s reign they had been strictly forbidden by the President to conduct any intelligence
activity against his friend and ally, Josef Stalin. Soviet agents, on the other hand, ran rampant in the United
States, spying on every important part of the U.S. government and military establishment. In this, the
Soviets were eagerly assisted by a host of American communists who did not view their treachery as such,
but rather as their sacred duty to the Soviet Union to whom they owed their entire allegiance.
The defense made, after the fact, by American intelligence agencies to charges of the unrestrained
use of foreigners whose activities during the war were brutal in the extreme, was that the U.S. needed as
much information on their new enemy as they could develop. Also, the backgrounds of many of their
intelligence resources were secondary to their task of developing this intelligence.
Many of the individuals hired by Gehlen had very little experience in the intelligence field, but
much in the area of partisan warfare. This combat experience consisted of engaging Soviet partisan and
irregular units in warfare with the intention of liquidating them, the same goals, it ought to be pointed out,
that the partisans themselves adhered to.
There is also the concept that Gehlen was used by elements in the United States government and
military as a foil to convince a reluctant President Truman and the American Congress that Stalin was
planning to launch an attack on western Europe. To forestall this attack, these elements urged, it was vital
that the United States halt the demobilization of their military and the downsizing of American industry,
and reverse the process.
Gehlen’s reports prepared at the behest of his American controllers have proven to be as
inaccurate as the ones he prepared for Hitler’s High Command. But in the former case, Gehlen did what he
was told to do while the latter case was more an example of ego than mendacity.
Most professional intelligence practitioners would agree, many with reluctance, that the use by
either the United States or Great Britain of a superb counterintelligence personality such as Heinrich Muller would be fully justified considering Muller’s expertise in the machinations of the Kremlin and its
leaders.
Almost no one, except for bureaucratic types, could justify the use by Gehlen and his controllers,
the U.S. Army and later the CIA, of such men whose names are now identified with membership in his
organization.
Every nation in modern times has special military or paramilitary organizations at their disposal to
enforce their will by ruthless and morally indefensible methods. The Germans had their Einsatzgruppen,
their Geheime Feld Polizei and their Jagdverbände, the British their SAS, the U.S. their Special Forces and
SEALS, and the Soviets their Speznatz units. All of these units were and are being trained in the techniques
of control through terror and what, in the end, amounts to the control, repression and often the physical
liquidation of the civilian populations of their military opponents.
It should be noted that the CIA was not alone in its hiring practices. Through documents released
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), it is discovered in a CIC report dated March 1951, that a
certain Dr. Wilhelm H. Schmitz was in the employ of that agency. During the course of the Third Reich,
Dr. Schmitz was an SS-Sturmbannführer (as of April 20, 1941) and the head of the Gestapo bureau, IV E
6. This section was called “Counterespionage Section South” and covered Czechoslovakia, the Balkans,
Hungary, Italy, Spain and South America.
When the British murdered R.S.H.A chief Reinhard Heydrich in 1942 in Prague, the leadership of
the Reich was in an uproar and Himmler went at once to the Czech capital along with Muller...and Dr.
Wilhelm Schmitz. Dr. Schmitz, acting under Muller’s orders, was responsible for the actions taken against
the Czechs, including the destruction of Lidice and the shooting of over three thousand Czechs, some of
whom were actually connected with the plot or were found to be British agents. After the war, Schmitz,
whose background was known to his employers, worked in Prague as a double agent. Schmitz was one of
the architects of the legend that Muller was working for Czech intelligence. The main architect of this
delightful fable was the former chief of the Gestapo himself, who greatly enjoyed pulling the legs of his
employers, but always, it must be added, with great care.
The C.I.C later discovered that they had been hoaxed and other documents recently released
indicate that the perpetrators of the Muller-Czech stories were ordered to be terminated at once. This
phrase is usually considered an official euphemism for assassination.
The hiring by Gehlen of highly undesirable individuals, many of whom were not German SS men,
but equally as unpalatable, generally was overseen by Willi Krichbaum, his chief recruiter. Krichbaum,
who had been Müller’s chief deputy in the Gestapo and head of the dreaded Geheime Feld Polizei (GFP),
filled the ranks of the Gehlen organization with a mixture of ferocious individuals who had the potential to
cause terrible problems for the ultimate authority over them.
From 1945 through 1948, this authority was the U.S. Army and between 1948 and 1956, the CIA.
What happened later was that the ranks of the newly-constituted Bundesnachrichtendienst or B.N.D, of the
West German government, were swelled with a significant number of former Gestapo and SD people who
had the added liability of working for Soviet intelligence.
Muller, who by this time was comfortably ensconced in the United States, had nothing to do with
this debacle, but certainly lived to fully enjoy it. Even though only a small percentage of the Soviet moles
were ever publicly identified, the damage had been done.
Following the revelations that British intelligence agencies had been equally infiltrated with
Soviet spies, both countries suffered from a drastic and permanent loss of confidence by the United States.
The use by the American intelligence, and governmental communities, of Germans with some
expertise on the subject of the Soviet Union is pragmatically understandable. The only reason that Great
Britain didn’t make more use of former RSHA personnel is that they could not outspend the Americans,
and further, England was so full of Soviet sympathizers and agents that the subject of utilizing the late
enemy was anathema to them.
The individuals listed here had very little expertise in Soviet internal affairs, with a few
exceptions, and their employment at any level is completely indefensible.
The foregoing study is not meant to show that U.S. Intelligence agencies actively sought to
employ Germans who were accused of the commission of serious crimes. It does mean, in every sense, that
such persons were knowingly employed by the intelligence agencies as an expedient.
All bureaucracies in all periods encounter the same problems: Maintenance. The actual secrets of
the world are so few that one could carry them on small slips of paper in a back pocket. In order to justify
acres of buildings filled with tens of thousands of employees, office equipment, telephones, code machines,
shredders, computer systems, plastic passes, executive dining rooms, travel expenses and, finally, salaries,
all intelligence agencies have to at least give the appearance of performing vital functions for the security
of their state. No agency or bureaucracy has ever voluntarily reduced itself, but every one of them finds it
necessary to expand itself to acquire more power, more employees, more parking space, and most
importantly, larger budgets to be approved by those set above them.
Communism and Soviet expansionism proved to be as vital to the maintenance and growth of the
U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, as capitalism, and U.S. expansionism was to Soviet
intelligence and counterintelligence. These massive entities represent the upper and the nether millstone
and what is ground between them are those who pay for the follies, the vices, and most important, the bill.
next
The Official CIA Report on Heinrich Muller
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