Editing Gehlen Organization (section)

==Origins and Formation==
(1945–1946) Reinhard Gehlen, born in 1902 in Erfurt, Germany, joined the Reichswehr in 1920 and rose through the ranks, becoming chief of FHO in 1942. Anticipating Germany’s defeat, he microfilmed FHO’s Soviet intelligence archives in early 1945, burying them in the Austrian Alps. On May 22, 1945, Gehlen surrendered to the U.S. Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) in Bavaria, offering his archives and expertise in exchange for freedom for himself and his staff. U.S. Army G-2 (intelligence), recognizing America’s lack of Soviet intelligence, accepted. Gehlen and seven senior FHO officers were removed from POW lists and transferred to Camp King, Oberursel, where they unearthed the archives. In September 1945, Gehlen and three aides were flown to the U.S. to brief the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), revealing details about Soviet military structures and OSS communist infiltrators.

In July 1946, Gehlen returned to Germany, establishing the Gehlen Organization under the cover of the “South German Industrial Development Organization” at Oberursel, later moving to a 25-acre compound in Pullach, near Munich, in December 1947, formerly a Nazi residential quarter. Starting with 350 former German intelligence officers, the Org grew to 4,000 specialists and 4,000 undercover agents (“V-men”) by the early 1950s, many ex-Wehrmacht, SS, and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) members, per *The Gehlen Organization and the Nazis* by Badis Ben Redjeb.