Editing Konrad Adenauer (section)

==Gehlen Organization and CIA Collaboration==
Post-war, Gehlen’s knowledge of Soviet forces made him valuable to the U.S., which lacked Eastern Bloc intelligence. In 1945, he was transferred to the U.S. to work with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), revealing communist infiltrators within the OSS. Released in July 1946, he established the Gehlen Organization in Pullach, Germany, under the cover of the South German Industrial Development Organization. Initially funded by the U.S. Army’s G-2 and later the [[CIA]] (from 1949), the organization employed 350–4,000 former Wehrmacht, SS, and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) officers, conducting anti-Soviet espionage. Notable operations included Operation Crossword (infiltrating 5,000 anti-communists into Eastern Europe) and exposing the Soviet assassination unit SMERSH, though its overall intelligence yield was later deemed ineffective.
===Adenauer’s Role and Connections to Gehlen===
Adenauer’s connection to Gehlen was significant in the context of West Germany’s post-war intelligence and security apparatus:

Formation of the BND (1956): On April 1, 1956, after West Germany regained sovereignty, the Gehlen Organization was transferred to the Federal Republic under Adenauer’s government, forming the nucleus of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), West Germany’s foreign intelligence service. Gehlen served as BND president until 1968. Adenauer, wary of Soviet subversion, supported this transition to establish a robust intelligence agency aligned with NATO.

Direct Order for Hiring Ex-Nazis: Sources indicate Adenauer personally ordered Gehlen to hire former SS and SD officers to counter “an avalanche of covert ideological subversion” from East Germany, a decision that was very controversial due to the Nazi backgrounds of many recruits. CIA officer James H. Critchfield, who worked with Gehlen (1949–1956), claimed in 2001 that Gehlen hired these individuals under Adenauer’s pressure. While Adenauer's may have pressured Gehlen, many of them worked for Gehlen during WW2 so it is unlikely, they, like Gehlen, were not used within NATO and by the CIA for there anti-communist stance.

Protection of Nazi Criminals: Leaked BND documents, reported by Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2017, reveal Gehlen’s systematic collaboration with Nazi war criminals, including Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s deputy, whom Gehlen helped flee to Syria in 1954 to avoid prosecution. Adenauer’s government is implicated in shielding figures like Hans Globke, Adenauer’s chief of staff, who drafted Nazi racial laws but was protected from Israeli prosecution during the Eichmann trial (1961). Gehlen facilitated Brunner’s offer to testify for Globke, though a media campaign was used instead to discredit accusers. These actions suggest Adenauer prioritized protection of Nazis over full denazification.

Illegal Surveillance of SPD: Between 1953 and 1962, Gehlen’s BND, with Adenauer’s approval, illegally infiltrated the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD), using informant Siegfried Ortloff to pass 500 confidential memos to Adenauer’s office. This operation, likened to Watergate by historian Klaus-Dietmar Henke, gave Adenauer tactical advantages in elections and consolidated his power. The arrangement, uncovered in 2022 via Konrad Adenauer Foundation archives, underscores Adenauer’s willingness to employ covert means against political rivals, viewing social democracy as an “enemy.”