Oddball
03-07-2005, 09:00 AM
US INTELLIGENCE AND THE NAZIS
Richard Breitman et al
National Archives Trust Board Fund
Paperback ISBN 1 880 87526 8
The danger facing historians of the Second World War has always been that of a surfeit of source material, even with regard to such sensitive and restrictive fields as intelligence. Masses of material were available in Washington from the 1950s, more could be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and the stream is by no means drying up. U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis, written by a small group of independent scholars, is based on the release of 8 million pages as the result of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998.
Richard Breitman and his fellow authors freely admit that even as a collective they have not been able to read 8 million pages and have not presented a systematic history. Instead they concentrate on a number of issues that have been controversial, and on which in the past relatively little material has been available. This goes primarily for the employment, after the end of the war, of members of the Nazi espionage services (such as the Gehlen organization), and also the question of what was known at the time about the Holocaust to Allied intelligence services. However, the essays also shed some new light on other issues, such as the relations between the various Nazi spy services and the division of labour between them, as well as tensions and rivalries. Other topics on which new information is persented are the "Red Orchestra", the legendary Soviet spy network in Western Europe, and the post-war fate of leading East European collaborators with the Nazis; more than a few of them succeeded in escaping to the West. Some of them, hiding their past and true identity, acquired US citizenship and were "denaturalized" as late as the 1970s and 80s. There are also interesting sidelights on the wartime financial transactions by the Gestapo.
There have been many thrillers and a Pleiad of films on these topics, and those in search of sensational revelations will be disappointed by the sober and anticlimactic conclusions of the authors - no, Heinrich Mueller, the head of the Gestapo, did not escape to the West after the War ( nor does he seem to have fled to Moscow; he was probably killed in the fighting for Berlin during the last days of the war). No, Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr, was not a Western agent, even though Hitler had him executed during the last months of the war.
But there is a great deal of very interesting detail for the student, professional and amateur, of the political history of the 1940s and 50s. As the tensions between the Western allies and the Soviets intensified with the coming of the Cold War, both sides enlisted the help of German specialists. If the Americans got Wernher von Braun and his crew to help them to build their missiles, the Russians shipped off Manfred von Ardenne and many others for similar purposes.
It was the same in the field of intelligence. The Americans felt at a great disadvantage because they knew so little about the Soviet Union; there had been no American spies in Russia during the war, whereas the Russians had been less coy in this respect, focusing on Los Alamos and the nuclear bomb. The Americans seem to have had a greatly exaggerated esteem for the professionalism of the German services (such as Fremde Heere Ost) and enlisted the help of many of them. Some were brought to America, others employed locally in Europe. The results ranged from the disappointing to the disastrous. The German spies knew very little, their old contacts were useless, their assessments had far more often been wrong than right. There were some outright frauds among them, but even the professionals were mostly useless. Reinhard Gehlen, the general in charge, steadfastly refused to reveal the identity of his sources to the CIA, prudently perhaps, because there seems to have been little or nothing to reveal. He later found employment as the first head of the Federal Republic's foreign intelligence service, the BND, which, at that time, was heavily penetrated by the Soviets.
While the Abwehr professionals had not been involved in atrocities, the record of others who were enlisted from the ranks of the Gestapo and the SD (sponsored by the SS) was very bad - some had been actively involved in mass murder. But their new employers (which in some cases also included British and French services) were not really interested in their past record. The CIA stations in Europe should have known that, sooner rather than later, these new assets would become a major embarrassment (which happended at the very latest at the time of the Eichmann trial). But while some were genuinely ignorant, others chose to ignore their past record, which is all the more surprising because of their poor performance and certain suspicions that had been voiced early on. Some of them had been bribed or blackmailed by the Soviets and were now serving two masters.
The other perplexing issue on which new light is shed concerns the Holocaust. William J.Casey, stationed during the war in London representing the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and subsequently a director of the CIA under President Reagan, wrote many years later that even with the benefit of hindsight he could not understand how, with all they knew about Germany and its military machine, they knew so little about the concentration camps and the magnitude of the Holocaust.
There was more than one reason, but essentially the issue is not that mysterious. It has been known for a long time that information about systematic mass murder came in from many sources (radio intercepts, escapees, the Polish government-in-exile, German and Jewish sources); Professor Breitman adds some new, recently declassified material. Those who wanted to know could know, but, by and large, the issue was given very low priority. It was far more important to know about the supply of tungsten for the German war effort than whether some millions of people were killed in Eastern Europe.
One should not, of course, belittle the attempts to play down the mass murder nor underrate the factor of ignorance, partly caused by tbe compartmentalization between the various intelligence services. The periodical reports of the British PWE (Political Warfare Executive) show that they had no access to information collected by MI6 and other branches of the intelligence services. But a very substantial report published by MI6 in June 1945, after the end of the war, shows that MI6 failed to understand even the purpose of the Nazi concentration camps although they knew a great many details about the organization of the camps - including the badges worn by inmates such as Jehovah's Witnesses, homo******s, criminals and Jews.
Among the analysts of OSS there were not a few German Jewish refugees who knew better than anyone else what Hitler was up to. But about the essential character of Nazism, and in particular about the Jewish issue, these future pillars of the Frankfurt critical school were not particularly well informed, nor greatly interested, to put it mildly (Franz Neumann's Behemoth is a prime example). However, the low priority given to information of this kind was the essential factor.
U.S.Intelligence and the Nazis is a story of failures and makes depressing reading. It does not follow that intelligence services should be abolished, as the late Senator Moynihan suggested a number of years ago. They have their uses, but generally there are no absolute certainties and one often expects too much from them. There is an infinite number of possibilities to get things wrong, to overlook essential clues, to be blinded by bias, to be influenced by group thinking or mirror imaging. And there is usually only one way to get things right, but the chances are that no one will listen. These are the perennial problems confronting intelligence services in America as elsewhere. Since its foundation the CIA has had eighteen directors and the career of every one has ended in failure, excepting only those, like George Bush senior, who stayed only for a very short time.
Walter Laqueur
The Times Literary Supplement
February 18
Not prisoners but 'sub-humans'
Max Hastings reviews Surviving the Sword by Brian MacArthur
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;sessionid=DFWYT44IRG5DNQFIQMGSM54AVCBQWJVC?xml=/arts/2005/02/27/bohas27.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/02/27/bomain.html
Richard Breitman et al
National Archives Trust Board Fund
Paperback ISBN 1 880 87526 8
The danger facing historians of the Second World War has always been that of a surfeit of source material, even with regard to such sensitive and restrictive fields as intelligence. Masses of material were available in Washington from the 1950s, more could be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and the stream is by no means drying up. U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis, written by a small group of independent scholars, is based on the release of 8 million pages as the result of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998.
Richard Breitman and his fellow authors freely admit that even as a collective they have not been able to read 8 million pages and have not presented a systematic history. Instead they concentrate on a number of issues that have been controversial, and on which in the past relatively little material has been available. This goes primarily for the employment, after the end of the war, of members of the Nazi espionage services (such as the Gehlen organization), and also the question of what was known at the time about the Holocaust to Allied intelligence services. However, the essays also shed some new light on other issues, such as the relations between the various Nazi spy services and the division of labour between them, as well as tensions and rivalries. Other topics on which new information is persented are the "Red Orchestra", the legendary Soviet spy network in Western Europe, and the post-war fate of leading East European collaborators with the Nazis; more than a few of them succeeded in escaping to the West. Some of them, hiding their past and true identity, acquired US citizenship and were "denaturalized" as late as the 1970s and 80s. There are also interesting sidelights on the wartime financial transactions by the Gestapo.
There have been many thrillers and a Pleiad of films on these topics, and those in search of sensational revelations will be disappointed by the sober and anticlimactic conclusions of the authors - no, Heinrich Mueller, the head of the Gestapo, did not escape to the West after the War ( nor does he seem to have fled to Moscow; he was probably killed in the fighting for Berlin during the last days of the war). No, Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr, was not a Western agent, even though Hitler had him executed during the last months of the war.
But there is a great deal of very interesting detail for the student, professional and amateur, of the political history of the 1940s and 50s. As the tensions between the Western allies and the Soviets intensified with the coming of the Cold War, both sides enlisted the help of German specialists. If the Americans got Wernher von Braun and his crew to help them to build their missiles, the Russians shipped off Manfred von Ardenne and many others for similar purposes.
It was the same in the field of intelligence. The Americans felt at a great disadvantage because they knew so little about the Soviet Union; there had been no American spies in Russia during the war, whereas the Russians had been less coy in this respect, focusing on Los Alamos and the nuclear bomb. The Americans seem to have had a greatly exaggerated esteem for the professionalism of the German services (such as Fremde Heere Ost) and enlisted the help of many of them. Some were brought to America, others employed locally in Europe. The results ranged from the disappointing to the disastrous. The German spies knew very little, their old contacts were useless, their assessments had far more often been wrong than right. There were some outright frauds among them, but even the professionals were mostly useless. Reinhard Gehlen, the general in charge, steadfastly refused to reveal the identity of his sources to the CIA, prudently perhaps, because there seems to have been little or nothing to reveal. He later found employment as the first head of the Federal Republic's foreign intelligence service, the BND, which, at that time, was heavily penetrated by the Soviets.
While the Abwehr professionals had not been involved in atrocities, the record of others who were enlisted from the ranks of the Gestapo and the SD (sponsored by the SS) was very bad - some had been actively involved in mass murder. But their new employers (which in some cases also included British and French services) were not really interested in their past record. The CIA stations in Europe should have known that, sooner rather than later, these new assets would become a major embarrassment (which happended at the very latest at the time of the Eichmann trial). But while some were genuinely ignorant, others chose to ignore their past record, which is all the more surprising because of their poor performance and certain suspicions that had been voiced early on. Some of them had been bribed or blackmailed by the Soviets and were now serving two masters.
The other perplexing issue on which new light is shed concerns the Holocaust. William J.Casey, stationed during the war in London representing the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and subsequently a director of the CIA under President Reagan, wrote many years later that even with the benefit of hindsight he could not understand how, with all they knew about Germany and its military machine, they knew so little about the concentration camps and the magnitude of the Holocaust.
There was more than one reason, but essentially the issue is not that mysterious. It has been known for a long time that information about systematic mass murder came in from many sources (radio intercepts, escapees, the Polish government-in-exile, German and Jewish sources); Professor Breitman adds some new, recently declassified material. Those who wanted to know could know, but, by and large, the issue was given very low priority. It was far more important to know about the supply of tungsten for the German war effort than whether some millions of people were killed in Eastern Europe.
One should not, of course, belittle the attempts to play down the mass murder nor underrate the factor of ignorance, partly caused by tbe compartmentalization between the various intelligence services. The periodical reports of the British PWE (Political Warfare Executive) show that they had no access to information collected by MI6 and other branches of the intelligence services. But a very substantial report published by MI6 in June 1945, after the end of the war, shows that MI6 failed to understand even the purpose of the Nazi concentration camps although they knew a great many details about the organization of the camps - including the badges worn by inmates such as Jehovah's Witnesses, homo******s, criminals and Jews.
Among the analysts of OSS there were not a few German Jewish refugees who knew better than anyone else what Hitler was up to. But about the essential character of Nazism, and in particular about the Jewish issue, these future pillars of the Frankfurt critical school were not particularly well informed, nor greatly interested, to put it mildly (Franz Neumann's Behemoth is a prime example). However, the low priority given to information of this kind was the essential factor.
U.S.Intelligence and the Nazis is a story of failures and makes depressing reading. It does not follow that intelligence services should be abolished, as the late Senator Moynihan suggested a number of years ago. They have their uses, but generally there are no absolute certainties and one often expects too much from them. There is an infinite number of possibilities to get things wrong, to overlook essential clues, to be blinded by bias, to be influenced by group thinking or mirror imaging. And there is usually only one way to get things right, but the chances are that no one will listen. These are the perennial problems confronting intelligence services in America as elsewhere. Since its foundation the CIA has had eighteen directors and the career of every one has ended in failure, excepting only those, like George Bush senior, who stayed only for a very short time.
Walter Laqueur
The Times Literary Supplement
February 18
Not prisoners but 'sub-humans'
Max Hastings reviews Surviving the Sword by Brian MacArthur
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;sessionid=DFWYT44IRG5DNQFIQMGSM54AVCBQWJVC?xml=/arts/2005/02/27/bohas27.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/02/27/bomain.html