Cookridge,E.H. Gehlen: Spy of the Century. 1972

Cookridge, E.H. Gehlen: Spy of the Century. New York: Random House, 1972. (Originally published in London by Hodder and Stoughton.) 402 pages.

As Nazi Germany was collapsing, General Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's chief of eastern front intelligence, buried his files and waited to be captured. He felt certain that access to his files was an offer the Americans couldn't refuse. He was right, of course, partly because the Cold War was already being planned, and partly because Gehlen's scientific collection and analysis methods were very effective. He and his staff cut a deal with the CIA and the Pentagon to absorb his networks and his expertise. As part of the deal, Gehlen transferred his organization (the "Gehlen Org") to West Germany in 1955. He directed the BND until his retirement in 1968, and died in 1979.

British journalist E.H. Cookridge has broad experience with both European politics and espionage reporting. For this book he obtained access to previously-classified documents of Gehlen's activities over 25 years. Of the 24 chapters, nine concern Gehlen as a loyal Nazi, one chapter describes the deal with the Americans in 1945-1946, and 14 follow Gehlen's career in West Germany. The Cold War years saw a lively game of espionage between Gehlen and his East German counterparts; each side had moles planted on the other. The East kept complaining about all the ex-Nazis on Gehlen's staff; in this book Cookridge shows convincingly that "this was not in fact far from the truth." (page 271)
ISBN 0-394-47313-2