Agency 114 (german: Dienststelle 114)James H. Critchfield: ''Partners at the Creation. The Men behind Postwar Germany's Defense and Intelligence Establishments.'' Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 2003, p. 35. Timothy Naftali: ''Reinhard Gehlen and the United States.'' In:

Richard Breitman Richard David Breitman, born in 1947, is an American historian best known for his study of the Holocaust. Richard Breitman is an American historian who has written extensively on modern German history, the Holocaust, American immigration and refuge ...

et.al.: ''U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis.'' Cambridge University Press 2005, p. 382. was a Cold War-era clandestine front of the postwar West German intelligence agency, the ''

Bundesnachrichtendienst The Federal Intelligence Service (German: ; , BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin and is the world's largest intelligence headq ...

'' (BND), which served as the main entrance point, into the field of domestic counterintelligence, for former

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...

, including war criminals active in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

who have never been brought to justice.Klaus Wiegrefe
"The Nazi Criminals Who Became German Spooks"
Der Spiegel. February 16, 2011.

Origin

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-27237-0001, Reinhard Gehlen

Following the onset of the Cold War, for over twenty years West Germany did not prosecute any war criminals. Thousands of them led normal lives, often in positions of prominence, power, and wealth, protected by Chancellor

Konrad Adenauer Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a Germany, German statesman who served as the first Chancellor of Germany, chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the fir ...

, who held that office from 1949 to 1963. Agency 114 was established within the Gehlen Organization soon after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. The

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

, seeking intelligence on activities of Soviet agents within the American-occupied zone of Germany, brought the assignment to

Reinhard Gehlen Reinhard Gehlen (3 April 1902 – 8 June 1979) was a German lieutenant-general and intelligence officer. He was chief of the Wehrmacht Foreign Armies East military intelligence service on the eastern front during World War II, spymaster of the ...

, previously of the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previou ...

,Klaus Eichner, Gotthold Schramm, et al (2007). ''Angriff und Abwehr: die deutschen Geheimdienste nach 1945'', Berlin: Edition Ost (Reinhard Gehlen) p. 42. . who proceeded to initiate the Agency 114 operation.

Activities

At the height of the Cold War in the mid-1960s, Agency 114 was merged into the BND, successor to the Gehlen Organization. Agency 114 was located in

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian German, South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, third-largest city of the German States of Germany, state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital o ...

, at Zimmerle & Co., ostensibly a roller-blind company that served as its front. Aside from Soviet counterintelligence activities, Agency 114 also began monitoring domestic

leftists Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in so ...

and

pacifists Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campa ...

. By this time, Agency 114 was headed by Alfred Benzinger, nicknamed "der Dicke" (Fatty), a former sergeant in the

secret military police, the ''

Geheime Feldpolizei The ''Geheime Feldpolizei'', short: ''GFP'' (), , was the secret military police of the German Wehrmacht until the end of the Second World War (1945). Its units carried out plain-clothed security work in the field - such as counter-espionage, ...

''. Former Nazis who worked in Agency 114 included Konrad Fiebig and .Klaus Eichner, Gotthold Schramm. ''Angriff und Abwehr. Die deutschen Geheimdienste nach 1945'', 2007 - Walter Kurreck ''geboren am 25. Juni 1911, ...Sturmbannfuhrer ab 1941 ...'' p. 127.

References

{{Reflist Federal Intelligence Service