The Dagger Complex is a US military base in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

(

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

), close to Griesheim and located at the ''Eberstädter Weg'', south of the August-Euler-Airfield. The complex is under US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) command on behalf of the US

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

(NSA) and is officially known as Subunit 1 operated by USMC G Company. After a large basement expansion at the complex in 2002 it hosted an important SIGINT processing, analysis and reporting center. As the entire SIGINT unit relocated to the Lucius D.Clay Barracks at

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...

in 2016 as part of the new Information Processing Center (IPC) which is part of the US Consolidated Intelligence Center (CIC), which was brought into operation in the 2010s, the status of the Dagger complex has been changed into a military datacenter. All processing, analysis and reporting activities now take place in Wiesbaden.

History

In 1999 about 50 INSCOM-units were moved from Bad Aibling Station to other locations. Together with INSCOM, then 66th Military Intelligence Group moved to

. This unit started as 66th CIC Detachment based in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

at its reactivation in 1951. In 1952 redesignated 66th CIC Group and in 1977 after an army-wide intel reorganisation assigned to INSCOM. In 1986 relocated to

Augsburg Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well ...

being redesignated

66th Military Intelligence Brigade The 66th Military Intelligence Brigade ("Six-Six-M-I" and 66th MIB) is a United States Army brigade, subordinate to United States Army Intelligence and Security Command and based at Wiesbaden Army Airfield, Wiesbaden, Germany. After years of histo ...

. In 1995 temporarily redesignated 66th MI Group. Relocated again to Dagger compound Darmstadt as of 1998. Definitely 66th MI Group in 2002 until its final redesignation 66th MI Brigade and its staffing relocation to Wiesbaden Army Airfield in 2008. Until 2015 the Dagger complex based the European Cryptologic Center (ECC) structured as F2 which had been operated by mixed operational crews consisting of specialized personnel from the NSA, the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

66th Military Intelligence Brigade, the

USAF The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

693rd Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group and the USMC Marine Cryptologic Support Battalion; all under the command of the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade, which was then awaiting their relocation to Wiesbaden. These specialists used to interpret and analyse all intercepted metadata obtained by * the ICEBOX (2003–2008) facility constructed at former Darmstadt Army Airfield at grid 49°51'19"N 8°35'12"E and * the TENCAP (2005–2009) facility constructed at former Finthen Army Airfield at grid 49°58'8"N 8° 9'46"E. Above mentioned facilities have been removed respectively by the end of 2009 and 2013. In 2015, the

Peng Collective The Peng Collective is a group of culture jamming activists based in Berlin. In 2016, the collective was part of the Berlin Biennale, in 2018 of the Manifesta Biennale and the Athens Biennale. In 2018, they were awarded the Aachen Peace Prize. I ...

operated an airborne leaflet strike over the facility as part of their Intelexit program, to call the employees to quit their job in case of ethical or psychological distress. Shortly after the drop of the leaflets, the association's website was blocked on computers within the complex.

References

{{National Security Agency Installations of the United States Army in Germany National Security Agency facilities Buildings and structures in Darmstadt-Dieburg

History

See also

References