THE SECRET WAR IN GERMANY
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hissed the flag of the Soviet Union on the Reichstag Hitler gave up and killed
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himself in Berlin on April 30, 1945. 1 |
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'The setting up of Stay-Behind organisations of the NATO countries started already shortly after the end of the Second World War', the official German 2 Germany in 1945 the chaotic post-war conditions were ideal for the United States to set up a stay-behind. As occupying power the US armies controlled the territory together with the French, British and the Soviet forces in their respective zones. Above all the supply of thoroughly anti-Communist men trained in guerrilla warfare and experienced with arms and explosives was abundant. And thus the United States secretly recruited former Nazis for the German stay-behind network. In the midst of the Gladio revelations in 1990 the private TV channel RTL shocked the German public by revealing in a special Gladio report that former members of Hitler's dreaded SS, who under Hitler had hunted the Communists, had been part of Germany's Gladio network. |
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The US Army General's Staff Top Secret March 28, 1949 Overall Strategic Concepts highlighted that Germany 'has an excellent potential of trained men for both underground and Secret Army Reserves [stay-behind units]. Effective resistance 3 newly created US Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) tracked down German Nazis and brought them to the Numberg trials, while the CIC also secretly recruited selected right-wing extremists for the anti-Communist army. This practice of the Pentagon was revealed only in 1986 when the US Department of Justice in a large press conference - which had maybe drawn the biggest crowd of journalists in Washington since the Watergate days - admitted that the CIC had recruited a high-ranking Nazi in the post-war years. Specifically a 600-page long study, compiled by Allan Ryan for the US Justice Department, confirmed that SS and Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie had been recruited by the CIC in 1947, had thereafter been hidden from the war crimes investigators and had then been spirited out of Europe to Argentina through a clandestine 'ratline' in 1951. |
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Barbie was saved not because the United States secret service officers were impressed with his moral record, but because he was most useful in the setting up of the German stay-behind network. 'Among those who were recruited and did some recruiting for the scheme in the first years', the British press reported during the Gladio revelations, 'were an ex-SS Obersturmfuhrer, Hans Otto, and other smaller fish. But the prize catch was Klaus Barbie who functioned as a recruiter for ex-Nazis and members of the fascist Bund Deutscher Jugend 4 stay in the French town from 1943 to 1944 been responsible for the murder of at least 4,000 resistance workers and Jews, as well as the deportation of another 15,000 to concentration death camps. Barbie was condemned to death in absentia by a French court soon after the war for crimes against humanity as witnesses described him as a sadistic torturer, who terrified men, women and children with his whip and Alsatian dog. |
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The US Justice Department, during its 1986 press conference did not reveal
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the use of Barbie for the stay-behind and wrongly stressed that next to Barbie 'no other case was found where a suspected Nazi war criminal was placed in the ratline, or where the ratline was used to evacuate a person wanted by either the United 5 States government or any of its post-war a l l i e s ' . 6 the fact that his war crimes had earned him the merit to appear on the blacklist of the Soviet secret service NKVD. When he realised that Germany was losing the war he therefore made sure that the Russians would not get him by delivering himself to the US CIC on May 20, 1945. This claim was false as the |
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General Gehlen was right in assuming that the data which he had collected during his torture operations on the Soviet Union and its Communists was of great interest to the United States. Together with a small group of senior Nazi officers he had therefore at the end of the war carefully microfilmed the extensive FHO data on the USSR, had packed the films in watertight steel drums and had secretly buried these in meadows in the Austrian Alps. After several weeks of CIC internment Gehlen got into contact with US General Edwin Luther Siber to whom he revealed his secret. The US General was so impressed that he promoted Gehlen's career in the years to come. He introduced Gehlen to senior US intelligence officials, including General Walter Bedell Smith, then the highest US Army intelligence officer in Europe, and later Director of the CIA from 1950 to 1953. Siber also introduced Gehlen to General William Donovan, chief of the US wartime secret service Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and Allen Dulles of the OSS, later chief of the CIA, as well as Frank Wisner of the OSS, later chief of CIA's 7 OPC which set up the European stay-behind network. |
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With Gehlen's help the US dug up the FHO microfilms in Austria and in August 1945 Siber shipped Gehlen with his data to Washington for debriefing. President Truman was impressed and named Gehlen, together with a large number of Gehlen's Nazi network, chief of the first post-war German secret service, tellingly named Organisation Gehlen (ORG). 'In the end Gehlen', historian Simpson concludes, 'and several hundred other senior German officers succeeded in making deals with Britain or the United States... General Gehlen, however, proved to be 8 headquarters were first erected in Oberursel near Frankfurt, and then moved to the former Waffen SS training facility Pullach near Munich, still today site of the headquarters of the German secret service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). Clandestinely CIA and ORG signed cooperation contacts and CIA senior officer |
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James Criitchfield was deployed to Germany. Called 'Herr Marshall' by the Germans,
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Critchfield monitored Gehlen's service and made sure that at all times the names of Gehlen's top 150 officers were given to him. For each of them the CIA created a file. So that the German secret service was firmly in US hands. |
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Erhard Dabringhaus who had worked with the US CIC in Germany from 1948 to 1949 recalled in a documentary on Gladio that he himself had taken part in the recruitment of Nazis, an activity which he strongly resented. 'In 1948 I was a spe- cial agent with CIC, that's our counterintelligence corps in occupied Germany', retired Dabringhaus explained. 'I was stationed in Augsberg, and since I spoke fluent German I was assigned to handle a network of German informants, among them was Klaus Barbie, and Klaus Barbie was, ehm... later on I discovered that he was wanted for murder by the French', Dabringhaus explained in front of the camera, 'and that I reported to my superiors, and they told me to keep nice and quiet, "He's still valuable, when he's no longer valuable we will turn him over to the French." I thought that I was gonna get a promotion when I told 'em about 9 Barbie, and they told me to keep quiet!' |
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Former US CIC officer Dabringhaus, who now lives in Florida in the United States, explained how several German Nazis on US orders had set up the stay- behind arms caches in Germany. 'Colonel Gunther Bernau was an agent, an informant working for the military intelligence in Stuttgart. We [of the US CIC] had provided him a home, a safe-house in Ludwisburg, and there I met him three times a week and he brought us information about Communists and whatever we wanted to hear he told us.' The aim of the United States was to fight Communism, no matter the means, Dabringhaus related, although he himself was little impressed with Bernau: 'He was certainly a very strong Nazi. I sat in his office one day and opened his album of pictures from the war, and in the middle of the album it showed a nice picture of Adolf Hitler. Several other high-ranking SS officers came to visit him in his safe house that we provided, and he told me that if for any reason he needs help by one telephone call he could contact 200 former SS leaders from Hamburg to Munich.' |
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Bernau, according to Dabringhaus, was centrally involved in setting up the German stay-behind army: 'I remember him taking me to one particular spot which we uncovered and dug it out and there were rifles, small arms, grenades, all nicely wrapped in cosmolene and he said "We have thousands of these all over the country." And that sort of made me a little suspicious and I reported this and they said, "Well, we know this. They are all working for us in case the Communists come across the Iron Curtain.'" Senior US officials, according to the need-to-know principle, did not explain the details of the secret stay-behind army to CIC officer Dabringhaus, but the latter had learned enough to understand that it was a top-secret project involving a large number of Nazis: 'A former General, SS General, Paul Hauser, was a frequent visitor at Bernau's house, and they worked together hand in gloves about certain programmes which we didn't know anything about, and I wasn't even asked to find out more about it. Somebody above me must have been 10 running this network already at that time.' |
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When the Gladio scandal erupted in 1990 an unnamed former NATO intelligence
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official explained that the covert action branch of the CI A under Frank Wisner in |
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order to set up the German secret army had 'incorporated lock, stock and barrel |
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the espionage outfit run by Hitler's spy chief Reinhard Gehlen. This is well known, because Gehlen was the spiritual father of Stay Behind in Germany and his role was known to the West German leader, Konrad Adenauer, from the outset.' According to the unnamed NATO officer, US President Truman and German Chancellor Adenauer had signed a secret protocol with the US on West Germany's entry into NATO in May 1955 in which it was agreed that the West German authorities would refrain from active legal pursuit of known right-wing extremists. What is not so well known is that other top German politicians were privy to the existence of secret resistance plans. One of these was the then 11 German State Secretary and former high-ranking Nazi, Hans Globke.' |
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In Germany one of the Nazi-dominated US networks named 'Bund Deutscher Jugend' (BDJ) and its stay-behind 'Technischer Dienst' (TD) were discovered in 1952. Klaus Barbie had played a leading role in setting up the German stay- 12 behind BDJ-TD. But the secret was not kept for long. The New York Times |
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This early discovery of a part of the German stay-behind caused a major scandal on both sides of the Atlantic and Newsweek in the United States reported on October 20, 1952 that the CIA had organised a group of 'stay-behinds' in Germany. Interestingly enough the German news magazine Der Spiegel on October 29, 1952 correctly reported that stay-behind networks existed next to Germany also in numerous countries of Western Europe: 'The BDJ affair has caused considerable worries in the different headquarters of the American secret service in Europe. Because the "Technischer Dienst" in Germany is but one branch of a partisan network supported by the United States and spreading over the whole of Europe.' Specifically, as the Spiegel reported, 'This network is most strongly developed in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Italy and the Iberian peninsula. In France this organisation was created already in 1948, with the support of the leader of the Socialists, [Minister of the Interior] Jules Moch.' |
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What had happened and who had blown the cover? On September 9, 1952
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former SS officer Hans Otto had walked after his own personal decision into the headquarters of the criminal police in the city of Frankfurt in the German state of Hesse and according to the German governmental records' declared to belong to a political resistance group, the task of which was to carry out sabotage activities and blow up bridges in case of a Soviet invasion'. According to Otto, who felt alienated with the terrorist preparations, 'about 100 members of the organisation had been instructed at a specific school in politics, trained to use American, Russian and German arms, and drilled in military tactics. Members of the organisation were mostly former officers of the Air Force, the Army or the Waffen-SS.' The official German transcripts record that 'Although officially neo-fascist tendencies were not required, most members of the organisation featured them. The financial means to run the organisation had been provided by an American citizen with the name of Sterling Garwood.' Next to waiting for the Soviet invasion the German secret army also had domestic subversion tasks: 'As for domestic politics the tactics of the organisation were aimed at the KPD [Communist Party of Germany] 13 and SPD [Socialist Party of Germany].' |
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The 'organisation' that Otto was talking about was part of the German stay-behind network, but with all probability did not represent the entire German network even at the time. The branch was misleadingly labelled BDJ, short for 'German Youth Federation', although the average age of its members was around 42. Already before Otto's testimony the BDJ had been well known for its extreme anti-Communism. But what remained unknown was that the BDJ had fronted for the so-called Technischer Dienst (TD, Technical Service), which was in the top- secret paramilitary German stay-behind, staffed with former Nazis, paid by the US, and equipped with weapons and explosives. According to the German statistics BDJ membership, which spread across the whole of Western Germany, officially amounted to 17,000 people, whereas according to the German governmental 14 investigation TD membership counted only around 2,000 people. |
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Otto's testimony in 1952 lead to a large-scale police investigation. Near Waldmichelbach, a small romantic village in the Odenwald forest district of Hesse, the stay-behind training centre was discovered. The Waldmichelbach centre had only become operational in June 1951, and before that date, members of the German stay-behind had been directly trained on the US Army base Grafenwohr in 15 consisted in essence of a house with an underground shooting area and a bunker close by, all located inconspicuously in a side valley, half a kilometre away from the country road. Villagers remembered, 'that the Americans used to carry out 16 shooting exercises or something like that over there'. |
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Otto testified to the German authorities that the contact of the BDJ-TD with the CIA was to a large degree handled by the mysterious American whom he called Mr Garwood. Garwood, probably of the CIA, regularly instructed the TD members in the Odenwald and repeatedly insisted that the whole stay-behind was a top-secret organisation, and that nobody may say anything to anybody at any time. |
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This, it seems, was taken very seriously. For when at one time it was suspected that
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a TD member of another German state, Bavaria, 'had filled out a questionnaire with another resistance organisation', the assassination of that member was 17 seriously contemplated within the TD, as Otto highlighted with a certain disgust. 'I do not have the impression that Mr. Garwood had any objections to such methods', Otto testified to the German authorities. 'He taught us for instance, how to kill a person without leaving a trace, by simply making him unconscious with chloroform, put him in his car, and use a pipe to guide the exhausts of the car into the cabin. He taught us how with certain interrogation techniques, violence could be used without leaving a trace.' Otto was also instructed in torture techniques: 'One has for instance to blindfold the eyes of the person to be interrogated. Then a piece of meat must be grilled close to the scene while a piece of ice is being pressed on selected body parts of the person to be interrogated. The coldness of the ice, combined with the smell of burnt meat, leaves the interrogated in the 18 belief, that he is being treated with burning metal.' |
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Otto explained that Garwood provided the money and most of the equipment. Some 130 men were trained in the Wamiba centre, almost all former German Nazis, in interrogation techniques, shooting, use of explosives, setting up of traps, wireless communication and assassination methods. Most interestingly TD member Otto also elaborated on that rarely discussed, but very existential and central, stay-behind question concerning the willingness of secret soldiers to indeed stay-behind in case of a Soviet invasion. From a militarily strategic perspective it is clear that the chances of long-term survival of a stay-behind in an occupation context, and especially in a Soviet occupation context, are very slim. The war-experienced Nazi officers of the TD were fully aware of this and Otto made it a point in his testimony that most TD members were not eager to stay-behind and try to survive under Soviet occupation: 'The ideas of the Americans was to have all members overrun by the Soviets, and to use them after that as partisans. This plan of the Americans could however not be realised by [TD chief] Peters, because all men interested in the organisation wanted to escape to the West under 19 all circumstances in case of a Soviet invasion.' |
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Two days after Otto's testimony the Wamiba stay-behind base was stormed by the German police on September 13, 1952 and closed down. Offices and private apartments of TD members were also stormed and closed for further investiga- tions. The stay-behind members were arrested. Arms, explosives and munitions were confiscated, together with a lot of paperwork. One of the confiscated files was of particular interest. To the surprise of the investigators it contained the names of persons to be eliminated on day X: 'The proscription list contains names of persons, which were to be eliminated. The list was not complete, for it was still being worked on' the German police found, indicating that TD member Hans 20 Breitkopf had compiled the list for the Hesse area. TD member Otto Rietdorf, |
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on the list are to be secured. And what that means in Russia seems to be clear.'
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Rietdorf added that the CIA was informed of the procedure: 'Mr. Garwood was fully aware of these things.' Also TD member Hans Otto continued that this 'informa- tion and personal reports had been handed on to the Americans from the BDJ and the TD'. The Americans who collected the data were allegedly 'Dr. Walter' and again Garwood. The German investigation into this early secret army concluded solemnly and precisely: 'According to this testimony, the use of violence against 21 to invasion day or also to some other specific occasion such as mass protests or a landslide left-wing election victories could not be established. The Gladio proscription lists contained many known German Communists and also moderate Socialists, of which many were prominent acting politicians and journalists at the time, such as Heinrich Zinnkann, Socialist Interior Minister of Hesse, Socialist Hans Jahn, chairman of the German Railway Union, Emil Carlebach, journalist with the Frankfurter Rundschau, and many others. German journalist and Gladio author Leo Miiller relates that after the proscription lists were found 'the surprise was so massive, that the first reactions were often characterised by 22 a feeling of disbelief'. spied upon the leaders of the party, so that they could kill more quickly, once the 23 moment had come'. 'The leaders of the TD of the BDJ understood it to be |
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Not too surprisingly the state of Hesse found it unbelievable and completely unacceptable that the White House in Washington had secretly trained and equipped neo-Nazis in Germany who possessed killer lists targeting some of the most respected citizens of the country and heated debates ensued in Hesse's capital Frankfurt. The delicate post-war political relationship between Germany and the United States was seriously damaged and nervous high-level meetings between US and German officials followed. German chancellor Konrad Adenauer claimed to have been ignorant about the whole affair while the Americans tried to cover up as much as possible. US ambassador to Germany Donelly explained that the organisation had been created in the context of the Korean War, adding that the network would have been dissolved precisely in these months anyway, regardless of the testimony of Otto, and that indeed payments had been halted already in August 1952. This of course was utter nonsense and TD members testified that they had received their money also in September. |
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Paul Liith, senior member of the BDJ-TD and CIA contact man, controlled the money flow which came from the United States, as the subsequent investigation |
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revealed. Luth regularly met with Americans for reporting, and he always
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composed four duplicates of all written reports on important issues, which he 25 hidden by the Americans, could not be arrested, and disappeared without a trace. Next to Luth Erhard Peters too held a senior function in the German secret army. A close school friend of Luth, Peters became the leader of the TD due to his expert knowledge in radio communications and guerrilla warfare. He was flat- tered when the network was referred to as 'Organisation Peters' and to underline his status bought a dashing Mercedes 170 V and a BMW Cabriolet. When the cover of his secret army was blown Peters also could not be arrested for 'he had given himself under American protection' as the investigative report recorded. Later Luth reappeared in front of the German police, after having 'given the Americans his word of honour, not to reveal anything'. According to his own tes- timony, the White House in Washington had offered him and other compromised 26 TD Nazis the possibility to emigrate to the States, which he had declined. front of the police Peters admitted to have burned many files containing reports on the TD for the Americans. In |
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For Germany the BDJ-TD scandal was not a federal, but a national affair. Yet if Frankfurt had expected help from the capital Bonn they soon learned otherwise. After lengthy conversations with the United States, senior officials of the CDU party and the Adenauer conservative government covered up and hindered the investigations and on September 30, 1952, causing a juridical outcry in Germany, the Supreme Court in Karlsruhe ordered all arrested Gladio TD mem- bers to be released. The police in Frankfurt had neither been informed nor con- sulted beforehand. And while the two attorneys Schrubbers and Wagner who had issued the critical declaration made a considerable career jump, the Gladia- tors walked free. Hesse's Prime Minister August Zinn commented angrily: 'The only legal explanation for these releases can be that the people in Karlsruhe 27 [Supreme Court] declared that they acted upon American direction.' |
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Zinn was so furious that he decided to raise the scandal in front of his federal parliament, regardless of very heavy US pressure to prevent him from doing so. And thus on October 8, 1952 the public at large and the press in Germany and abroad were informed for the first time about the existence of secret US-paid German Nazi stay-behind armies. 'Mr. President, honourable ladies and Gentle- man', Zinn addressed his parliament on that day, 'after a meeting which I had with Chancellor Dr. Adenauer on October 3 in Frankfurt, and a discussion which I had this morning in my office with Mr. Reeber of the United States, the representa- tive of the US High Commissioner, I must inform the house of the following: On September 9, 1952', Zinn explained with a serious expression on his face, 'the German criminal police learned of a secret organisation which had been cre- ated in 1950/1951 by leaders of the BDJ under the designation TD, "Technischer Dienst'". Zinn informed his baffled audience that 'the organisation was designed as a political, armed resistance movement, erected with the knowledge and cooperation of BDJ President Paul Liith. Gerhard Peters was the leader of the organisation.' |
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It was the first time the politicians learned of a secret stay-behind army and Zinn
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explained that 'This TD of the BDJ had task, to create a partisan army, which according to the original plan, would have stayed behind enemy lines in case of a Soviet invasion, to carry out sabotage activities in occupied territory such as the blowing up of bridges and the attacking of camps.' |
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After these broad outlines of the classical stay-behind pattern Zinn, reported on the US backing and the domestic dimension of the secret army when he declared that 'Domestically the organisation was, according to the testimony of a prime witness and the confiscated material, aimed at the KPD, and above all against the SPD. After the organisation was discovered, immediate arrests and confiscations followed on September 18, 1952', Prime Minister Zinn told his parliament. 'But on October 1, the High National Prosecutor [Oberbundesanwalt] ordered that the suspects be released, as the organisation had been created on the orders of United States agencies', whereupon a roar went through the parliament with many parliamentarians, according to the original transcripts, shouting 'Hear! Hear!', or 'Incredible!' As the parliamentarians calmed down Zinn continued: 'According to the testimony of a senior member of the TD, liquidations were also planned', whereupon an even greater roar went through parliament, with members shouting 'Hear! Hear! That's how far we have come already again!' Zinn continued: 'A training centre was set up in Waldmichelbach in Odenwald' and 'The members of the organisation were mostly former officers of the Air Force, the Army and the SS.' Again the parliament was in agitation, for all present had lived through the Second World War and now shouted: 'Listen to this! Incredible!' |
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Zinn explained that the agents were between 35 and 50 and 'The organisation received very generous funding, confiscated documents suggest that it received about 50,000 DM a month'. Whereupon a parliamentarian shouted: 'Where did the money come from!?' Zinn related that 'The money came from faked orders of an allegedly US agency to the TD' and went on to explain that 'The same organisation had a domestic task... According to the testimony of a leading member selected "unreliable" people should be eliminated in case X', which sent a new storm of criticism through the parliament with voices shouting 'Killed, that means! Incredible!' Zinn was well aware of the storm he caused and solemnly continued that 'interestingly there were 15 sheets of paper on Communists, but 80 pages on leading Social Democrats... SPD Interior Minister Heinrich Zinnkann of Hesse was suspected of Communist connections', which next to criticism was commented with laughter in parliament. 'According to testimonies, much secret material had been destroyed, some material has been collected by a US official, now therefore also inaccessible. The money and the weapons were provided by an American, who supervised the training' leaving parliamentarians once again shouting 'Hear! Hear!' |
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Zinn had not yet finished: 'What is very important, is to realise, that such secret organisations outside all German control are the starting base for illegal domestic activities, this is sad experience our people has had to make already three decades ago, and these features were manifest also with this organisation', a fierce criticism which was applauded by parliament with voices shouting 'Correct! That's right!' |
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'Mr. Reeber of the United States this morning', Zinn continued, 'agreed with me,
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that such organisations are the starting point for domestic terror... expressed his |
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most sincere regret and condemned the organisation sharply... He promised not |
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only his full support to clarify the entire affair completely and uproot all rests of |
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28 the organisation, but also to prevent the phenomena from reoccurring.' Of course the German Gladio was not dissolved, as the discoveries in 1990 showed. Traces were destroyed whenever possible. Former US High Commis- sioner McCloy in October 1952 insisted that the United States were not rearming the Nazis and that 'during all those years, that I have spent in Germany, our aims and efforts have been directed towards the aim of strengthening all democratic forces in Germany, and to fight both the Communists, as well as Neo- and Pro Nazis'. McCloy emphasised that 'It is therefore unthinkable, that a responsible American would have supported such activities, as they have been reported by Prime Minister Zinn. This fact must be expressed clearly, for the sake of truth and 29 friendship.' Despite these assurances the parliament of Hesse decided to have the phenomena fully investigated by the Interior Minister of Hesse who in a solid democratic 30 performance in 1953 presented an impressive three-volume long report. |
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Four decades later former CIA officer Thomas Polgar, who retired in 1981 after a 30-year long CIA career, well remembered the German Gladio scandal for he had been stationed in Germany in the early 1950s and in the early 1970s had come back to the country to replace Ray Cline as the Chief of the German CIA station. 'The "Bund Deutscher Jugend" was a right-wing political organisation loosely affiliated with one of the political parties in the state of Hesse in Germany and it was deemed that these people have the motivation and the willingness to service part of the underground should the Soviet army indeed overrun all or part of West Germany', Polgar related in the 1990s. 'When the story broke there was a considerable flap, and it was deemed desirable that [US] General Truscott should personally explain to the people involved what had happened and we explained the situation first to Konrad Adenauer of Germany.' This, as seen above did not solve the problem and Polgar remembers that 'then we explained it to General Matthew Ridgeway, who was then the commander-in-chief of NATO, and finally, and most importantly, we explained it to Prime Minister Georg Zinn of Hesse, who himself was on that list, and Truscott explained to the Hessian Prime Minister that this was an unauthorised activity, to be sure only a paper exercise, but of which he was unaware and it certainly shouldn't be interpreted as in any 31 way casting aspersions on our confidence in Prime Minister Zinn'. |
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That clandestine German stay-behind cells existed not only in the state of Hesse, but also in other parts of Germany was confirmed by Dieter von Glahn after the Gladio revelations in 1990. 'Our mission and our organisation were 32 identical with what is now known about Gladio', Glahn explained. An ambiguous |
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in 1994, 'the Americans were very worried, that something similar could also
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happen in Germany'. Thus 'the Americans decided to recruit and set up a reliable German unit for day X, the invasion of the Red Army. The unit was to be trained with American arms, equipped from arms caches, and designed to go under ground immediately in case of an attack.' Glahn related that 'the BDJ was but the cover, something like the official arm of an anti-Communist organisation. The unofficial arm Technischer Dienst, or "Organisation Peters", as it was also called after its leader, was the real combat core' and existed in numerous parts of Germany. 'The TD thus became an important part of the US-German anti-Soviet defence. The Americans were mainly interested in former members of the German army' including himself. 'As my anti-Communist attitudes were well known, I was recruited. Officially I now was leader of the BDJ in the city of Oldenburg/Ost- friesland. Unofficially I was the leader of the TD for the entire area Oldenburg 33 and Bremen-Ostfriesland [northern Germany].' |
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Glahn proudly related in his memoirs that the German 'FBI', the Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz (BfV), knew of the secret stay-behind armies and covered them. T worked very closely together.,. with Neubert of the BfV', Glahn recalled the anti-Communist battle which united them. At 'nights we regularly hung up posters, and covered the posters of the Communists... and exposed some Oldenburger businessmen, who collaborated with the Communists. In this there were often violent clashes.' It was at 'that time I founded many subgroups of the BDJ in my area' with support of the CIA who trained in Waldmichelbach and the US base Grafenwohr. T myself have taken part in such trainings several times. Members received a brownish US combat dress, were only allowed to communicate by first name, came from all over Germany, but were forbidden to tell the others where they lived. Practically we were completely isolated from the world there for four weeks.' Gladiators received 'extensive training for day X. At that time secret American arms caches were erected in all parts of Western Germany. In my area only my deputy and I knew the exact location of the arms cache... our cache was 34 well buried in a little forest.' |
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Not only the German stay-behind network, but also the German secret service ORG and its staff survived the 1952 discovery of parts of the German Gladio almost without a scratch due to the protection of the powerful CIA. General Reinhard Gehlen remained in charge and in 1956 the 'Organisation Gehlen' changed its label to 'Bundesnachrichtendienst' (BND). When CIA Director Allan Dulles was once asked whether he did not feel ashamed to cooperate with Nazi Gehlen the former replied: 'I don't know if he is a rascal. There are few arch- 35 German government, under Conservative chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger and Socialist vice-chancellor and Foreign Minister Willy Brandt, started to distrust its compromised secret service BND the latter was investigated in detail for the first time in its history. |
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The ensuing 'Mercker Report' allegedly was 'a horror document for the BND, which is kept under lock and key until today', the German press reported |
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still in 1995. 'Its shattering conclusion on the BND: " A corrupt organisa-
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36 was not even allowed to read the report. And the Germann Socialists who with Willy Brandt, for the first time after the war, had entered the government were so embarrassed by the top Nazi within the executive that upon receiving the Mercker report they sacked Gehlen after a remarkably long career of more than 20 years at the head of the German secret service on worker's day May 1, 1968. In order not to upset the While House Gehlen was replaced by Gerhard Wessel who had served as West Germany's military attache in Washington after 1945 and ever since cultivated close links with the CIA and the US national security establishment. |
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It is unknown whether the classified Mercker report also contained data on the stay-behind activities of the ORG and the BND, but evidence which surfaced during the 1990 Gladio investigations suggests that it does. The short report of the German government on the BND and its stay-behind of December 1990, claims that a legal basis for the German stay-behind had been created in December 1968, thus only a few months after the Mercker report had been completed: 'In December 1968 the Chief of the Chancellors Ministry had explicitly stated in article 16 of the "General Directives for the BND" that preparations for a defence situation shall be taken.' Presumably the government at the time had decided to continue to run the stay-behind but wanted to back the operation with a legal basis: 'That directive reads: "The BND carries out the necessary preparations and planning for the defence case, in general questions upon agreement with the chief 37 wondered in 1990 'how much anti-democratic secret organisations substance was also contained in the later stay-behinds of the German secret service, which were 38 discovered in October 1990?' |
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Whether the removal of Gehlen and the introduction of the new law reduced the dominant role of the CIA in the German stay-behind remains doubtful. Former German Gladio member Glahn in his book makes it a point that ultimately the CIA was in charge: 'I intentionally write of "secret services" in the plural, because we were later united with the secret service Organisation Gehlen on the orders of the Americans.' Glahn relates that although Gehlen was the key player in the German stay-behind, overall command rested with the US: 'This organisation had been named after its founder, General Gehlen... He set up an excellent secret service centre in Pullach close to Munich', Glahn relates and stressed that "The Technische Dienst TD was in constant contact with the residents of the Gehlen Organisation. The military task, however, for day X, remained firmly in the 39 blown in 1952 Gehlen and others had been offered an exile in the United States in order to protect them from further German investigations. 'I was offered to be flown to the United States, as other members of the TD, which were involved in a criminal trial. I have discussed this with my wife at length... but decided 40 that I did not want to be an emigre. My place was here in Germany.' |
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In May 1955 Germany became a member of NATO. Exactly like the other
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stay-behind secret armies the German network, through the secret service BND, was integrated into NATO's planning for secret unorthodox warfare. The official stay-behind report of the German government written by Lutz Stavenhagen in 1990 confirmed that in order 'to coordinate their planning with the military leader- ship of NATO, the intelligence services taking part in the operation established in 1952 the so called Coordinating and Planning Committee (CPC). In order to coordinate the cooperation among themselves they established in 1954 the so called Allied Coordination Committee (ACC).' The German government further- more confirmed that the 'BND has been a regular member of both CPC and ACC ever since 1959'. In an ill-advised attempt to limit the damage the governmental report however wrongly claimed that both 'coordination committees have never been, and are not now, parts of the NATO structure', while the Belgian parlia- mentary stay-behind investigation revealed that both ACC and CPC had been set up by NATO's SACEUR, at all times a US General, and were directly linked to NATO's SHAPE. The German governmental report meanwhile attempted to highlight the sovereignty of the German secret army and insisted that 'the fact that the BND has been a member of these units has not changed the fact that the stay-behind is no part of NATO and has remained the own organisation of the BND. There has not been, and there does not exist now, a subordinate rela- 41 tionship of the different intelligence services with respect to ACC and CPC.' |
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'Cooperation with partner services was carried out bilaterally as well as multilaterally under the coordination of ACC, the German governmental report explained on the international dimension of the secret stay-behind army. 'Partners in this cooperation are besides West Germany: Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Italy, Luxemburg, Norway and the United States of America.' The report related that this cooperation 'included for instance joint exercises, the acquiring of a standardised radio set [Harpoon transmitters], the exchange of training 42 experience, the standardisation of the intelligence terminology and other things'. Also due to the dominant presence of right-wing extremists, Stavenhagen was reluctant to give detailed figures as to how many Gladiators had operated in Germany during the Cold War: 'At the end of the 1950s, the organisation was made up of about 75 full-time members,' Stavenhagen said. "The number of intelligence contacts was as high as 500, at times. In 1983, stay-behind personnel were also being trained to carry out acts of sabotage in enemy occupied territory against the occupying power and to organise and lead resistance units.' |
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The German government according to the report was informed of the existence of the secret army 'in the years following 1974 (in the context of a presentation of the overall strategy of BND defence preparations). One can however assume that oral information on the basics of the Stay-Behind was passed on to the directive level already before.' As for the German legislative a branch of parliament, obliged to keep certain secrets, had been informed about the stay-behind in the 1980s when special funds were needed to buy new Harpoon communication equipment: 'In the context of a purchase of a new radio set the committee of |
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special trust (Vertrauensgermium) has been informed on its employment in the
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had been developed and produced on the orders of NATO's stay behind centre |
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ACC by the German firm AEG Telefunken, daughter concern to the Daimler holding. The German secret service BND had functioned as a go-between and had bought the Harpoon system from AEG Telefunken, as the ACC had to remain unknown and could not itself figure as the purchaser. The BND had ordered a total of 854 Harpoon transmitters for which they paid a total of 130 million German Mark. The BND itself only kept transmitters in the value of 20 million German Mark while selling the rest to other national stay-behind armies across Western Europe. Satisfying the highest technological standards at the time the Harpoon system was able to send and receive encrypted radio messages across 6,000km and thus connected the different stay-behinds among themselves and across the 45 Atlantic. |
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As Germany was a divided country during the Cold War the West German secret service BND, strongly dependent on the US CIA, and the East German secret service MfS (Ministerium fur Staatssicherheitsdient), short Stasi, strongly dependent on the Soviet KGB, were constantly engaged in secret battles, espionage affairs and the infiltration of spies on the other side of the Berlin Wall. The operations were eased by the fact that both the members of the Stasi and the BND as a rule were Germans, spoke fluent German, and shared a common culture. With a conviction based on experience both the CIA and the MI6 therefore nicknamed the 46 BND the 'leaky intelligence service'. 47 competitors in the field.' And the leading German news magazine Der |
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With respect to the stay-behind secrets the question therefore arises naturally how well the Stasi and hence Moscow were informed. The evidence available indicates that at least as of the late 1970s they were well-informed. A documented leak in the BND on stay-behind concerns the tragic biography of secretary Heidrun Hofer who worked in the Department IV of the BND in Munich which directed the German stay-behind. With access to highly classified documents Hofer saw NATO documents with the highest NATO security clearance 'cosmic'. What exactly she revealed to the Stasi and the KGB is still unclear. But it is confirmed that she passed on information on a top-secret German stay-behind command centre designed as an exile base for the government located outside Germany on the Atlantic, which, after having been revealed, had to be built elsewhere anew for 100 million German Mark. |
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Hofer passed on all her information unknowingly. A daughter of a conservative German officer she was directly targeted by the KGB who had sent a man to Argentina to make contacts with right-wing Germans, to make himself a reputa- tion and then came back to propose to Heidrun. Her lather liked Hans' for his right- wing background and assented. After the marriage Hans' confessed to Heidrun that he was working for a right-wing conservative organisation and stunned her |
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with his knowledge on the BND. Heidrun felt as part of a conspiracy and passed
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all available information to Hans. |
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Only slowly the BND counterintelligence became aware of the KGB mole. In December 1976 BND counterintelligence units ambushed their place after Hofer had worked unknowingly for the KGB for six years. Hans escaped through a back door while Heidrun was arrested, accused of high treason and informed that Hans was a KBG spy. The shock was immense for the conservative right-leaning woman. During the BND interrogation on the sixth floor in Munich she allegedly jumped out of the window in an attempt to kill herself. She survived severely handicapped and has lived on social welfare ever since. The case against her was 48 the BND during the Cold War was Joachim Krase, deputy chief of the BND, who died in 1988. Krase had been in Stasi's pay and, as the British press claimed, had 'passed on everything about Gladio and stay-behind. So much for the secret the 49 Russians knew all along.' |
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When after the fall of the Berlin Wall Germany was reunited the Stasi secret service was closed down while the BND extended its operations. Declassified original Stasi documents from the archives now confirm that the East German secret service had been well-informed about the stay-behind. During a NATO manoeuvre in 1979 the Stasi signals intelligence unit had detected a parallel network which they investigated in detail in the following years by cracking the code of the BND stay-behind agents and identifying more than 50 stay-behind locations in West Germany, spread across the country with a concentration along the border to East Germany and Czechoslovakia. General Major Horst Mannchen, the Director of the Stasi Department III and responsible for signals intelligence, informed the Ministers of the East German government in detail in 1984 on the stay-behind network of the BND. 'On the basis of analysis of secret radio signals of the BND that we were able to decode... we have gathered reliable details on a special category of BND agents.' The report of Mannchen, dated August 3, 1984, went on to explain that theses special BND agents, that the Stasi referred to as 'roll over agents' (Ueberrollagenten), are preparing for a military invasion of the Warsaw Pact forces and are trained to carry out subversive operations in the rear of the enemy. These secret agents, Mannchen highlighted, 'represent a serious danger for successful operations of the Warsaw Pact forces' and should therefore be identified as soon as possible in 50 order to be immediately neutralised 'in case of military conflict' . |
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In another report dated November 6, 1984 Mannchen correctly pointed out that within the BND 'these special agents are referred to as "stay-behind"', and that their creation seems to go back to NATO planning for a first-strike invasion of Warsaw Pact forces. Mannchen related that also women were part of the stay-behind network, and that an entire set of secret radio signals sent from BND headquarters to the stay-behind agents had been decoded by the Stasi. 'These agents are male and female citizens of West Germany, they live on the territory of West Germany, many along the border to East Germany and Czechoslovakia. They know their |
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area of operations well and operate alone or in group of three to four and carry
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outassignmentswithin40kilometersoftheirhome.From what we know by now |
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16 to 20 agent u n i t s communicate regularly wit h the BND. The total number of |
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these agents according to sources from within the BND is estimated at 80.' |
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Mannchen concluded that these special agents of the BND were 'dangerous' and 51 that the Stasi should try to identify as many as possible. |
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In a subsequent report the S t a s i concluded that the data gathered 'clearly indicated that the BND placed great importance in the training and readiness of these special agents'. Radio signals intercepted by the Stasi also indicated that the German stay-behind was well-connected, and that it communicated with 'NATO secret services' in Sardinia (Italy), in Huy (Belgium) and in Lille and Grenoble 52 (France). 53 communication equipment was being used by the special agents. 3 seconds, made it more difficult for the Stasi to locate the BND stay-behind 54 agents. By closely monitoring the stay-behind radio signals of the BND the A very detailed |
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When the secret German network was discovered in 1990 the press focused on the hardware traces of the secret network and questioned the German government whether there existed secret Gladio arms caches in Germany. 'For the support of resistance units in occupied territory allied secret services had erected secret arms caches in the early phase of the stay-behind organisation. These contained among other things spare parts for communication equipment, medicaments, gold and jewellery for black market transactions, and a few pistols', the German government confirmed the well-known pattern also for Germany but surprisingly thereafter misleadingly went on to claim that 'these arms caches were dissolved by the stay-behind unit of the BND before 1972. The pistols were destroyed. Today's equipment and training of the intelligence connections is strictly limited to the intelligence-gathering mission and the evacuation mission. The equipment 55 includes a special radio set, but no arms, nor explosives.' |
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German journalists suspected that government spokesman Lutz Stavenhagen had been misleading the press by suggesting that in 1972 all arms caches had been dissolved, for it was well known that still in the early 1980s mysterious arms caches had been discovered in Germany. The most prominent discovery had taken place on October 26, 1981 when forest workers by chance had stumbled across a large arms cache in the soil, filled with guns and other combat equip- ment, near the German village of Uelzen in the Luneburger Heide area. Following the sensational discovery forest ranger and right-wing extremist Heinz Lembke was arrested. He later guided the police to a massive connected arsenal of 33 underground arms caches. 'These discovered arms caches were immediately attributed to right wing extremist Lembke', an anonymous but well informed article on Gladio from the Austrian Defence Ministry commented in 1991. 'Yet this brilliant |
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solution featured one flaw. The arms caches contained next to automatic weapons,
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chemical combat equipment [Arsen and Zyankahi] and about 14,000 shots of munitions, also 50 and tank guns, 156kg of explosives, as well as 230 explosive devices and 258 hand grenades. It is remarkable, that a stale with extensive security measures against terrorists should not have noted a robbery or deviation of such 56 a large amount of combat equipment.' |
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US journalist Jonathan Kwitny in his article on 'The CIA's Secret Armies in Europe' elaborated on the Austrian Gladio article and concluded 'that Germany's stay-behind program may have suffered a second scandal, similar to the one in 1952, but one that never became public.' For the arms caches discovered in 1981 had been 'traced to the military training of a youth group run by neo-Nazi Heinz Lembke, who was arrested. At the time Lembke was portrayed as a crazed extremist training troops secretly in the forest.' Yet Kwitny noted that he was not the only one to link the Lembke arsenal to the BND stay-behind, for also the Austrain Gladio publication had discredited the claim that Lembke was only a crazed and isolated extremist. 'The editor of the Austrian Defense Ministry publication, retired General Franz Freistaetter, says he personally oversaw the article suggesting Lembke was using stay-behind caches to train his neo-Nazi troops, and believes 57 it, though its author insisted on anonymity.' |
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Both the Kwitny article on and the Austrian article on Gladio seem correct to sug- gest that the Lembke arms caches were part of the German stay-behind. Among the documents secured in 1952, when the BDJ-TD stay-behind was discov- ered, was also a BDJ-TD directive for day X, invasion day. It specified that the Lunenburger Heide was to be the northern German stay-behind meeting point should the invasion come: 'Area leaders were instructed to find out where trucks in large numbers are stationed. In case of X these trucks must be confiscated immediately, if necessary using violence, by members, who then must drive them to the specified BDJ meeting points in the villages and cities', the BDJ-TD directive read. 'From there the trucks shall transport the members to the northern German 58 meeting point in the Luneburger Heide.' |
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The discovery of the Lembke arms caches in October 1981 was a scandal in its own right in Germany. But the affair became even more sensitive when sources suggested that the arsenals had not simply lain dormant for the distant day of a Soviet invasion but that Lembke might have used the arsenal to supply fellow right-wingers who, one year before the discovery of the arms caches, had used the deadly weapons for a terrorist bomb attack in Munich in 1980. This far-reaching claim was raised by German journalist Harbart who believes that Gladio was 'a sword in the hand of right wingers' and relates that 'traces from the Munich October massacre lead to the forest ranger Lembke of Niedersachsen'. Harbart is convinced that the bombs and the strategy of tension were not limited 59 to Italy but reached also into the heart of Germany. |
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The Munich bomb massacre is the largest terrorist bomb massacre in Germany's post-war history. At twenty past ten in the evening of September 26, 1980 a bomb exploded in the midst of the popular Munich October beer fest. Like every |
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year, thousands of people had gathered for what to many were the nicest three
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days of the year. The bomb left a bloody trail, killing 13 and wounding 213, many gravely. Germany and the city of Munich were shocked. The police investigation revealed that German right-wing extremists had carried out the |
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atrocity. The bomb trail lead to neo-Nazi groups, among which was the 'Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann'. Gundolf Kohler, a 21-year-old right-wing member of the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann, according to the police investigation, had planted the Munich bomb. Experts explained that the bomb, which consisted of a specially prepared hand grenade placed in a fire extinguisher, had been constructed with remarkable expertise, and doubts were raised whether Kohler could have constructed such a complex bomb himself. Kohler could not be questioned for he was himself torn apart by the bomb and was one of the 13 victims. |
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Ignaz Platzer, who was at the festival on the fateful day and lost his two children in the Munich massacre, in a 1996 interview told the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the background of the right-wing network responsible for the terror had never been investigated. 'You have been asking for a reopening of the inves- tigations for years now. Do you not believe that Gundolf Kohler was the actor?', the journalist asked Platzer. 'No, too many signs speak against this. Why should somebody who plans such an act a passport, through which he can immediately be identified? At least he was certainly not alone', the father of the victims replied. T have fought for a long time to know who really was or were the people behind it. Yet I had to learn that I would never be given an honest answer to this question.' Upon which the journalist enquired: 'You have stopped to ask for clarification?' Whereupon Platzer concluded: T have started to learn that you 60 only get into trouble if you insist.' |
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Some of the troubles might have derived from the fact that the Munich massacre lead police to the Lembke arms caches which led to the German stay-behind army which led to the world's largest military alliance NATO and the world's superpower United States. Even if the US, NATO and the BND had nothing to do with the Munich terror, the discovery of a secret army linked to right-wing extremists would have raised very serious questions. For example, how well were the secret soldiers and their arms arsenals controlled by Germany's democratic institutions? |
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Already one day after the massacre the German criminal police investigating the crime had received information that Lembke had supplied the right-wing extremists. 'Mister Lembke showed us different sorts of explosives, detonators, slow matches, plastic explosive and military explosive', right-winger Raymund Hornle, a member of the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann, revealed to the police during the interrogation. 'He said that he had many caches full of such material buried in the wood, and that he could provide a lot of them... Mister Lembke told us, that he was 61 the German Gladiators Lembke, according to the police protocols, thus supported German right-wing terrorists. 'I have heard from Helmuth Meyer that explosives can be gotten from Mister Lembke', right-wing extremist Sibylle Vorderbrugge |
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also testified after the massacre. 'Lembke showed us different explosives...He
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62 told us, that he had several arms caches in the wood.' Despite these testimonies the police did not search and dig up the secret arms caches of Lembke so that another year went by until forest workers stumbled across the secret Gladio arms arsenal by coincidence and their existence could no longer be denied. Yet again the crucial link between the massacre and the stay- behind arms cache was not pursued. This despite the fact that on November 25, 1981 Mrs Dr Daubler-Gmelin of the German Socialist party had raised the right question in the national German parliament, the Bundestag, when she asked the government: 'Could you tell us now whether after the discovery of the arms caches and the arrest of Mister Lembke a new understanding of the... Munich massacre has arisen?' The question was good, but the answer was poor. For the govern- 63 ment State Secretary von Schoeler answered: 'There is no connection.' |
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This governmental explanation covered up the Gladio connection as the existence of the stay-behind army had to remain secret. It also contradicted the testimonies from right-wingers given to the German police. Immediately after the discovery of the secret arms caches on October 26, 1981 the German police stormed Lembke's house and secured an empty G3 gun magazine and a roll of slow matches for a bomb. Yet right-wing extremist Lembke himself seemed untouchable and was not arrested. Born in 1937 in Stralsund in Eastern Germany Lembke had experienced the so-called Socialism of the DDR first-hand and, aged 22, had fled to West Germany where he had joined right-wing circles and gained notoriety. He became the leader of the right-wing 'Bund Vaterlandischer Jugend' (BVJ, Alliance of Patriotic Youth), where as chief ideologist he composed fascist slogans 64 such as: 'A fellow, worth to be hanged, is a German who thinks like a Jew.' Similar to the BDJ, which was outlawed in 1952, the BDV right-wing alliance was prohibited in 1962. But Lembke did not abandon the right-wing track. In 1968 he attempted to enter the federal parliament of the German county Niedersachsen as a candidate for the right-wing NPD party. But failed to become a politician and thereafter engaged in violent battles against German anti-Fascist activists. For this he was prosecuted until a higher court mysteriously declared him 'not guilty'. |
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It was only several weeks after the discovery of the arms caches that Lembke was arrested and jailed. But for a different reason. He was accused of having unlawfully refused to testify in the case against his friend and fellow right-wing leader Manfred Roeder of the terrorist group 'Deutsche Aktionsgruppen'. In prison Lembke suddenly changed his mind and declared that he was going to testify, both on the Roeder case, and the arms caches, and many other things he knew. Lembke insisted that he was willing to speak only to the public prosecutor who without success had interrogated him in the Roeder case. The request was granted and the prosecutor immediately travelled to Lembke's prison cell. There Lembke finally talked, revealing in detail all the 33 arms caches of which until then only some had been found. That evening Lembke said to his interrogator that he might reveal to him the next day who was supposed to use the guns and explosives. The |
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next day, November 1, 1981, Lembke was found hanging on a rope from the ceil-
ing of his prison cell.
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The Lembke case thereafter was taken away from the local investigators in
Niedersachsen and transferred to the national crime investigators in Bonn. This
legally astonishing manoeuvre lead Interior Minister of Niedersachsen Mocklinghoff
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to speak of a 'criminal trick'. Then, a year later, on December 3, 1982 Bonn closed
the Lembke case with no clear findings as to the connection between the secret arsenals and the Munich massacre deciding that Lembke was 'a private case'. The investigators claimed in their final report that 'there are not sufficient indications to suggest that Lembke wanted to disrupt the constitutional order of the German Republic through bomb attacks or assassinations'. The final report went only as far as to admit that Lembke had most probably feared an invasion from the East against which he wanted to conduct 'partisan warfare' and concluded 'that the found combat gear has been collected and buried by him over years in order to be able to
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carry out resistance operations in the case of an invasion, which he feared'.
In what many regarded as an astonishing conclusion the court found 'that there
has not originated from Lembke's activity such a large danger, as has initially
been feared. For his efforts had not been directed against the present order of the
country.' At the same time the court seems to have understood the stay-behind
strategy when it declared that Lembke had lead a 'Werwolf operation. For
this was a reference to the stay-behind networks of the Nazis called 'Werwolf
which the latter had left behind in numerous countries with secret arms caches
when retreating at the end of the Second World War. Mythological figure within
German literature the Werwolf designates a human being which over night
enigmatically turns into a deadly wolf, attacking and killing other people as the
new day breaks. The court found that 'More to the point, the forest ranger had
undertaken some preparations for the case of a Communist raise to power, so that
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then a "Werwolf" could become active.' As Lembke himself was dead he could
not comment on these findings. A number of right-wing friends of Lembke received modest fines. And of the entire massive arms cache only the origin of three weapons could be clarified. A private firm that produced weapons for the German Army and NATO had provided them.
Due to the confirmed links to right-wing extremists and suspected links to the Munich massacre Germany has had great difficulties when it came to investigating and clarifying its stay-behind history. Green parliamentarian Manfred Such on November 5, 1990 following the discoveries of the secret armies across Europe had issued a formal request to the German government of Helmut Kohl concerning the suspected existence of Gladio structures in Germany. German government spokesman Hans Klein to the amusement and bewilderment of both parliamentarians and journalists thereafter explained that 'the German Gladio was not, as has been claimed, a secret commando troop or a guerrilla unit', that however he could not
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discuss details for reasons of strict secrecy. Klein's statements caused an
outcry among opposition Social Democrats and Given politicians. Parliamentarian Hermann Scheer, defence expert of the SPD, criticised that this mysterious
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right-wing network might well be some sort of a 'Ku-Klux-Klan', designed more
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for peacetime actions against the democracy than for an unlikely Soviet invasion. In order to find out the facts, Scheer asked for an immediate and thorough juridical inquiry on the highest level into NATO's shadow army by the German public prosecutor 'because the existence of an armed military secret organisation outside all governmental or parliamentary control, is incompatible with the constitu- 70 tional legality, and therefore must be prosecuted according to the criminal law'. Scheer stressed that the investigation had to be started soon 'in order to avoid that 71 a cover up destroys the traces'. |
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The call for a full-fledged Gladio investigation suddenly evaporated among the German Socialists when it was revealed that their Ministers while in office had also been part of the conspiracy. As the German Socialists, in view of the upcoming elections, for tactical reasons shied away from further stay-behind investigations only the German Green Party, founded in 1980, continued to ask for a sound investi- gation and clarification because the Green party was not compromised as it had never held governmental responsibilities. The request of the Green party to dis- cuss the stay-behind affair and its suspected links to terrorism and right-wing extremists openly in parliament was however defeated by the Conservative and Socialists alliance of CDU/CSU, FDP and SPD who feared for a massive scandal and moved the debate to a session held behind closed doors in the secrecy- bound Parliamentary Control Commission (Parlamentarische Kontrollkommission PKK) on November 22, 1990. There Volker Foertsch, the last stay-behind Direc- tor of the BND, informed the parliamentarians that the secret unit would be closed down. The Green party had no parliamentarians in this important commission and lamented that the PKK, which oversees the German secret service BND, was 72 ists attempted to gain more information from Eberhard Blum, Gehlen's personal assistant and Director of the BND from 1983 to 1985, the latter declared: 73 'Gladio? Something like that has never existed in Germany.' |
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Unwilling to concede defeat the German Green party on November 29 placed a formal request with the government. 'At the end of October 1990 the now acting Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti confirmed in a report to parliament the existence of a secret NATO service, code-named Gladio', the request began and then specifically asked: 'Has such a NATO-linked supranational secret service organisation also become active in Germany?' Dr Lutz Stavenhagen, Minister in the government of Helmut Kohl with responsibilities for the secret service BND, answered this question with a short and flat lie: 'No.' Furthermore the Green parliamentarians wanted to know: 'What exact agreements with which exact content has the German government signed when it joined NATO, or later, which would allow for the activities of such organisations?' Stavenhagen sticked to his line and claimed: 'The German government has made no such agreements.' The parliamentarians inquired: 'In what exact relationship with NATO stood or stands this secret service, which was active in Germany and/or other NATO countries?' to which Stavenhagen answered: 'Due to the answer to question one, this question is |
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redundant ' Finally the Green Party asked: 'Is the government willing, to inform on
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its own initiative the questioners in more detail, as soon as for Germany relevant information becomes available in this context. And in case the government is not prepared to do so, why not?' to which Stavenhagen replied: 'This question can only be answered, when such documents become available. For the answer depends on 74 the conditions under which such documents may be accessed.' 'The Green parliamentarians were furious but could do nothing. The government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), in office ever since 1982, had decided to offer a set of lies in order not to endanger its position in the first national elections in united Germany which were held on December 2, 1990 and led to a victory for Kohl. Thereafter, on Monday December 3, 1990 Lutz Stavenhagen hurriedly sent out a fax of four pages on the German stay-behind to the media entitled: 'Report of the Government on the Stay-Behind Organisation of the BND' in which, contrary to his earlier statements, he confirmed that a secret NATO-linked stay-behind had also existed in Germany: 'The units which had been built up by allied secret services on German territory until 1955 for intelligence gathering and evacuation operation were taken over in 1956 by the BND.' The government furthermore confirmed that the secret army was still active: 'At the moment 104 persons work together with the BND in the context of stay-behind', while stressing that on November 22 the parliamentary control commission charged with the oversight of the BND had been informed of the relevant details. The report concluded: 'Following the global changes the BND has looked at dissolving the Stay-Behind organisation already in the Summer of 1990. After agreements with the allied partners the dismantling will have been 75 carried out by April 1991.' |
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While the BND assured the public that the secret army had been closed down and that there existed no secret arms caches in the country the topic resurfaced on August 17, 1995. On that day Peter Naumann, a 43-year-old neo-Nazi, trained chemist and expert at building bombs, guided the surprised police in front of recording cameras to a total of 13 arms caches which he had, according to his own testimony, erected in Niedersachsen and Hesse during the last 17 years. The arsenals contained arms, munitions and around 200 kg of explosives. Interestingly enough Naumann was a friend of Lembke and confirmed to the police that most 76 of his weapons and explosives had been taken over from Lembke's arms cache. |
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It is surprising that despite the confirmed presence of right-wing terrorists in its ranks and the suspected links to acts of right-wing terrorism there was no parliamentary investigation of the German secret army, let alone a detailed public report. 'As for democratic transparency, Germany for the moment classified last in Europe', German investigative journalist Leo Muller concluded in a short and early 77 story in Germany like Ulrich Stoll of the ZDF national television chain in Berlin believe that the affair is far from over. When in late 2002 Stoll received declassified Stasi reports on the stay-behind he concluded 'the Gladio research can go on'. |
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16
THE SECRET WAR IN GREECE
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