Project Deep Water

Gehlen, the Nazi, and the CIA

General Gehlen had been the Nazi head of intelligence in the Soviet Union. In May 1945, he surrendered, along with his archives, to the U.S. He was presented to Major-General Luther Sibert, head of intelligence for General Bradley's armies. At Sibert's request, Gehlen  the Nazi wrote a 129-page report. Thereafter, Gehlen  'developed his great scheme of a secret organisation engaged on intelligence work against the Soviet Union under American aegis.'

Ibid. , p. 122.

Gehlen was introduced to the highest U.S. military authorities and, when Soviet representatives asked about the whereabouts of Gehlen  and Schellenberg,  two war criminals who should have been returned to them, the U.S. replied that they had no news of them. On August 22, 1945, they clandestinely brought Gehlen  to the U.S.

Ibid. , p. 125.

Gehlen  the Nazi `negotiated' with the leaders of U.S. intelligence, including Allen Dulles,  and they came up with an 'agreeement': Gehlen's  spy organization would continue to serve in the Soviet Union, autonomously, and `Liaison with American Intelligence would be maintained by US officers'. Furthermore, the 'Gehlen  Organisation would be used solely to procure intelligence on the Soviet Union and satellite countries of the communist bloc.'

Ibid. , p. 135.

On July 9, 1946, Gehlen  was back in Germany to reactivate his Nazi spy service, under U.S. leadership. He hired dozens of upper Gestapo and SS officers, to whom he furnished false identities.

Ibid. , pp. 144--145.

John Loftus,  former U.S. intelligence officer responsible for the tracking down of former Nazis at the end of the war, noted that thousands of Ukrainian, Croatian and Hungarian fascists were snuck into the U.S. by a 'rival' intelligence service. Loftus  writes:

'According to one estimate, some 10,000 Nazi war criminals entered the United States after World War II.'

Mark Aarons  and John Loftus,  Ratlines: How the Vatican's Nazi networks betrayed Western intelligence to the Soviets (London: Heinemann, 1991), pp. 269--270.


Right from 1947, when the U.S. started up the Cold War, these 'former' Nazis played an important role in the anti-Communist propaganda. So we can correctly claim that U.S. imperialism was the direct continuation of Nazi expansionism.

Cookridge, E. H.  Gehlen, Spy of the Century. 1971 Random House: New York, NY