Talk:Reinhard Gehlen

I claim no expertise

but this assertion that "Operation Sunrise" successfully infiltrated some 5,000 anti-communists of Eastern European and Russian ancestry sounds a little suspect. 5,000 where? when? I had thought that most western intelligence operations in the early years were rolled up--although I get most of my information from John LeCarre novels, which I do not claim to be authoritative. --Italo Svevo 02:19, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My understanding, too, based on some limited reading on intelligence in the period; most of the Czechs (Ukranians?) were immediately rolled up, because the op had been compromised before it went in. The number seems a bit hi, but N excessive; most of the effort in that period seems to've been SOE-type guerrilla infils, aim to overthrow Com puppets, N intel ops as we understand them today. Trekphiler 14:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

New information released over the past several years

Do a search in the U.S. National Archives & Records Administration on 'Reinhard Gehlen' where you will find a wealth of information: http://www.archives.gov/

Other ops

Gehlen is credited with Op Flamingo, letting Sov commissar named Minishki escape; he ended up on Stalin's staff as a hi-placed spy. This may have inspired Tom Clancy's Cardinal (Cardinal of the Kremlin) & may've led to the persistent myth the Germans fed the Sovs a dummy about senior officers, leading to the Great Purge. Trekphiler 15:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Gehlen org

it is possible to beef up the GEHLEN org section, new documents have been released. Fluffy999 01:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Changed the introductory paragraph to this section, as it barely reflects what the declassified material from the CIA has on the org.. The Guardian article clearly shows, citing historians who have reviewed these documents, that the org. was anything but effective, and in fact was little more than an attempt at covering the nasty past of many of its members, by taking advantage of American ignorance of the Soviet Union. Lavidia (talk) 02:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

"The Guardian article clearly shows" -- the Guardian is an ultra-left-wing and anti-American publication, and hardly a credible source.Solicitr (talk) 15:32, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Nazis in the CIA

I'm re-adding a link to the article Nazis in the CIA under "see also". Please do not delete the link again without stating why, as it is very relevant to those wishing to find out more about this controversial yet historically relevant topic. Perhaps it could be added as a category if such a category existed but it doesn't, so the "see also" link shall suffice. Roidroid 06:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Nazi?

"... a Nazi Major General..." Was he a member of the Nazi party? The German page simply describes him as a member of the Wehrmacht. Cavort 00:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

No, he wasn't. I'll remove this inadequte term.--217.85.122.141 17:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

He also wasn't a member of the SS, so the link to "SS members employed by CIA" is kind of detracting. --217.85.122.141 17:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Precision/Accuracy never have been a mark of those trying to demonize the Germans, but I've seen worse articles. --41.150.77.166 (talk) 15:02, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

YES Reinhard Gehelen was in fact a Nazi: here is a link to the National Security Archive document which proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt- https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/ And here at https://ips-dc.org/the_cias_worst-kept_secret_newly_declassified_files_confirm_united_states_collaboration_with_nazis/

Gehlen lied to the CIA that he was never a Nazi to avoid being sent off to Russia in 1945 for well-deserved punishment for his war crimes on the Eastern Front. He was best buddies with many of the worst Nazis:

'Although the Yalta Treaty stipulated that the United States must give the Soviets all captured German officers who had been involved in “eastern area activities,” Gehlen was quickly spirited off to Fort Hunt in Virginia. The image he projected during 10 months of negotiations at Fort Hunt was, to use a bit of espionage parlance, a “legend”–one that hinged on Gehlen’s false claim that he was never really a Nazi, but was dedicated, above all, to fighting Communism. Those who bit the bait included future CIA director Allen Dulles, who became Gehlen’s biggest supporter among American policy wonks.' source: https://ips-dc.org/the_cias_worst-kept_secret_newly_declassified_files_confirm_united_states_collaboration_with_nazis/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.30.78.44 (talk) 12:51, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Odessa

Can anybody give any solid sources on the (pretty wild, IMO) claim that Gehlen founded/ran ODESSA ? If not I'd suggest removing the claim from the article. Wefa 05:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Knights of Malta

I don't think the Knights of Malta membership is correctly categorized under "honors". The Knights of Malta are a religious, chartiable and hospitaller organization (and a sovereign entity of international law) independent of both state and church, and not a kind of honor degree granted by another entity. Wefa 18:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

But membership in the small and exclusive OSJM is by invitation only, and invitations are only extended to persons who have distinguished themselves greatly. It's not like the Knights of Columbus. Solicitr (talk) 15:35, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

How could Gehlen be a Knight of Malta? He was not a Catholic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sjam2004 (talk • contribs) 16:46, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Please take a look...

As I was reading this article I noticed this paragraph: "In 1939 Gehlen was promoted to Major. For the 1939 German attack of Poland he was the first general staff officer of an infantry division.[1] In 1940, Gehlen was promoted to Major and he became..."

I think that someone has to make the appropriate correction on this controversy. Thanks in advance, --Ttzavaras (talk) 23:08, 28 June 2008 (UTC) (Hellenic Wikipedia)

They haven't. I just went on to this page to comment about the same thing, and someone else has another section on this page also pointing this out —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.219.118.200 (talk) 14:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Promoted to Major twice??

the article said h was promoted tomajor in 1939 and 1940, what one is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.17.18 (talk) 03:35, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Gehlen Organization training MOSSAD in 1951?

I am listening to a talk show where this connection is being asserted. Does anyone know if there are reliable sources that attest to this? __meco (talk) 11:44, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Controversial claim / reference

I don't know if the following can be considered reliable, for a few reasons. First of all, this is cited from the subject of the article itself (Reinhard Gehlen). It's from Gehlen's memoirs, which were written after the fact, at which point he was working for the other side, the Americans, in intelligence. If there was any situation or person who would lie, this would be it--Gehlen was involved in Operation Paperclip, related to falsifying histories of Nazis so they could work for the United States (see Operation Paperclip). He would obviously have a vested interest in appearing as if he was associated with anti-Nazi/Hitler movements. Furthermore, Gehlen has no mention in the July 20th bomb plot article itself (his biography here does indeed say his involvement was minor, but it seems this is a good weasel-word/technique to make the claim unfalsifiable, along with the fact that his involvement was apparently so well covered-up even Hitler with his wrath didn't figure it out). Finally, if you want to completely blow this one out of the water, read the article on David Irving, the translator of the article in question, who has been declared by English courts as a historian who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence," especially with respect to Nazi Germany. Maybe a more experienced editor would thus "be bold" and remove this from the article? 66.183.69.201 (talk) 23:12, 26 June 2009 (UTC) Wrong! Hans Gehlen VonBischel. 5/28/2012

In 1942, he was approached by Colonel Henning von Tresckow, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and General Adolf Heusinger to participate in an assassination attempt on German dictator Adolf Hitler. His role was minor. When the plot culminated in the failed bomb plot of July 20, 1944, Gehlen's role was covered up and he escaped Hitler's brutal retaliation against the conspirators.

This is cited from:

Gehlen, Reinhard; trans. David Irving (1971). The Service — The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen. New York: World Publishing. pp. 97–99.

As an interesting addition, I just thought of checking the German article for Gehlen. This "incident" isn't mentioned there, even though the article is more thorough, calling it even further into question. Any comments? 66.183.69.201 (talk) 22:17, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

From what I’ve read, Gehlens book (his memoirs) is a fairly respected work. Like any memoir concerning intelligence work much has to be omitted, but the book is a treasure trove of information and a great exposition of Gehlen’s thoughts and analyses of contemporary issues. Irving’s translation from the German is masterful regardless of Irving’s nutty ideas on holocaust denials and Hitler’s innocence in the matter of the widespread murder of Jews. No one has suggested Irving’s translation is deceitful or has inaccurately translated the manuscript to reflect Irving’s views. The English book is Gehlen’s work. Irving is discredited because of his virulent anti-semitism, but his scholarly astuteness, his comprehensive research and incomparable writing style are undeniable. At least one of his books, “The Mare’s Nest,” a history of the development of the German V1 and V2 rockets, is still considered the definitive work on the subject. I feel Gehlen’s memories should be sourced more for this article.98.162.136.248 (talk) 17:02, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

RfC

Because there is no activity on this talk page with respect to the above controversial claim (which I believe should be removed from the article for the time being, as its reference is extremely dubious, and I can find no reference to his involvement even in the German language Wikipedia), I am requesting comment from some more experienced editors. My initial concern can be seen above under "Controversial claim / reference." 66.183.69.201 (talk) 21:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

• Disagree Let it stand. I've edited it to make it clear that the claim comes from a memoir. There is no proof that the translation by Irving is inaccurate. If you can provide proof the translation is wrong, we can take it further. ► RATEL ◄ 16:30, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

• ^^ wow, I didn't know that wikipedia standards for historical content included "prove it wrong". Some of us could use a little perspective. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnW_vO0VeI0&feature=related (ResearchALLwars (talk) 05:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC))

We don't assume that there is a blatant forgery by the translator unless someone has alleged that. It should be comme il faut to refer to Gehlen's own account as long as we state that it comes from his memoirs. __meco (talk) 14:09, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

WIKIPEDIA FUNNY CONNECTIONS TO CONTROVERSY WITHOUT INTEGRITY

1. Where is the references for the unsupported claims "Reinhard Gehlen exposed a number of Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officers who were secret members of the U.S. Communist Party."? 2. Where the Central Intelligence Agency fictitiously produced many of the documented references produced here and elsewhere as if they were facts (eg. CIA funding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and the Post WWI political parties of Europe.

What shallow basis of fact can the deluded editors of these articles in Wikipedia have when they themselves are influences overtly and covertly by German government funding, the CIA, corporations, governments and less than objective volunteers? If Jackson Pollock in his abstract Expressionism manipulated by the Central Intelligence Agency without him knowing it how is it that Wikipedia can claim non-partisan lack of bias? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.72.251.178 (talk) 00:37, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Possible Reference

"Conspiracy? The CIA and the Nazis" produced by Towers Productions, Inc. for the History Channel, copyright 2004 A&E Television Networks might serve as a possible reference for those seeking to expand this article. Official site. Youtube. Squideshi (talk) 20:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Forced out? really?

Reinhard Gehlen was President of the BND until 1968. In this year, he was 66 years old. By coincidence, he was a German state-official. German state-officials had at the time, and without going into details more or less have still, a mandatory retirement age of 65. Forced out? Really?--93.133.222.245 (talk) 01:04, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Do we need this sentence?

Please explain what this sentence means: "Gehlen is considered one of the most legendary Cold War spymasters.". Because: I would contend that it is utter childish BS, it means zilch, and as such we can do without it. Anyone against? Maelli (talk) 12:17, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Recently declassified NSA documents

It looks like there was a move to de-classify US gov't documents regarding the Gehlen org:

http://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm

Maybe someone can use this?

Kortoso (talk) 16:11, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Names

My attention was drawn via AN/I to back-and-forth reverting by Chas. Caltrop and Just plain Bill concerning whether Gehlen's full name should be given again at the start of the article body: example 1 example 2. Here's the discussion section for that.

In my view Chas. Caltrop has wrongly over-generalized a convention usually used in biographies of women: since women often marry and change their names by the time they become notable, we usually start the body of the article giving the childhood name: Jane Doe bolded at the start of the lead, "Jane Roe was born ..." at the start of the first body paragraph. Where the name has always been the same, or is sufficiently explained by giving a nickname or professional name at the start of the lead in addition to the legal name, there's no need to repeat the full name at the start of the body, and indeed doing so breaks the flow of the article for those readers who read beyond the lead.

However, looking at the article as a whole, I see several uses of Gehlen's full name later on, and numerous uses of abbreviations of his (and others') military ranks before their names. Per MOS, we don't use honorifics or other titles before names, so in my view for stylistic reasons all or most of that should be chopped, in addition to all the later uses of "Reinhard" before "Gehlen". Yngvadottir (talk) 19:09, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

After the backing and forthing, I looked over the rest of the article... I agree that there are too many instances of "Reinhard" in the body of the article, as well as honorific titles. I will now start chopping. Thanks, Just plain Bill (talk) 19:16, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

We may edit conflict; I couldn't resist. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:24, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I was part way through a semi-auto find and replace when I noticed that. I will wait a while and see if any fragments remain to be tidied up. Thanks! Just plain Bill (talk) 19:34, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

OK, I think I'm done. The sourcing could also be improved, and I noted at least one source referred to at full length more than once where author and page or even a named ref. could presumably be used, but I focused on the text. I found a lot of American spelling, although the dates and the preponderance of spellings indicate the article is supposed to be in UK English. (It is possible Oxford spellings were intended.) I tried to correct this to standard British. There was an overuse of idiosyncratic hyphens and a lot of "In the event" - both of those may stem from British, but I reduced both. The overall tone was a bit florid, verging on hagiography with the heavy use of "spymaster"; this may come from the sources used, but I have attempted to tone it down, hence the cutting. The use of rank abbrevs. before names and the repetition of his full name appear to have been part of that stylistic approach. So anyway, that's what I was looking at and working to change. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:06, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

@Luizpuodzius:

Gostarias de traduzir este artigo? att 2804:14C:5BB3:A319:F422:75B0:7351:E9B5 (talk) 13:35, 2 September 2020 (UTC)