The government of each country, in order to preserve its integrity and control relative security, sooner or later faces the need to create its own intelligence and counterintelligence. And although films and television present these organizations to us in a romanticized form, in fact their work is not so noticeable and more prosaic, which does not make it less important. Let's learn about the features of modern German intelligence, and also look at what this structure looked like in the past.

A little about the country of Heine and Goethe

Today, this European state ranks fourth in terms of living standards in the world, and it is hard to believe that in the first half of the twentieth century. it lay in ruins twice.

Germany is a parliamentary republic headed by the Federal Chancellor.

The capital is Berlin, the official currency is the euro, and the language is German.

More than 80 million people live here, but every year thousands of people from all over the world, by hook or by crook, seek to move here.

In order to ensure the safety of all of them, as well as to maintain a high standard of living in the state, the government annually spends about half a billion euros on the maintenance of intelligence and counterintelligence in Germany. Why is this taxpayer spy organization so expensive?

Federal Intelligence Service

To better understand why the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) - BND (namely, the modern official name for intelligence in Germany) is so high - it is worth knowing a little about its resources.

At the moment, only according to official data, the staff consists of 7,000 people. In addition to the headquarters in Germany, the BND has 300 branches around the world. And these are only officially registered, and how many more secret spy shelters this organization has to maintain.

In order to stay "in line", German intelligence has to constantly monitor the situation in the world, which requires not only human resources, but also technological ones. In particular, powerful computers, satellites, special spy devices, etc. And given how quickly this area is developing today, in order to keep up, the Germans come to regularly update equipment or even invent new ones, and this is not cheap.

In addition, in order to prevent various chemical and biological attacks, the BND must have a staff of relevant specialists, and the equipment for them and themselves is also a very expensive pleasure. So a budget equal to the cost of three Marvel films is not as big as it turns out.

Timeline of the existence of German intelligence services

As you can see, espionage is a very troublesome and expensive business. However, the Germans always put it well.

The great-grandfather of modern German intelligence (as it is called in the previous paragraph) was the Abwehr. It existed from 1919 to 1944.

After the victory of the Allies, the Germans did not have any espionage service for almost 2 years, and only from 1946 it began to function again. The former Hitlerite Major General Reinhard Gehlen became its head, by the way, the educated institution was named after him - the Gehlen Organization. In this form, it lasted until 1956.

Since April, the "OG" was transformed into the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), which has been successfully functioning to this day.

Having considered the chronology, it is worth dwelling in more detail on the history of each of the spy organizations that existed among the Germans.

Military intelligence and counterintelligence of Nazi Germany (Abwehr)

This name is well known to anyone who has ever watched "17 Moments of Spring", "Shield and Sword", "Omega Option", "The Feat of a Scout" or other spy war films from the times of the USSR.

For those who do not quite understand what the Abwehr (Abwehr) was doing, we clarify that officially its scope included espionage, counterintelligence and planning with the further implementation of acts of sabotage. Despite the dryness of this definition, in practice, blackmail, torture, murder, theft, kidnapping, forgery and other illegal acts were honored in this organization. At the same time, the lion's share of the time of the Abwehr employees still went to the analysis of the collected data, as well as attempts to misinform the enemy.

It is worth noting that although the Abwehr was created in 1919, until 1928 different organizations were engaged in intelligence and counterintelligence, and the Abwehr was only a military counterintelligence group.

Only in April 1928 was the intelligence service of the navy attached to it and turned into a full-fledged autonomous department. Now only the Abwehr had the right to engage in all kinds of espionage activities. However, at that time the apparatus of this institution was too small (about 150 employees) to fully function. True, this did not prevent him from fulfilling the future duties of the Gestapo as well.

With the coming to power of the Fuhrer and the beginning of preparations for a large-scale war, intelligence funding Nazi Germany was significantly increased, as was its personnel, which by 1935 was already almost 1000 people.

By that time, Wilhelm Canaris became the head of the Abwehr. Together with them, they reform the organization and share its functions with the Gestapo, which receives all civilian powers. While the Abwehr becomes the military intelligence of Nazi Germany.

In this capacity, in 1938, the institution was part of the Wehrmacht High Command, however, only as a group. But by 1941 it was evolving to management, changing its name to "Abwehr Abroad".

After the resignation of Canaris in 1944 and until its dissolution in 1945, this institution was subordinated to the Reich Security Main Office.

During the entire period of existence as a foreign intelligence agency of Germany, the following functions were assigned to the Abwehr.

• Collection of secret information about the forces of the enemy and his military and economic potential.
• Keeping secret all German military preparations, thus ensuring the surprise of her attack. In fact, Abwehr was held responsible for the success of the blitzkrieg tactics.
• Disorganization of the rear of the enemy.
• Fighting foreign agents in the armed forces and military-industrial complex Germany.

"The Gehlen Organization"

After the fall of the fascist regime and the victory of the allies, the country found itself without any intelligence organization for almost a year.

However, Reinhard Gehlen managed to correct this situation. In the last days of the war, he managed to take out the old archive of German military intelligence to hide. With his help, in the coming months, he managed to negotiate with the Americans, who a year later initiated the creation of a German spy agency, the Gehlen Organization. Unlike the Abwehr, it was financed by the United States and subordinated to the leadership of this country until its own government appeared in Germany, which would decide the future fate of Gehlen's offspring. The basic principles for organizing the work of the newly formed military intelligence agency in Germany were as follows:

• The organization was supposed to work under German leadership, but carry out orders from the United States.
• If the interests of Germany and the United States diverge, the Gehlen Organization was supposed to represent the German side.
• Funding was provided by the US government. For this, the organization "shared" with them all the intelligence information it received, and also actively supported American agents.
• The main task of the Gehlen Organization was reconnaissance of the situation in Eastern Europe. In fact, it was espionage for the USSR and its friendly countries.

In 1953, the defeated state recovered and gained sovereignty, and the procedure for transferring all the "capacities" of this intelligence agency in Germany under the jurisdiction of its government began. The procedure took 3 years, and only by April 1, 1956, the Gehlen Organization was transformed by the BND, which successfully exists to this day.

A Brief History of the BND

Immediately after the official opening, the BND positions itself as the German Foreign Intelligence Service. However, in the 70s. gradually, the circle of its interests also includes the prevention of the actions of terrorist groups on the territory of the state. This is facilitated by the scandal with the execution of Israeli athletes in Munich, during the Olympics held there.

Since 1978, the country's parliament has assumed responsibility for overseeing the activities of the BND, in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Act.

The eighties passed quite calmly for German intelligence. During these years, she concentrates more on collecting and analyzing data both inside and outside the country.

In the 1990s, the BND gradually emerged from the underground and publicized many aspects of its activities. In particular, it declassifies the location of the headquarters and holds "Open Days" for a select circle of civilians.

In the same years, the organization was restructured, and it concentrated on the fight against organized crime, the spread of weapons and terrorist threats. At the same time, the Federal Intelligence Law becomes the main document regulating the rights and obligations of the BND. By the way, it pays special attention to the protection of personal data.

In the 2000s, the sphere of influence of this intelligence agency is growing. A department specializing in international terrorism is opened. In addition, during these years, the BND is especially close to the Federal Ministry of Defense and the German Federal Armed Forces, collecting and analyzing data for them.

Among the most striking events in the history of the BND over the past decades is the scandal with the disclosure of data on the organization's surveillance of its citizens and the transfer of the information received to US intelligence represented by the NSA.

BND leaders

Over the years, 11 presidents have visited Germany as head of this intelligence body:

• For the first 12 years, the BND was led by Reinhard Gehlen.
• His successor was Gerhard Wessel, who remained at the helm for a decade.
• From 1979 to 1983 Intelligence was led by Klaus Kinkel.
• Eberhard Bloom was president for the next 3 years.
• Heribert Hellenbroich, who succeeded him, served only 26 days in August 1985.
• Hans-Georg Wieck headed the Federal Service from 1985 to 1990.
• Konrad Porzner held the post for the next 6 years.
• Gerhard Güllich was officially listed as acting president from April to June 1996.
• For the next 2 years, intelligence in Germany was in charge of Hansjorg Geiger.
• From 1998 to 2005 the post was August Hanning.
• From 2005 to 2011 - Ernst Urlau.
• Until April 2016, Gerhard Schindler was the president of the BND, but due to terrorist attacks in Europe, he was forced to resign.

• Since then, Bruno Kahl, who is still acting, has been at the head of intelligence, which does not prevent him from quite successfully doing his own work.

Structure and functions of the BND

At the moment, the German Federal Intelligence Service consists of 13 departments:

• GL is an information and situation center. He monitors all events in the world and is the first to react in the event of the abduction of German citizens abroad.
• UF - specialized intelligence services. Their task is to collect and analyze geoinformation. It is obtained thanks to satellite photos and data obtained from open sources.
• EA - regions of activity and external relations. Responsible for the supply of weapons outside of it. They also coordinate relations between the BND and the intelligence agencies of other NATO member countries.
• TA - Collects data on other countries' plans.
• TE - counterterrorism department. Concentrated on confronting Islamist terrorist organizations, drug trafficking, illegal migration and money laundering.
• TW - deals with weapons of mass destruction, nuclear chemicals and military equipment. He tries to prevent their spread.
• LA and LB are departments that study the political and economic situation in certain countries and try to prevent crises there, including with the use of the German armed forces.
• SI - own security.
• IT - department information technologies. It is the central technical service in BND for data processing and communications.
• ID - internal services. Solves various administrative issues, in particular, the purchase or disposal of equipment.
• UM - BND moving organization. Specializes in the arrangement of intelligence headquarters, as well as their dismantling, if necessary.
• ZY - central control. Coordinates the work of all departments of the BND, and also solves financial and personnel issues.

Who controls intelligence work

Although the Germans are a people renowned for their honesty and meticulousness in their work, they are also people. This means that there may be cases when the received power is used not for the good of the country, but for one's own benefit.

To prevent this from happening, Germany has developed 4 levels of control over the work of the BND:

• The strictest oversight of intelligence is carried out by the responsible minister, the data protection officer, and the court of accounts.
• The Parliamentary Control Commission is another body that looks to the spies not to "play too much".
• Judicial control. Due to the specifics of intelligence work, in which it is sometimes necessary to violate the current legislation of Germany, it is only partially possible.
• public control. Carried out by journalists and citizens, through various publications. The weakest of all of the above.

Other German secret services

As for the BND, despite the expanded range of its interests, it is primarily focused on intelligence - this is its priority. However, there are two more secret organizations in Germany with similar functions:

• BFF - Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Officially, this organization specializes in combating actions that threaten the constitutional order of Germany. That is, most of its employees are engaged in ensuring the security of federal agencies and protecting state secrets. However, in last years The BFF takes on some of the responsibilities of the BND, fighting extremism and terrorism at home and abroad.
• MAD - military counterintelligence service. This is part of the armed forces of modern Germany, an internal secret service within the Bundeswehr itself. She specializes in the same tasks that the BFF performs in the civil sphere. MAD has the same powers and is controlled by the same bodies and documents. Everything that the BFF does at the federal and local levels is also done by the MAD, but only in the Bundeswehr.

Every year, taxpayers allocate 260 million euros for the maintenance of the BFF, about 73 million for the MAD. This is without taking into account the cost of basic intelligence mentioned above. The work of these services is indeed very important, but the first thing that interests every tax-paying citizen is his safety. That's just, as the events of New Year's Eve 2015-2016 showed, not everything is fine with her in Germany. After all, more than 1000 women in the center of Cologne were attacked by migrants and citizens of other countries. Therefore, I would like to hope that the government will draw the appropriate conclusions and instead of constantly increasing spending on spy games a la James Bond, it will allocate more funds for the needs of the law enforcement service, because they are the first to take the brunt in case of any emergency in the country.

German intelligence did not have too many bright personalities in the field of intelligence, one of them was General Oskar Niedermeier

He is known for being

-participated in secret expeditions to Afghanistan

--discovered a lot in terms of relations between the Weimar Republic and the Soviet government

-- recruited all the traitors in the USSR from Radek to Tukhachevsky

--was suspected of betrayal under Hitler, of working for the West or the USSR, or in general for both sides

- fought in the USSR

--was arrested in 1944 by the Nazis for defeatism

Oskar von Niedermeier was born in 1885 in Bavaria, in the town of Freising. Oskar's father was an architect, but his son chose a military career and in 1910 graduated from the artillery school in Munich.

At the same time, Oscar studied at the University of Munich at the Faculty of Geography, Ethnography and Geology.

And in 1912, artillery lieutenant Niedermeier went to scientific expedition to the East, organized and funded by the University of Munich. Within two years, Niedermeier visited India, Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, but spent most of his time in Persia.

In August 1914, Lieutenant Niedermeier, as part of the tenth artillery regiment, went to the Western Front, but already in October 1914 he was recalled to Berlin to carry out a secret mission in the East.

The military expedition to the countries of the Middle East was organized on the initiative of the Turkish Minister of War Enver Pasha by the German and Turkish General Staffs.

Niedermeier himself put it this way:

I began my service in the German army in 1905, and in the first [years] of service I served in the 10th artillery regiment, which at that time was stationed in the mountains. Erlangen. With the regiment, I underwent initial military training and in 1906, after graduating from school, received the military rank of lieutenant.

Then I was seconded from the regiment to study at an artillery school in the mountains. Munich, which he graduated in 1910, and upon graduation was again sent to the 10th Artillery] Regiment, where he served continuously until 1912.

From 1912 to 1914 I participated in a scientific military expedition and was in Persia, India, Arabia, Egypt, Palestine and Syria, the purpose of the expedition was to study the geography and geology of these areas. There was this expedition from the Academy of Sciences of Munich. At the beginning of the First Imperialist War, I had the rank of lieutenant, and by that time I was in France on a business trip.

At the end of 1914, by order of the General Staff, I received an assignment with a regiment to go on an expedition [to Persia] and Afghanistan to attack the British colonies from the indicated sides, in particular, India.

At the same time, I had a task from the General Staff: to collect data on the British army in the indicated places.

It was undertaken with the aim of involving the countries of the Middle East in the war, in particular, in order to persuade Afghanistan to enter the war on the side of Germany, and also to raise an insurgency against the British in Persia, Afghanistan, Balochistan and India, which was supposed to distract from the main fronts large allied forces.

Oskar Niedermeier second from right, Afghanistan, 1916

The expedition consisted of about 350 people, including 40 German officers. The rank and file was staffed by Persians, Afghans and Indians, who, as they knew the local situation well, were recruited from among the prisoners of war. Some of the privates were Turkish soldiers. The 29-year-old lieutenant Niedermeier was appointed the head of the entire expedition.

Taking advantage of the fact that there were no Russian troops in Luristan (a region in Central Persia), the expedition freely crossed the country from west to east, advancing through deserted deserts - in the same way that Niedermeier went during the scientific expedition in 1912-1914.

Upon arrival in Kabul, he negotiated many times with Emir Khabibullah Khan and representatives of the Afghan government circles. Niedermeier, on behalf of the Kaiser, promised the emir, if he entered the war on the side of Germany, to help him create the so-called Great Afghanistan, that is, to annex English and Persian Balochistan to it.

The emir, on the one hand, agreed to declare war on the allies, but on the other hand, he was afraid that he would not be able to resist the allies on his own.

And Khabibulla Khan put forward a condition - to send several German divisions to Afghanistan.

Khabibullah Khan

However, Germany was physically unable to do this, and the emir refused to oppose the Entente, declaring his neutrality, although he carried it out only formally. Niedermeier carried out a series of measures in Afghanistan that caused great concern among the British and forced them to keep a group of troops of up to 80 thousand people on the Afghan border in India.

According to Niedermeier, almost the entire Persian gendarmerie worked for the Germans. The Persian gendarmerie was led by Swedish officers who had been recruited by the Germans even before the start of the war.

As a result, the Germans managed to create large armed detachments from individual tribes in Persia, Afghanistan and India, which, acting covertly, attacked groups of British soldiers. In particular, such detachments were created from Bacriars, Kashchai, Kalhor in Persia, Afrid-Mahmands, Banners - in Afghanistan and India.

In agreement with the emir, Niedermeier and his officers began to reorganize the Afghan army and the General Staff. They organized several officer schools and even a military academy.

German officers served as teachers, as well as a significant part of the Austrian officers who fled to Afghanistan from Russian captivity.

From left to right: Lieutenant Günther Voigt, Lieutenant Oskar Niedermeier, Lieutenant Commander Kurt Wagner

Under the leadership of German officers, a defensive line was built to protect Kabul, which was defiantly directed against India. Under the leadership of Niedermeier, maneuvers were carried out by Afghan troops, which also had a "demonstrative direction" against India. In addition, at the initiative of Niedermeier, an artillery range was set up on the border with India, where they constantly fired

But, curiously, the interrogators did not even want to clarify what was at stake, and quickly turned the conversation to another topic.

Von Niedermeier did not raise any more talk about his "wide communication" with Russian diplomats and the military. So we will never know about the secret negotiations between the Russian authorities in Persia and the German intelligence officer.

Afghanistan at the beginning of the 20th century is the place where the career of General Niedermeier started. F

To get rid of the "Afghan Lawrence", the British authorities bribed Emir Habibullah, starting to pay him an annual subsidy of up to 2.4 million rupees and paid him up to 60 million rupees after the war. The British gold forced Habibullah to decide to expel Niedermeier.

In May 1916, the Germans were forced to leave Afghanistan. A small detachment of Niedermeier crossed the whole of Persia, flooded with Russian and Persian troops, and reached Turkey.

In March 1917, Niedermeier was received by Emperor Wilhelm II, who awarded him the order for his operations in Afghanistan and Persia.

Wilhelm II personally awarded Niedermeier for merit

But the First World War ended with the shameful Treaty of Versailles for Germany and Russia.

He himself recalled:

“At the beginning of 1917, I returned from an expedition to Germany, and arrived only with some officers, since almost the entire composition of the regiment was put out of action in battles with the British.

Despite the fact that nothing was gained by the operations in Persia and Afghanistan, however, the German command needed to withdraw troops, and the command attached great importance to this.

For operations in India, I personally was appointed by the Kaiser to serve in the General Staff, received the rank of captain and from the General Staff was sent to the headquarters of General von Falkenheim *, this general was the commander-in-chief of the Turkish front in Palestine.

With this general, I participated in an expedition against the Arabs, at that time I had the position of chief of staff, from 1918 until the end of the war I was on the French front as an officer of the general staff.

When the imperialist war ended, the officers in Germany had nothing to do, and I went to study at the University of Munich and studied for some time in the faculties of philosophy and geography.

I must say that I did not have to study for a long time, because as the revival in Germany, the officers began to be used again for their intended purpose. Soon I was again taken from the university to the army, and I was appointed adjutant of the German War Ministry in Berlin. "

Looking ahead, we note that during interrogation in Moscow on August 28, 1945, Niedermeier stated that,

"while in Iran, I had extensive communication with representatives of the Russian ... diplomatic and military missions. In conversations with them, I found out the issues on which I informed Sanders" (General von Sanders - head of the German military mission in Turkey).

At the beginning of 1919, Niedermeier again entered the geographical faculty of the University of Munich. But it didn't take long to learn. At the beginning of 1921, the commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr, General Hans Seeckt, took Niedermeier as his adjutant.

IN THE USSR

And in June 1921, Niedermeier, as an employee of the German embassy "comrade Zilbert", arrives in Moscow. It is worth noting that this camouflage was not for the OGPU. On the contrary, it was this office that provided Oscar's "roof". According to the draconian articles of the Treaty of Versailles, the German military was forbidden to travel abroad on any missions.

Hans von Seeckt opened a new Russia for Germany

Niedermeier arrived in the USSR accompanied by the Soviet charge d'affaires in Germany, Vitor Kopp. In Moscow, Niedermeier negotiated with People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Chicherin and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council Trotsky. Trotsky accepted the offer of Germany to assist the Soviet Union in restoring the military industry on concession terms.

He told Niedermeier that

"The USSR is interested primarily in the development of those branches of the military industry that did not exist in the USSR, namely: aviation, automatic weapons, chemistry and the submarine fleet."

On this trip, Kopp introduced Niedermeier to his friend Karl Radek.

The German intelligence officer Niedermeier established the closest contacts with Karl Radek, who later recruited military dissatisfied with the authorities

At the beginning of 1922 Seeckt sent Major Niedermeier to Moscow for the second time.

Paul, one of the directors of the Krupp company, is traveling with him. Niedermeier and Paul spend four weeks in the Soviet Union. Together with representatives of the Supreme Council of National Economy, they toured the Dynamo Moscow plant and the aircraft plant in Fili, the Leningrad Putilov plant and shipyards, the Rybinsk engine building plant, and so on.

He himself remembered.

Protocol of interrogation of Major General O. von Niedermeier. May 16, 1945 [N/O, Army in the field]

Niedermeier Oskar, born in 1885,

mountain native. Freising, Bavaria. From employees.

The father was an architect. German by nationality,

German subject. Formerly a member

National Socialist Party from 1933 to 1935.

Education is higher. Family, wife lived in

Germany in the mountains Munich. in military service in

was in the German army since 1905. He has the rank of major general.

Question: What was the purpose of your visit to Russia and how long were you in Moscow?

Answer: I must say that I arrived in Russia as a personal representative of the German War Ministry with the task of identifying opportunities for the development of heavy industry and the military industry in Russia.

I was in Moscow for the first time for 2-3 weeks, and for the above [reasons] I had conversations with Trotsky, Rykov and Chicherin. Having identified the possibilities for the development of heavy and military industry, an agreement was established between me and representatives of various People's Commissariats of Industry of Russia that Germany would provide technical assistance in reviving Russia's heavy and military industry.

The second time I arrived in the mountains. Moscow at the end of 1921, together with the ambassador from Russia, a certain Kop **. The purpose of my second visit to Russia was the same, except, additionally, I had an assignment from the German Ministry of Military Industry to identify in Russia where it would be most profitable to build an aviation, tank and chemical industry.

Also, I'm in Russia different time was in 1922 and 1923, also on the creation of heavy and military industry in Russia.

All this was done by the German authorities in order to create a powerful military industry in Russia, since in Germany itself it was impossible to do this under the Treaty of Versailles. Germany did not mean that after the creation of the military industry in Russia [it would] purchase military products for Germany.

Question: Why were you authorized to negotiate on the restoration of Russia's heavy and military industry?

.............

* So in the document, we are talking about infantry general E. von Falkenhayn.

** So in the document, we are talking about the Soviet diplomat V.L. Koppe.

Answer: I was a member of the commission of the Ministry of War and was in the sector for the restoration of industry. I personally was the first to initiate the initiative to assist in the restoration of Russian industry, in order to then export the necessary military products for arming the German army, I repeat, this was all caused by the Treaty of Versailles. In addition, by that time I was almost perfect in Russian, which is why I was sent from Germany to Russia on the above issues.

Question: In addition to the above periods of stay in the mountains. Moscow, have you ever been to the USSR?

Answer: In addition to the above periods of stay in the Soviet Union and in the mountains. Moscow, I also lived continuously in the Soviet Union from June 1924 to December 1931. During this period, I also worked from the German Ministry for the creation of heavy and military industry in Russia, and also worked in general together with Soviet specialists on the creation of an aircraft plant in Fili, Moscow region, and also dealt with the organization of pilot schools and the equipment of air bases.

Question: While in the USSR, in what connection did you have with the German attaché located in the mountains. Moscow

Answer: I must say that during the period of my stay in the Soviet Union I had nothing to do with the German attache, and besides, he was not there during the period when I was in Russia. This was stipulated by the Treaty of Versailles.

Question: Have you ever been in the Soviet Union after 1931?

Answer: Yes, in January-February 1941, from the General Staff, I was sent on a business trip to Japan and was in the Soviet Union on my way there. I had to go through the USSR. I went to Japan to give lectures on the military policy of that time and on the economy of the Soviet Union.

I still have the text of these lectures. I must say that [during] a business trip to Japan, the General Staff gave me the task on the way there to find out what kind of railways and their carrying capacity are in the USSR and, mainly, in Siberia. But I did not have to study anything on this issue.

Written down correctly, read aloud to me.

Niedermeier

Polunin

CA FSB of Russia. R-47474. L.13-14rev. Script. Manuscript. Autograph. First published: Generals and officers of the Wehrmacht tell

After the third trip to Moscow, Seeckt and Niedermeier created the German industrial society "GEFU" - "The Society for the Conduct of Economic Enterprises".

Under the guise of a concession, there was a trade in weapons and military technologies. So, in 1924, the Reichswehr ordered 400,000 76.2-mm (3-inch) cartridges for field guns through the Metachem company.

It is necessary to point out why the Germans needed Russian 76.2 mm shells when they had their own constructively different 75 mm shell for field guns.

The fact is that the Treaty of Versailles left a small number of 75-mm and 105-mm field guns for the Reichswehr, and the Allies demanded to surrender the rest.

The exact number of guns Kaiser's army was known, but the Germans managed to hide several hundred Russian 76.2-millimeter field guns of the 1902 model, which, for various reasons, the Allies did not take into account.

German 75-mm shells did not fit them, and therefore the Reichswehr turned to the USSR. Note that not only the Soviet Union supplied military equipment Germany bypassing the Versailles agreements, but, for example, the Czechs and Swedes.

And in June 1924, Mr. Neumann (aka Major Niedermeier) arrives on his sixth business trip to Soviet Russia, which will last right up to December 1931. The Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany from having military attachés at embassies.

And then von Seeckt suggested creating a representative office of the German General Staff in Moscow, which, by the way, was also banned and therefore was called the "military department".

The representative office of the General Staff was named "C-MO" - "Center-Moscow".

In Berlin, at the General Staff, there was a special department "Ts-B" (Bureau for the management of work in Russia), to which the "Ts-MO" was subordinate. Formally, the "C-MO" was listed as the economic service of the German Embassy and was located in two buildings - on Vorovskogo street, house 48, and in Khlebny lane, house 28.

At first, the formal head of the "C-MO" was Colonel Lit-Thomsen, and the actual head was his deputy Niedermayer. In 1927, Lit-Thomsen was recalled - and Niedermeier became the head of the "C-MO".

As Niedermeier would later state:

"Upon arrival in Moscow, I first of all set about organizing schools for the training of German officers. In Lipetsk, in 1924, a school for German pilots was organized. In 1926, in Kazan, a school for tankers; in 1924, by agreement with Baranov at the headquarters Air force The USSR created special teams of German test pilots to carry out experimental and test work on the instructions of the Air Force.

In 1926, Niedermeier was on the verge of failure.

In 1925, under the surname Strauss, he took part in the maneuvers of the Western Military District, where he attracted the commander of the Red Army Gottfried, a German by nationality, to cooperate. Gottfried supplied Niedermeier with very valuable information about the mood, political course and intrigues in the leadership of the Red Army.

In September 1926 Gottfried was arrested by the OGPU, and the following year he was shot. Niedermeier got off with a reprimand from von Seeckt, who categorically forbade him to engage in such undercover work. Indeed, for von Niedermeier (at the direction of the leaders of the OGPU, the Red Army and Soviet military intelligence), the doors of almost all the defense enterprises of Soviet Russia were already open. Almost every year he visited the factories of Gorky, Kazan, Stalingrad, Rostov and other cities.

Niedermeier regularly met with Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, Yakir, Kork, Blucher, Radek, Rykov, Karakhan, Krestinsky and the leadership of the Air Force - Baranov and Alksnis, the head of the military chemical department Fishman, the head of the tank forces Khalepsky.

According to one version, since 1924, Oskar von Niedermeier supplied the head of the 4th (intelligence) department of the headquarters of the Red Army, Yan Karlovich Berzin, with strategic information about the military-economic potential, political plans of Great Britain, France and other countries directed against the USSR, including their anti-Soviet activities in the Middle East.

It should be specially noted that without exception, all of the above-mentioned Soviet figures were shot in 1937-1938. Is this connected with their active contacts with von Niedermeier? Maybe they were liquidated also because they knew too much? As they say, "no man - no problem." To clarify this riddle is the task of independent researchers.

The scout himself recalled:

Protocol of interrogation of Major General O. von Niedermeier. May 17, 1945 [N/O, Army in the field]

Niedermeier Oskar, born 1885

Question. While working in the Soviet Union to restore industry, which German organization did you act for?

Answer: On the restoration of industry in Russia, I worked directly on behalf of the German General Staff, I was always directly connected personally on this matter with the Chief of the General Staff, General Hasse.

Question: In the Soviet Union, with whom were you directly connected on questions of restoring the military industry in the USSR?

Answer: On questions of restoring the military industry in the USSR, I was directly connected with the General Staff of the Red Army. I personally dealt on the above issues with the head of the air forces, Baranov, the head of the armored forces, I don’t remember his last name now *, and with the head of the Chemical Department, Fishman. I had to resolve certain issues with Shaposhnikov and Voroshilov.

Question: How did you provide practical assistance to the Soviet Union in restoring industry?

Answer: Through me came the whole agreement on questions of rendering assistance to the military industry of Russia by providing technical personnel to Russia; in addition, through me was the provision of newly built enterprises with drawings, projects, plans.

I was also in charge of the delivery to Russia of new types of army weapons, both from Germany and from other countries, which the Soviet Union needed for samples. I was also in charge of contracts for the supply of various kinds of military materials, which by that time were not yet in Russia.

Question: While in the Soviet Union, did the German General Staff give you tasks in parallel with the main task of revealing military and economic data on the Soviet Union?

Answer: No, I did not receive such assignments from my General Staff. On the contrary, when sending me to Russia for the above purposes, my General Staff strictly warned me that, in order not to compromise myself, in no case should I collect any information about the Soviet Union, both military and political. I must say that in all my life I have never done any kind of espionage work in any country.

* We are talking about commander I.A. Khalepsky.

Question: While in the Soviet Union, who did you know of the persons who were entrusted by the German authorities with intelligence work in the USSR?

Answer: While still at the General Staff in Germany, I knew that the headquarters for intelligence issues also had the Eastern Branch of Ab-Vera. I personally do not know any of the employees of this department, since I was not associated with it, all the more so, no one is known from the people who worked [on] intelligence issues in Russia at the time when I myself lived in the USSR.

For example, I know that in those years when I was in Russia, the Eastern Branch almost did not function, since at that time the destroyed Russia was of no interest to Germany.

In addition, we usually requested all the necessary data about the Soviet Union through official channels, on the basis of which we developed the necessary plans for the restoration of Russia's industry. Written down correctly, read aloud to me.

Niedermeier

Interrogated: deputy [deputy] chief [head]

4 departments ROC "Smersh" 13 a [army] captain

Polunin"

The head of the ABTU commander A. Khalepsky was in close contact with the German intelligence officer Niedermeier

In December 1931, Niedermeier was recalled to Berlin. Perhaps this was due to the fact that Germany sent a military attache, General Holm, to the USSR, and the functions of the "C-MO" began to decline.

According to a number of German sources, at the end of 1934, Hitler considered two candidates for the post of head of the Abwehr (military intelligence) - Wilhelm Canaris and Oscar Niedermeier. As you know, the choice was made in favor of the first.

Nibelung?

It is known that in 1936, Soviet military intelligence instructed Alexander Girshfeld, adviser to the USSR embassy in Germany, to re-establish contacts with von Niedermeier, which had been interrupted after the Nazis came to power in 1933.

The recruitment went remarkably smoothly. Niedermeier agreed to inform Moscow and even contemptuously refused the 20,000 marks offered to him.

He received the pseudonym "Nibelung" and subsequently, as a member of the "Black Chapel", regularly supplied Soviet intelligence with strategic information about Hitler's plans for the USSR and the mood in the German leadership.

Here is one testimony from the archives of the NKVD, cited by Sergei Kondrashin in the material "Greetings to Marshal Voroshilov":

"Niedermeier said that he recently had a long conversation with Hitler about the Soviet Union. However, he could not come to an agreement with him, as Hitler showed stubborn misunderstanding ... As for the position of the Reichswehrministry towards the Soviet Union, Niedermeier said that "we are firm" Niedermeier also intends to make sure that no stupid things happen."

In 1936, Soviet intelligence learned that Niedermeier was accused of high treason. But he was supported by well-known "Easterners" - supporters of the union of Germany with the USSR - Field Marshal Blomberg and General von Seeckt.

Oskar Niedermeier worked closely with Soviet agents since 1936, receiving the code name "Nibelung"

And on this he almost got burned in 1936, he was accused of working for the Bolshevik enemy

Charges of treason against von Niedermeier were never removed, but they were given the rank of colonel and dismissed. Remarkably, after these scandalous events, von Seeckt suddenly died on December 27, 1936 in Berlin. According to one version, he was liquidated (poisoned) by order of Hitler.

On November 3, 1939, the German General Staff received from Niedermeier a memorandum "Politics and Warfare in the Middle East." According to the author's plan, in 1941 Germany and the USSR should together "organize an attack on the British Empire through the Caucasus."

From the rear in Afghanistan, they should be supported by an uprising by "robber Pashtun tribes" in order to tie down British troops in India and prevent their transfer to the metropolis. From the declassified documents of the Soviet foreign intelligence it is known that Niedermeier's plan was called "Amanullah".

Operation Amanullah included three phases. The first stage of the plan was implemented in the autumn of 1939, when a group of Abwehr officers with a large sum of money was thrown into Tibet through Afghanistan to carry out subversive work.

The second stage was planned to be carried out in the spring of 1941.

The Germans, with the assistance of Moscow, were to organize a "scientific expedition" to Tibet of 200 Abwehr and SS officers, who would have a "base in one of the Soviet Central Asian republics." This expedition was supposed to deliver a large consignment of weapons to the tribes of Tibet and the inhabitants of the so-called "independent strip" of British India.

The third stage provided for the restoration of Amanullah Khan to the throne. To fully guarantee success, Berlin was preparing to use the Wehrmacht mountain division in Operation Amanullah, which could support the offensive of Siddik Khan's detachment from the territory of Soviet Turkestan.

In the first half of December 1940, the details of Operation Amanullah were discussed in Moscow with P. Kleist, a German specialist in the East who arrived. He, as it turns out, worked for Soviet intelligence.

On March 21, 1941, German intelligence managed to establish that London had become aware of the impending operation "Amanullah". This was reported to Moscow, after which both sides began to actively calculate the sources of information leakage. Moreover, the British sources were surrounded by Hitler and Stalin.

He himself spoke of it this way:

Protocol of interrogation of Major General O. von Niedermeier. May 26, 1945 [N/O, Army in the field]

"INTERROGATION PROTOCOL

I, senior investigator of the Investigative Department of the UKR "Smersh" of the 1st Ukrainian] Front, senior [senior] lieutenant Panov, through an interpreter junior [junior] lieutenant Petropavlovsky, interrogated the detainee

Niedermeier Oskar (setting data in the file)

The interrogation began at 9.45 p.m.

The interrogation ended at 01:40.

The translator junior [junior] lieutenant Petropavlovsky was warned about liability for a false translation under Art. 95 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.

[Peter and Paul]

Question: What did you do during Germany's war against the Soviet Union?

Answer: About the impending war of Germany against the Soviet Union [I learned] from the German ambassador in Moscow, Count Schulenburg, when he stopped at his passage from Japan to Germany. Upon my arrival in Berlin, I met a number of General Staff officers I knew, and from conversations with them I clearly understood that the war against the Soviet Union should begin soon.

After the outbreak of the German war against the Soviet Union, I was repeatedly asked to take command of one or another division. I refused.

At the beginning of 1942, I was asked by the personnel department of the headquarters of the ground forces to take over the leadership of the training of the "volunteer forces." I rejected it. Three months later, I received an order to take command of the 162nd Infantry Division 177. When I learned that "volunteers" would be trained in this division, I asked that the order be cancelled.

My request was refused, and I was told in Berlin that this was a categorical order from Keitel and that I should take charge of the training of the "volunteers", as I speak oriental languages, and the "volunteers" consist of Azerbaijanis and Turkestanis. I had to obey this order."

The protocol was read to me and translated into German. The testimony from my words is recorded correctly.

Niedermeier

Interrogated by: senior investigator of the Investigative Department of the UKR

"Smersh" 1 Ukrainian] front [on] senior [senior] lieutenant] t

Panov

Translator: [junior lieutenant]

Petropavlovsk

Niedermeier returned to the USSR only at the beginning of 1941. By Transsib he went to Japan, where he stayed for two weeks. The official purpose of the trip is to give lectures to the Japanese military.

In Tokyo, Niedermeier met with Richard Sorge, to whom he informed about Hitler's impending attack on the USSR and the direction of possible Wehrmacht strikes, and also handed over to him the obtained notes of part of the Barbarossa plan. Sorge hurried to transfer the information to Moscow.

Richard Sorge personally met Niedermeier and is believed to have given him important information.

On the way back, Niedermeier spent several days at the German embassy in Moscow, ostensibly to talk with Ambassador von Schulenburg.

Since the early 1990s, a number of articles have appeared in our media claiming that Niedermeier was recruited by Soviet intelligence back in the 1920s. It is curious that the authors of the articles are former KGB officers who refer to documents that are not available to independent researchers.

It is alleged that the NKVD gave Niedermeier the pseudonym "Nibelung". In any case, Niedermeier provided Soviet intelligence with a large amount of information about the state of the armed forces of England, France and other states, and also revealed many of their political secrets.

So, according to Niedermeier, he personally handed over to the representatives of the Red Army a plan for the fortifications of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, drawn up by German engineers who built coastal batteries there in 1914-1917. By the way, even now this plan has a great historical value. With its help, you can answer the question of whether the Russian fleet could have captured the Bosphorus in 1917.

All these materials are in our archives, but classified as "top secret".

In 1935, Niedermeier joined the Wehrmacht, and from October 1939 he was a colonel in the headquarters of the OKW. The outbreak of war with the USSR made Niedermeier an even stranger figure. Here is what is written in the book of A.I. Kolpakidi "Double conspiracy. Stalin and Hitler: failed coups":

"For starters, he was offered to accept a division. He refused. In 1942, a new offer followed - to train "volunteers" from among Russian prisoners of war, mostly natives of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Again refusal. Then he was offered another post, which upon closer examination turned out to be the same - all the same "volunteers". This time the colonel agreed. "

In December 1941, the German 162nd Infantry Division was destroyed near Rzhev. And at the beginning of 1942, on the basis of the division's command, the creation of the Muslim (Turkic) division of the Wehrmacht began, formed from among prisoners of war and volunteers - former citizens of the USSR - natives of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Officially, it is called the 162nd Infantry Division.

In May 1943, Major General Oskar von Niedermeier, a specialist in the Middle East, career intelligence officer, a member of the anti-Hitler organization "Black Capella", who maintains secret contacts with Soviet intelligence, takes command of the Turkic division.

He himself recalled:

"From the autumn of 1942 to January 1943, I organized a training division in Ukraine from Turkestans and Caucasians. My headquarters was in the city of Mirgorod. The division was divided into separate legions.

The entire command staff was German. The progress in my work was so insignificant that I flew twice to the Main Apartment*, where I asked to be used for another job.

I said in the main apartment that the “volunteers” were in a bad mood due to the military situation at the front and the activities of the German civil authorities in Ukraine.

These statements of mine led to the fact that it was ordered to redeploy the division from Ukraine to Silesia, in the city of Neuhammer. After long conversations at the General Staff, the division was turned from a training division into a field division.

I must say that together with Colonel Staufenberg, Generals Stief and Wagner **, a secret plan was drawn up to prepare the division for use in the event of an armed uprising against Hitler to help the rebels on July 20, 1943 *** Staufenberg was shot, Stief was hanged as instigators of the uprising against Hitler. Wagner committed suicide.

In 1943, the division was relocated to Neuhammer and received reinforcements from the Germans, and a larger percentage of them were volunteers. As the military situation became more and more dangerous for Germany at the end of 1943, the division was transferred, despite my request not to do so, to eastern Italy, in the region of Udine-Trieste.

The division was in this area from November 1943 to March 1944 without significant operations.

In April 1944, the division was redeployed to the Mediterranean coast in Livorno for defensive work, and I was relieved of my duties.

I was appointed adviser to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front, Marshal Rundstedt, on matters of "volunteer" formations. Position on Western front in connection with the Anglo-American offensive, I found it completely hopeless, which I frankly told my predecessor.

I also expressed to him my dissatisfaction with the order of the command of the "volunteer" formations and Eastern politics Hitler. On October 14, 1944, in connection with this, I was arrested by the German authorities and handed over to the court-martial in the city of Torgau.

I was in Torgau (in the city's prison) until the moment the city was evacuated, and when the city was taken by Russian, American and English armies I got to the Russians."

In total, the division had 17 thousand people. Of these, 8 thousand Germans and 9 thousand Muslims from among the former Soviet citizens. Since November 1943, the 162nd Turkic division was stationed in Italy in the Udine-Trieste region. Then she carried coastal defense in the Fiume-Pola-Trieste-Hertz-Tsdine sector, and was engaged in the construction of coastal fortifications on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

In 1944, the 162nd division fought against the Anglo-American troops in the Rimini region, and in 1945 - battles in the Bologna and Padua regions. In May 1945 - after the surrender of Germany - the division surrendered to British troops.

On May 21, 1944, with the assistance of the Black Chapel, Oskar von Niedermeier received the post of adviser for the Eastern Legions to the commander of the troops in the West and left for France.

Actually, Eastern legions in the West there were not, but there were over 60 battalions manned by former Soviet prisoners of war from among the volunteers.

Most of them were involved in the defense system of the Atlantic Wall. That is, in fact, von Niedermeier ("Nibelung") became the curator of all the Eastern ("Vlasov") battalions that were transferred from Eastern Front to France to defend the Atlantic Wall, including the English Channel coast, from a possible landing of the Anglo-Americans.

This appointment was not accidental.

Oscar von Niedermeier, Klaus von Stauffenberg, Henning von Tresckow, Baron Vladimir von Kaulbars are one of the main key figures among the participants in the anti-Hitler conspiracy and the underground organization Black Chapel.

Oskar von Niedermeier established direct contacts with the leader of the ROA, General A.A. Vlasov, a Soviet agent of strategic influence in the III Reich, and also drew up a detailed plan for using the Eastern Battalions in the action to overthrow the Nazi regime in Germany and the occupied countries.

Andrey Vlasov was quite close to Niedermeier, indirect facts say that Vlasov could lead the intelligence network of Soviet agents

Read about Vlasov's subversive activities against the Ill Reich and his ideological sabotage in the book "General Vlasov is an intelligence agent of the Kremlin", written with the participation of a group of veterans of the Soviet special services - Internet LINK.

In the event of the success of Operation Valkyrie (the assassination attempt on Hitler), von Niedermeier planned to personally lead the Eastern Battalions in France to neutralize SS units loyal to the Nazi regime.

The "Black Chapel" had two wings. The first is the "Westerners", who were oriented towards an alliance with the Anglo-Americans against the USSR.

The second was the "Easterners", who staked on the conclusion of a continental alliance between Germany and the USSR against the Anglo-American "Atlantists".

The ideas of the "Easterners" were shared by Klaus von Stauffenberg - the main organizer of the assassination attempt on Hitler, Baron Vladimir von Kaulbars - a former white officer, Abwehr officer and adjutant of Wilhelm Canaris, Georg von Bezelager - commander of the Cossack squadron and cavalry reserve unit in Army Group Center, Helmut von Pannwitz - commander of the Cossack division, as well as many other officers and generals of the Wehrmacht and Abwehr.

The head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, was arrested for spying for Western countries, and military intelligence officer Niedermeier was soon arrested.

Then unexplained events occur. Major General von Niedermeier was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the city of Torgau for especially dangerous state criminals. According to some sources, his arrest was made in August 1944, according to others - in January 1945.

One of the formal accusations - "for expressing defeatist sentiments."

It should be especially noted that persons of this rank in the lll Reich were not arrested for idle chatter. But for some reason, Niedermeier was not only not executed, but not even tried. At the end of April 1945, von Niedermeier managed to escape by deceiving the guards, taking advantage of the turmoil and panic that arose in connection with the approach of the Anglo-American troops.

Niedermeier voluntarily leaves the American zone for the Soviet occupation zone. There he voluntarily surrenders to SMERSH. He is arrested and sent to Moscow. Major General von Niedermeier has been dragged around prisons for three years and intensively interrogated by MGB investigators.

Last years

The fate of Oscar von Niedermeier is in many ways similar to the fate of his colleague General Helmut von Pannwitz. According to one version, Niedermeier had known Pannwitz since at least 1928.

At that time, von Pannwitz worked in Poland as the manager of the estate of Princess Radziwill. There he met Oscar von Niedermeier and Prince Janos Radziwill.

The latter also actively cooperated with the Foreign Department of the NKVD and the intelligence department of the Red Army Headquarters.

Apparently, Helmut von Pannwitz also actively collaborated with Soviet military intelligence. It is known that on the instructions of Niedermeier von Pannwitz made several trips to the USSR, under the pretext of establishing commercial trade relations. There he (like Niedermeier) met with a number of fairly well-known military leaders of the country: Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Jan Berzin, and others.

During the Second World War - in 1943 - von Pannwitz formed in Poland from volunteers from the Don and Kuban and white emigrants the Cossack division, which fought until 1945 on the territory of Catholic Croatia (Yugoslavia).

Von Pannwitz was a member of the "Black Chapel" and after an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944, he hid a group of officers - participants in the anti-Hitler conspiracy in his Cossack division, refusing to hand them over to the Gestapo.

After the surrender of Germany, the same story happens to Pannwitz as to Niedermeier. Helmut von Pannwitz falls into the British occupation zone in Austria. There he seeks from the British to be sent to the USSR. In fact, voluntarily and of his own free will, von Pannwitz is given into the hands of SMERSH. He is sent to Moscow.

In January 1947, von Pannwitz was sentenced to death and executed (hanged) in the courtyard of the Lubyanka inner prison, along with Krasnov, Shkuro, and others. Cossack chieftains. Details are published in the materials "Who are you Helmut von Pannwitz? Secrets of the Kremlin's Strategic Intelligence" - Internet LINK.

Oskar von Niedermeier will survive von Pannwitz, his colleague in the Black Chapel, by only one year.

By decision of the Special Meeting at the Ministry of State Security of the USSR on July 10, 1948, Niedermeier was sentenced to 25 years in labor camps. On September 25, 1948, von Niedermeier dies under very mysterious circumstances (he was actually liquidated) in the Vladimir Central of the MGB.

According to the official conclusion of the then Soviet experts, he allegedly died "of tuberculosis."

Individual investigators read some of Niedermeier's interrogation protocols. It seems that either he was interrogated by complete idiots, or some of the interrogation protocols were subsequently withdrawn from the case, and some were falsified.

He was not asked about Tukhachevsky or about his other Soviet "contacts" in 1928-1937.

Apparently, details about his visit to Japan, his participation in the Valkyrie operation, cooperation with Soviet intelligence, and much, much more will remain secret for a long time.

No less curious is the fact that on February 28, 1998, Niedermeier was rehabilitated by the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office.

Federal Intelligence Service (BND) of Germany(German. Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) is the foreign intelligence service of Germany, which is under the control of Offices of the Federal Chancellor of Germany. The headquarters is in Pullach near Munich. In 2010, the construction of a new complex of buildings for this department in the Berlin district of Mitte was completed, it is planned to move the BND to Berlin by 2014). BND has about 300 official branches around the world. The department has about seven thousand professional employees, of which 2,000 are engaged in intelligence gathering abroad. The annual budget (2009) was 460 million euros.

In June 2013, the German magazine "Spiegel" published data that BND and carried out surveillance of their citizens in the interests of the United States with the assistance and direct participation of the NSA.

At the moment of destruction Nazi regime in Germany Reinhard Gehlen(German. Reinhard Gehlen) managed to save their collected and archived materials and documents in the Bavarian mountains. Shortly before the USSR gathered forces to encircle Berlin, Gehlen and a group of General Staff officers were already on their way to the so-called Alpine Fortress. Beyond the Schliersee lake in Upper Bavaria, the trip ends near the Spitzingsee lake. The officers of the "Foreign armies of the East" decide to wait here for the passage of the front line and wait for the arrival of the Americans. Only 12 days after the surrender of the Wehrmacht, on Sunday, May 20, 1945, the US military police team gets to Alma. About a month and a half later, Reinhard Gehlen manages to speak with the head of intelligence in the American zone of occupation, Brigadier General Edwin Siebert.

After the Americans got their first impression of Gehlen's knowledge, they took him by plane in 1945 to Washington, and in 1946 to the Fort Hunt interrogation center in Virginia. In July 1946, Reinhard Gehlen was transported from Virginia back to Germany, and there, near Oberursel, officers of the former department of the "Foreign Armies of the East" were assembled. At the end of the year, an agreement was reached between Gehlen and American military intelligence to accept Reinhard Gehlen and his former employees for service. The details of this agreement are believed to have been as follows:

1. The created German intelligence organization will be engaged in intelligence in the East.
2. The organization will work alongside American staff.
3. The organization will operate under German leadership, which receives assignments from the United States, as long as there is no government in Germany.
4. The organization is funded by the United States. For this, the organization transfers all received intelligence information to the Americans.
5. As soon as a sovereign German government is established, that government must decide whether the work will continue or not.
6. If the organization ever finds itself in a situation where the interests of Germany and the United States diverge, the organization has the right to represent German interests.

Americans paid $3.4 million for 50 employees in the first year. In April 1953, the transfer of the Gehlen Organization to the jurisdiction of the German government began. April 1, 1956 the organization was transformed into German Federal Intelligence Service.

1955-1968

Reinhard Gehlen

Based on the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of July 11, 1955, April 1, 1956 The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) is founded as the German Foreign Intelligence Service. In December 1956, Reinhard Gehlen was appointed the first president of the BND. AT 1957 Gehlen adopts Saint George as the coat of arms of the organization. AT October 1963 The Cabinet Committee on Secret Information and Security (Kabinettsausschuss für Fragen de geheimen Nachrichtenwesens und Sicherheit) was founded under the leadership of the Federal Minister for Special Assignments, Dr. Heinrich Krone.

1968-1979

AT 1968 Gerhard Wessel becomes receiver Reinhard Gehlen. In December the chapter departments of the federal chancellor issues a decree on "General Working Instructions for the BND". FROM 1969, despite repeated thoughts of moving headquarters closer to federal government, many investments are being made to expand the headquarters in Pullach. New buildings are under construction for the library, modern office space and technical industries. Kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the 20th Olympic Summer Games in Munich in 1972 had a profound effect on the work of the organization. The prevention of the actions of terrorist groups is becoming one of its main directions. AT 1974 for the first time BND employees elect a "Personnel Council". AT 1978 The Federal Act on Parliamentary Control of Intelligence Activities (Gesetz über die parlamentarische Kontrolle nachrichtendienstlicher Tätigkeit des Bundes) comes into force. It regulates the oversight of federal intelligence services through Parliament.

1980-1990

AT 1979 Dr. Klaus Kinkel becomes president of the BND. AT 1981 The organization is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Among those invited to the celebrations were Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and the Prime Minister of Bavaria Franz Josef Strauss. In his speech, the federal chancellor described the BND as "the silent assistant to the federal government."

AT 1982 Eberhard Bloom succeeded Dr. Kinkel as president of the BND.

Heribert Hellenbroich assumed the presidency of 1985 .

A few months later, Dr. Hans-Georg Wieck succeeded him. AT 1986 The BND celebrates its 30th anniversary together with Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl. AT 1988 a new building for the Evaluation and Analysis Departments is being erected in Pullach. This was seen as an investment in a modern data center with global communications systems and 24/7 operation.

1990-2000

AT 1990 Konrad Porzner becomes the seventh president of the BND. The German Bundestag accepts The federal law Intelligence (Gesetz über den Bundesnachrichtendienst). It regulates tasks and powers, with particular attention to data protection requirements. With the end cold war and German reunification, there is a restructuring in terms of the main areas of activity and organizational structure. Organized crime, arms proliferation and international terrorism have become areas of special interest.

AT 1996 BND ceases to be an anonymous organization under the President Hansjörge Geiger. The place in Pullach becomes officially known as the headquarters of the BND. AT 1997 The BND is holding its first "Open House" for family members of employees who have been admitted to headquarters. Up to this point, such visits were prohibited.

October 28, 1999 For the first time, an international symposium is being held at the BND. Politicians, academics, experts and journalists from all over the world meet to discuss a topic related to foreign and security policy.

2000 - present

AT August 2001, BND establishes independent intelligence unit international terrorism. AT April 2003 Federal Security Government will decide to merge the headquarters in Pullach and various other branches of the BND and move them to a new headquarters in Berlin. AT September 2003, more than a thousand employees moved to a temporary office on the site of the former barracks of the guard battalion in Lichterfeld. An additional position of vice-president for military affairs is being appointed to the employees of the BND department.

AT 2005 Ernst Urlau becomes president of the BND. The location of the new headquarters has been chosen, which will be in close proximity to Federal Chancellor and the German Bundestag at Chausseestraße in Berlin-Mitte. AT May 2006, BND celebrates its 50th anniversary together with Chancellor Angela Merkel. AT 2007 the organization gradually solves the problem of central processing of situations for Federal Ministry of Defense and federal armed forces. AT 2008 The BND is beginning to implement the most significant reforms to its organizational and operational structure in its history. The new structure came into effect on January 1, 2009.

Military counterintelligence service(German. Amt fur den militarischen Abschirmdienst , MAD, the abbreviation is also used in Russian-language literature MAD), until 1984 - - one of the three federal intelligence services of Germany, a division of the Bundeswehrresponsible for military counterintelligence.

MAD is headquartered in Cologne. MAD has 12 territorial divisions throughout Germany and 40 mobile divisions. The organization has approximately 1,300 military and civilian employees and an annual budget of 73 million euros in 2009 (70 million in 2008).

After the formation of the Bundeswehr in 1955, MAD was created in January 1956 as a division of the Bundeswehr and existed until 1984 under the name Amt für Sicherheit der Bundeswehr (ASBw)("Security Service of the Bundeswehr"). In September 1984, it was reorganized into its staffing positions for civil servants were introduced. Until 1990, MAD had 28 regional branches. After unification of Germany and absorption by the Bundeswehr National People's Army of the GDR, as well as completing the output parts of the Russian army from the territory of the former GDR in 1994, the total number of the Bundeswehr was reduced and the number of territorial divisions of the MAD was reduced to 12.

Throughout the history of MAD, scandals have repeatedly arisen around her. In particular, at a time when MAD headed Gerd-Helmut Komossa, the service secretly monitored the house of the secretary of the German Foreign Minister Georg Leber, suspected of spying for the GDR, without the knowledge of the minister himself. Leber was informed of the illegal surveillance in early 1978, after which he resigned against the wishes of the then Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. At the same time, G. Leber did not report the fact of surveillance to the Bundestag, and this story received publicity after publication in the Quick magazine on October 26, 1978.

Another MAD-related scandal is the so-called "Kiessling Affair" of 1983, when, as a result of MAD investigations, General Günther Kiessling, Deputy Commander of the Allied Forces of NATO in Europe, was considered "unreliable" on the basis of allegations of homosexuality received from dubious sources. from a NATO security point of view and retired ahead of schedule. Subsequently, G. Kissling was rehabilitated.

In order to improve its image, MAD resorted to publishing comics in the magazine Y, published by the Bundeswehr. The black-and-white 1970s-styled comics called “Good Agents of MAD” describe typical situations from the service (a German soldier is seduced by a Russian spy, MAD employees save a Bundeswehr camp in Afghanistan from Islamist militants, etc.).

In September 2012, another scandal erupted: it turned out that MAD hid from the Bundestag commission materials on surveillance of an active member of the neo-Nazi gang NSU Uwe Mundlos, in connection with which the head of MAD, Ulrich Birkenheier, was summoned to the parliamentary commission to give explanations. In connection with this scandal, there were statements by representatives of the Federal Ministry of Defense that MAD would be transformed as part of the upcoming major reform of the German security forces.

Federal Service for the Protection of the German Constitution(German. Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz listen)) is an internal intelligence service in Germany, subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. Established in 1950. Controlled by the Parliamentary Control Committee ( Parlamentarisches Kontrollgremium). In 2005, the service had 2,448 employees. The budget in 2005 was 137 million euros. Carries out in Germany counterintelligence activities.

The main task is to monitor organizations that threaten, from the point of view of the authorities, the "free and democratic basic legal order" of Germany. The secret service publishes annual annual reports. The service focuses on ultra-right, including neo-Nazi parties, ultra-left, Islamist and other extremist organizations of foreign citizens, intelligence agencies of foreign states and scientology; the competence of the service also includes protection against sabotage and prevention of access to confidential information.

In October 2007, there were reports that co-chairman of the Left Party, Oscar Lafontaine, may be under secret surveillance by the secret service.

In June 2013, the German magazine "Spiegel" published evidence that the BND and the Federal Service for the Protection of the German Constitution carried out surveillance of their citizens in the interests of the United States with the assistance and direct participation of the NSA. According to Spiegel, the Americans have developed the X-Keyscore program. This program allowed the American side to receive monthly data on five hundred million contacts of German citizens, including correspondence in Internet chats, email as well as phone calls and SMS messages.

In early September 1940, the head of the Abwehr (military intelligence), Admiral Canaris, received an order from Jodl to intensify intelligence activities in connection with the preparation of operations against the USSR. Jodl warned that German preparations should not give the impression to the Soviet Union that Germany was preparing an offensive in the east.

A similar order was communicated to all other branches of the military.

In previous years, the German intelligence service failed to create a sufficiently effective spy network on the territory of the Soviet Union. A prominent member of the Abwehr, Leverkün, wrote after the end of the Second World War that "the sending of agents from Germany to Russia was possible only in very rare cases."

Keitel said during interrogation to a representative of Soviet intelligence: "Before the war, we had very little information about the Soviet Union and the Red Army, received from our attache." The information that was studied in Berlin consisted, as a rule, of undercover data, press reports, stories of correspondents, businessmen and tourists returning from the Soviet Union or transiting through Soviet territory. An important source of information was the information received from the military diplomatic representatives of Germany in the Soviet Union and neighboring states.

Among the auxiliary institutions of German intelligence belonged to a special institute-library, which collected all the materials about Russia that were available in Germany. Before the war, the institute, located in Breslau, was collecting information about the Soviet economy, highways and railways, relations between the peoples inhabiting the Soviet Union, political life in the country, in a word, the whole range of issues related to the Soviet Union. Later, the institute was moved to Berlin and became known as the "Wansee Institute" - after the name of the Berlin suburb in which it was located. There were other institutions of this kind.

German intelligence agencies tried to use the documents of Polish intelligence seized after the defeat of Poland, which, in prewar years conducted extensive espionage work against the Soviet Union. The agents of the Polish intelligence agencies, as well as officers and secret service employees from the Baltic states who fled to Germany and Scandinavia, were also partially identified and brought to cooperation. However, these attempts did not give the desired effect. With great success, the German secret service took advantage of the situation created after the defeat of Poland. The movement of the population from west to east and in the opposite direction, caused by the defeat of Poland, opened up new opportunities for German intelligence to spy against the USSR in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, as well as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Although a significant number of mishandled German agents neutralized right there, on the Soviet-German border, partly they managed to penetrate deep into Soviet territory, and some even reached such important centers as Leningrad and Kyiv. Thanks to the actions of its agents and aerial reconnaissance, the German command had data on the location of field airfields and the deployment of Red Army units. Information about the weapons and equipment of the Red Army, judging by the diaries of Colonel General Halder, was far from being accurate. German agents often confused the weapons of the Red Army, produced in the Soviet Union, with the Polish weapons and equipment abandoned on the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, and drew incorrect conclusions from this. It is a widely known fact how amazed Hitler was when he learned already during the war about the existence of Soviet T34 and KV tanks, and with what distrust he ever since treated the information of German intelligence agencies.

But still it is impossible to assert with certainty that Germany did not have significant data of a strategic nature regarding the armed forces and the economy of the Soviet state. However, in evaluating intelligence data, the high command made serious mistakes. Thus, it underestimated information about the possibilities of evacuating Soviet industry to the east. It also did not trust the intelligence data on the successes of the USSR in the field of technology. The most important miscalculation was the incorrect political conclusion about the rapid and irreversible destruction of the national-state structure of the Union. Fatal miscalculations for the Nazis were also made in assessing the production possibilities of the industry of the USSR in the eastern regions of the country. Of the important military information at the time of the attack on the USSR, German intelligence had data on Soviet border fortifications, on some Soviet divisions stationed in the western regions of the Soviet Union.

According to Leverkün, emigration served as an important source of intelligence. The infiltration of German agents into emigre organizations where there were believed to be Soviet sympathizers became especially intense from the beginning of 1941. Special attention was paid to Ukrainian nationalists, from the former hetman Skoropadsky to Bandera, Konovalets and Melnyk.

After the defeat of Poland, contacts with Ukrainian organizations were carried out by the German intelligence department located in Krakow.

One of the important links of the German intelligence network against the Soviet Union was an organization in Sofia, created by the German intelligence officer Dr. Delius (real name Otto Wagner), who worked in the military attache of the German embassy, ​​Delius collected military and economic information about the Soviet Union, sent German agents in the Soviet Union. The duties of the Delius staff also included espionage and subversive activities against other states, in particular against the United States of America.

The attention of the intelligence agencies was increasingly directed to the east. The head of one of the departments of the imperial security administration, Schellenberg, wrote in his memoirs: "The western sectors of our security network must be weakened in order to strengthen the eastern ones."

The heads of the intelligence services periodically discussed information and materials received from the USSR. The main disagreement was over the assessment of Soviet military products. Schellenberg believed that Soviet heavy industry was at a fairly high level. This, in particular, concerned the production of tanks. He was convinced that types of tanks superior to the German ones were in production. Canaris refused to believe it. Schellenberg came to his conclusion in connection with Hitler's order to impress the Soviet Union with the might of Germany. To do this, in March 1941, the Soviet military attaché was invited to visit tank factories and tank training schools. Seeing that the attitude of the military attache to the one shown was completely different than expected, Schellenberg concluded that there were more advanced types of tanks in the USSR. There were also differences regarding the assessment of the Soviet railway network around Moscow, near the Urals, etc.

Schellenberg notes that if the material collected by the intelligence services did not fit into the concept of the military planning authorities, then they simply ignored it.

“Despite Keys's tendency to underestimate the technological progress made by Russia,” Schellenberg writes, “in later conversations with him, fears dominated that we would now be involved in a war on two fronts with all its inherent dangers. The opinion of the General Staff was that our superiority in troops, technical equipment and military leadership is so great that a concentrated campaign against Russia can be completed within ten weeks.

Hitler and Himmler shared Heydrich's point of view that a military defeat would so weaken the Soviet state that with the help of German political agents it would be possible to bring about its complete collapse. Intelligence chiefs Canaris and Schellenberg were apparently more cautious in their assessments. Canaris, for example, tried to warn Keitel against underestimating the power of the Soviet regime. However, Keitel dismissed his arguments, stating that the measures taken by Hitler in the war against the USSR are so strong that "the Soviet system, no matter how firmly established, will not be able to resist them."

According to Schellenberg, Hitler studied the materials of German intelligence very carefully, demanding that he be provided with more and more data on the state of the Soviet defensive structures and armed forces.

The head of the Abwehr, Canaris, showed nervousness in the last weeks before the attack on the USSR, because he believed that the calculations of the high command related to the forecasts of the course and duration of military operations against the Soviet Union were unrealistic, based on incorrect estimates and testified to the complacency and excessive optimism of Brauchitsch, Keitel, Halder and Jodl. This confirms once again that later statements German generals, as if they were trying to keep Hitler from attacking the USSR, are not true. It was none other than Keitel who told Canaris: "You may understand something about counterintelligence, but you are a sailor and do not try to give us lessons in strategic and political planning."

Although from November 1940 Hitler was engrossed in the study of information regarding the USSR, he showed concern about the position of the United States of America. The German intelligence agencies were given the task of finding out the position of the United States of America, the potential capabilities of their industry, especially aircraft and shipbuilding. From this, as they believed in the highest military circles, the amount of time that Germany would have before the start of a war on two fronts depends. Intelligence chiefs agreed that if US manufacturing power supported the British war effort, it would certainly lead to an invasion of the Continent. The landing will be preceded by a powerful air offensive.

The main intelligence center responsible for collecting information about the Soviet Union was the department of the Supreme Command of the Ground Forces (OKH), called "Foreign Armies - East" (FHO). Established in 1938, the FHO was responsible for military information about Poland, the Scandinavian countries, some Balkan countries, the USSR, China and Japan. But, beginning on July 31, 1940, when Hitler gave the OKH the order to prepare to move to the East, the FHO focused on the Soviet Union.

The head of the Foreign Armies - East department, Colonel Kinzel, gave a generalized assessment of the Red Army at the end of 1939: “In numerical terms, a powerful military tool. - The main emphasis falls on the "mass of troops." - Organization, equipment and controls are insufficient. - The principles of leadership are unsatisfactory, the leadership itself is too young and inexperienced ... - The quality of the troops in a difficult combat situation is doubtful. The Russian "mass" does not reach the level of an army equipped with modern weapons and higher-class leadership.

In the process of creating the Barbarossa plan, the participants were largely influenced by the strategic assessments of the USSR (Rusland-bild) periodically produced by the General Staff. According to them, the Soviet Union, like the former tsarist Russia, was a "colossus with feet of clay." An unexpected quick blow should knock him off his feet. According to the leading German generals, the Red Army in 1940-1941 was a clumsy accumulation of military units, incapable of operational initiative at all command levels, adapted only to a mechanical form of planning and operational behavior, and most importantly, not ready to wage a modern war. This assessment was particularly influenced by the actions of the Red Army in Poland and against Finland. These two campaigns were recognized as the most obvious evidence that the Red Army, firstly, had not recovered from the almost complete destruction of the officer corps during the "great purges", and secondly, had not mastered the new military equipment, had not joined the process mastering modern technology.

It is quite obvious that the quick victory of the Wehrmacht over the French army, which seemed to many in the 20-30s the most powerful, played a perverse role. military force in Europe. Faith in the military-technical superiority of Germany was no longer questioned at any level. The German leadership, even in the event of a war with the USSR, expected quick decisive results. Henceforth, the problem of "Barbarossa" was considered as a problem of smoothly coordinated plans, correct operational preparation.

The above organization "Foreign Armies - East" (FHO), as mentioned, was instructed to analyze the capabilities of the Red Army after the end of the Polish campaign. Starting in the autumn of 1939, the FHO identified five channels of information: 1) radio intelligence; 2) reports of Abwehr agents and emigrants from the Baltics; 3) reports of the German military attaches; 4) allied intelligence reports; 5) testimonies of deserters from the Red Army. The Germans showed great skill in radio interception, in radio intelligence, but this source, limited in terms of space and function, did not give grounds for strategic assessments, did not allow judging the deployment of Red Army units, especially those located beyond the Urals. The Germans knew absolutely nothing about the military recruitment system.

The work of the FHO ended with the creation of an extensive memorandum "The military power of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Regulations on 01/01/1941. Two thousand copies of this document were printed by January 15, 1941. It spoke about the presence in the USSR of sixteen military districts and two military commissariats, led by the People's Commissariat of Defense. Radio reconnaissance and aerial photography enabled the FHO to identify eleven Soviet armies in the European part of the USSR. According to the memorandum, the USSR could mobilize from eleven to twelve million people. But the authors of the memorandum doubted the possibility of mobilizing such a mass of troops, since the country did not have enough officers, uniforms and equipment, and the factories needed labor.

The memorandum defined the volume of human masses that make up the Red Army: 20 armies, 20 infantry corps (150 infantry divisions), 9 cavalry corps (32-36 cavalry divisions), 6 mechanized corps, 36 motorized-mechanized brigades. The number of infantry divisions at the end of 1940 was determined by the number 121. From the memorandum, in essence, it followed that the FHO did not know the exact number of divisions of the Red Army and their location. The FHO made a big mistake by deciding that all Soviet tanks were obsolete models. German experts did not know about the existence of the T-34 tanks, although they showed themselves most conspicuously at Khalkhin Gol.

As for the balance of power between Germany and Russia, Hitler personally said that the armored forces of the USSR were "numerically the largest in the world." The number of Soviet tanks was determined at ten thousand units. Germany had three and a half thousand tanks. And this did not cause Hitler any fears. The Germans considered most of the Soviet tanks hopelessly outdated. Curiosity aroused only the heaviest tank in the world - the KV-1 (43.5 tons), which first appeared (according to German information) in service in 1940.

German intelligence made a mistake two and a half times. The Red Army had 24,000 tanks. And among them is a tank, the creators of which we all owe. This is an ingenious model "T-34". A major miscalculation of German intelligence was that she did not pay attention to this tank, although hundreds of "thirty-fours" participated in battles with the Japanese in the late 30s. The frontal armor of the T-34 in 1941 reflected the fire of German guns of almost any caliber.

The assessment of the German Luftwaffe of the Soviet Air Force is in line with the same trend. On February 1, 1941, Berlin counted 10,500 Soviet aircraft, 7,500 of which were stationed in the European part of the USSR. The OKH headquarters thought it was better: 5655 aircraft in the European part of the Union. Of these, only 60 percent are ready for combat, and only 100-200 aircraft have a modern design. In fact, at the time of the German attack, the Red Army had 18 thousand aircraft of all types, and Halder later bitterly had to write in his diary: "The Luftwaffe significantly underestimated the number of enemy aircraft."

The key issue was the balance of ground forces. In January 1941, the FHO determined the size of the Red Army in peacetime at 2 million soldiers, the military - at 4 million. In fact, on January 1, 1941, there were 4 million soldiers in the ranks of the Red Army, and by June - 5 million.

In August 1940, General Marx counted 171 divisions in the Red Army (117 infantry, 24 cavalry, 30 mechanized brigades); On March 29, 1941, General Halder noted that the Russians "have 15 divisions more than we previously believed." Already in recent days, the Germans have established that there are 226 divisions in the European part of the USSR - this is a rather sharp increase that caused discomfort among the Germans. But they, these new realities, no longer influenced the fatal march of Nazi Germany. The Germans discovered the terrible truth for themselves in the second month of what they saw as a blitzkrieg.

The FHO memorandum made two important conclusions that directly related to the planning of Barbarossa.

First. The bulk Soviet troops will be located to the south and north of the Pripyat swamps in order to close the places of the breakthrough of the German troops and for counterattacks on the flanks of the German armies. Doubts were immediately expressed about the ability of the Red Army to carry out such operations, given the general level of military leadership and training of troops, the general level of organization, as well as the state of Soviet railways and highways.

Second. The strength of the Red Army lies in its numbers, as well as the stoicism, firmness and courage of a single soldier. These qualities should especially manifest themselves in defense. If in the Finnish campaign soviet soldier fought without enthusiasm, then in the event of a German invasion, he will be more resistant. In general, German analysts did not see much difference between the Russian soldier of the First and Second World Wars. “The Soviet Union today retains only the external form, and not the true essence of the Marxist doctrine ... The state is controlled by the bureaucratic methods of persons blindly loyal to Stalin, the economy is controlled by engineers and managers who owe everything to the new regime and are truly devoted to it.” It was emphasized that "the Russian character - heavy, mechanical, withdrawing from decisions and responsibility - has not changed."

The general assessment of the Red Army is as follows: “Clumsiness, schematism, the desire to avoid decision-making and responsibility ... The weakness of the Red Army lies in the clumsiness of officers of all ranks, their attachment to formulas, insufficient training, as required by modern standards, the desire to avoid responsibility and the obvious inefficiency of the organization in all aspects." There was a lack of a competent, highly professional military leadership capable of replacing the generals who died in the purges, the backwardness of the troop training system, and insufficient military supplies to equip them.

The last assessment of the Red Army, carried out by the organization "Foreign armies - East", dates back to May 20, 1941. Number in the European part: 130 infantry divisions, 21 cavalry, 5 armored, 36 motorized-mechanized brigades. The arrival of reinforcements from Asia is unlikely for political reasons. In essence, the FHO called for neglecting the divisions located in the Far East.

The following is very important: the FHO believed that in the event of an attack from the West, the withdrawal of the bulk of Soviet troops into the depths of Russia - following the example of 1812 - was impossible. It was predicted that defensive battles would be fought in a strip about thirty kilometers deep using fortifications created in advance. The same fortifications will serve as starting bases for counterattacks. The Red Army will try to stop the German offensive near the border and transfer combat operations to enemy territory. Consequently, the fate of the war will be decided at the border. Large-scale troop movements should not be expected. Hitler fully shared this illusion, and it cost Germany dearly. (In just a few weeks, the OKH would receive information similar to the report of the 41st Panzer Corps: "The materials presented give only a very superficial picture of the alleged resistance of the enemy.")

One of the reasons for the inefficiency of the German intelligence service was, as already mentioned, the fact that the German codebreakers never managed to read the ciphers of the Red Army command and Soviet intelligence. In this regard, she had no achievements, like the British and Americans. The Germans were able to infiltrate a few agents into the Red Army headquarters at the divisional and army levels, as well as in the rear, but they never succeeded in infiltrating the Soviet General Staff, the Ministry of Defense, or any institution above the army level. Attempts to get into the upper echelon of the GRU, NKVD, and then SMERSH were unsuccessful. Moreover, as it turned out after the war, the German lost unconditionally in the competition between the two intelligence services: the most valuable agents of the Abwehr transmitted information containing disinformation. This, above all, concerns the three leading agents of the Abwehr, whose reports and assessments of the USSR directly influenced military planning in Germany. This refers to "Max", located in Sofia, "Stex" in Stockholm and Ivar Lissner in Harbin. They have been working with Moscow's knowledge from the very beginning and have been spreading strategic disinformation. As the American researcher D. Thomas writes, “The FHO was vulnerable to Soviet disinformation, especially at the strategic level, not only because of the lack of reliable basic information about Soviet plans, but also because of a specifically German way of thinking. Namely: there was a sense of superiority that led to an underestimation of Soviet military capabilities; the emphasis on Soviet military shortcomings, which does not allow for a correct assessment of Soviet operational capabilities; a tendency to "mirror-image" Soviet intentions; over-centralization of the evaluation process in the hands of a small group of analysts. (However, even observing the outcome of the aggression, not all German authorities stigmatized the FHO. For example, General Jodl during interrogations in 1945 stated: “In general, I was satisfied with the work of our intelligence services. Their best result was the exact identification of the location of Russian troops in early 1941 years in Western Belarus and Ukraine").

adventurous planning

How, according to the Germans, should the Red Army have acted? According to German intelligence, the bulk of the troops were moved to the western border of the country. The Germans came to the conclusion that these troops were focused on tenacious and stubborn defense of the territory, prepared lines, and not on a mobile form of defense. (In the same way, the deployment of the Red Army completely convinced the OKH that a preventive offensive from the USSR was out of the question. According to the OKH assessment of May 20, 1941, the danger of a preventive war on the part of the USSR was recognized zero.) The High Command of the German Ground Forces came to an important conclusion: the Soviet troops would stubbornly defend their positions, not thinking about retreating back. It was necessary to use this chance and destroy the main forces of the Red Army in the border battles.

This strategy determined the tactics. A short but intense discussion led to the following option: tank groups would take over the task of quickly penetrating the rear of the bulk of Soviet troops; rifle divisions operating at a much slower speed will turn to destroying encircled enemy groupings. The German command understood that there was a significant gap between the tank units rushing forward and the infantry marching behind, but the general optimistic mood in Berlin was such that they began to see this as a kind of valor. None of the theorists saw in such a gap a danger to the entire strategic plan. Close interaction between infantry and tanks was envisaged only for the very first period - the days of the breakthrough of the Soviet front. To this end, each group tank troops an infantry corps was attached to storm the Soviet fortifications, the formation of breakthrough zones. After completing the assigned task, the infantry corps should have returned to the bulk of the troops, and the tank groupings should have rushed forward without looking back.

Much more than the mutual action of infantry and tanks, the concern of the German officers was the problem of supplying the troops rushing to the east. For many hours, staff officers studied the dense forests facing the Center group that was being formed. Initially, most of the specialists involved leaned towards the massive use of airborne assault forces. But over time, the understanding grew that the forests stretched too far from the border to the east and separate enclaves captured by paratroopers did not solve the problem. Moreover, there was a danger that the landing units would not wait for help and would be surrounded. In addition, the best airborne forces were involved in Crete, suffered quite heavy losses and needed a period of recuperation. Ultimately, the OKH abandoned the idea of ​​a massive use of airborne forces.

The supply of the tanks that had gone forward was, according to the idea that prevailed for a while, to be carried out according to the captured railways- it was necessary to "narrow" the gauge to the standard German one as soon as possible. But it took time to transfer the wide gauge to the narrow gauge, but there was none. The appeal to the possibilities of air transport did not give anything either, transport aircraft were not enough. And where to find ready-made airfields for their landing? All reflections boiled down to the fact that the German military machine no choice: focus on road transport, using suitable salvaged mounts.

We see adventurous planning in its essence. The Germans did not have a sufficient number of vehicles, and they confidently relied on the enemy's vehicle fleet. For a short time, the issue of winter uniforms for the troops arose, but this issue was resolved with surprising ease. The campaign will be completed by autumn, and there is no particular need for warm clothes. As a result, winter clothing was provided for only a third of the German troops.

The most important miscalculation of the German military leaders was that they did not imagine the industrial and military capabilities of Central Russia, the Urals, Siberia and Central Asia. This was the case even from the topographic point of view, from the point of view of familiarity with the landscape. Much has been said about the Germans as excellent cartographers. Many small scale maps European Russia would like to have Soviet commanders in their tablets. But with an insultingly high cartographic culture, the Germans knew surprisingly little about the powerful demographic processes that took place in Russia in the 1920s and 1930s. For the German leadership - from Hitler and below - it was a surprise to find huge industrial centers where provincial outbacks appeared on German maps. For example, a small circle on German maps turned out to be a powerful industrial Kherson. In the area designated as a remote steppe, the German troops encountered numerous towns and villages. Two circumstances - insufficient intelligence work and self-confidence that has become second nature - prepared unpleasant surprises for the Wehrmacht.

So, "Barbarossa" was the greatest defeat of Germany already at the stage of what the Germans love so much - planning. The forces of the opposing side were estimated to be half the real level. The military command was in no way prepared for combat operations in the winter. The Germans did not expect to meet the superior Soviet tanks. The German army had winter uniforms for only one third of the needs. The German military industry was not ready for a long-term conflict on a continental scale. The advancing armies were supplied with only a three-month supply of fuel. Arrogance, blind self-confidence, disregard for facts, as always in history, have borne fruit. A sense of national superiority blinded Germany as she rushed towards her destiny. The Germans were convinced that the Red Army would quickly lay down its arms, that the Soviet government would collapse immediately.

In a cold-blooded analysis, Hitler and his entourage should have understood that Germany, with all its colossal power, could not conquer a country of such magnitude, such a population, such a rigid political system, indestructible patriotism and martyr stoicism. Even if the German tanks entered Moscow and Leningrad, even if they crossed the Volga at Stalingrad.

The German leadership did not attach due importance to the national efforts of the USSR. Two years before the start of the war, a transition was made from a seven-hour to an eight-hour working day. Transfer from one enterprise to another was prohibited. Housing construction stopped completely, while colossal factories were being built. Young designers tested new weapons. The country has tensed to the limit.

Ultimately, the Germans entered the road of war with Russia, poorly prepared for a meeting with the enemy. They didn't even wonder if they could win. By the time the question came to them, it was already too late.