Der Dienst

by Reinhard Gehlen

The personal revelations of the powerful, mysterious and controversial espionage figure who served the Nazis, the U. S. Army, the CIA and West Germany.

Genres: History, World War II, Military Fiction, Germany, Biography

424 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[David Hill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes I have to be careful that I'm writing a review of the book I just read, rather than a review of the subject. In the case of a memoir, it's a bit simpler. Here we have a book about a man, written by the man. I really dislike this man, and that flows through to the book.

I don't think Gehlen ever comes right out and says that he wasn't a Nazi. I've read several memoirs of German WWII officers. I'm pretty sure every one of them denied being a Nazi. They also all denied having anything to do with Nazi atrocities. "My unit didn't participate; we weren't there. I knew nothing about any atrocities. I'm innocent." There are no words like that in this book.

But you don't even need to read between the lines in this book. Gehlen was either a Nazi or Nazi adjacent. Some select quotes:

"We had realized that this vast country, rich in manpower and raw material resources, could in the final analysis only be conquered - or, rather, liberated from communism - with the help of the Russian peoples themselves ... [snip] We could have won the Russians over because of their instinct for national self-preservation alone"

"In retrospect we can only agree that it is a matter for regret that Hitler did not follow [Clausewitz'] teachings more closely and act accordingly."

"After twenty years of arbitrary injustice and terror, the reestablishment of elementary human rights such as the dignity of man, liberty, justice, and the sanctity of property united every inhabitant of the Soviet empire in a common readiness to support the Germans. What could be more natural for us than to exploit this readiness?"

"... Sefton Delmer had pumped out vitriolic propaganda against Hitler's Germany."

He complains at one point that he couldn't work with a German officer who broke his personal oath to Hitler. Gehlen couldn't trust such a disloyal man.

To suggest that readers of this book "can only agree that it is a matter of regret" that Hitler wasn't a better strategist is bizarre.

The book was written 25 years after the war. If he was unaware of the Nazi atrocities during the war, he certainly had ample time before writing the book to learn about them. And yet, he calls the Nazi attack on Soviet Russia "a war of liberation". To say that people liberated from the Soviet Communists would be granted by the Germans "dignity of man, liberty, justice, and the sanctity of property" is risible. The Nazis liberated 27 million Soviets from Communism. By killing them.

Does one need to "pump out vitriolic propaganda" against Nazi Germany? It seems to me that simply telling the truth is good enough.

Although nothing jumped out at me as anti-Semitic, Gehlen doesn't hide his racism.

On West German arms exports to Israel: "These exports provoked violent controversy and minatory reactions from the Arab states, and ignited a dangerous fanaticism which can only be explained by the Arab mentality."

On the anti-Communist purge in Indonesia: "the liquidization of the Communists, including Aidit himself, who was executed, was carried out with a harshness and thoroughness typical of the Asian mentality."

How do you suppose he would react if someone described the systematic slaughter of millions of innocents and the theft of their properties as "typical of the German mentality"? No doubt he'd make some hand-waving rationalization.

So much for the man. What about the book?

It is broken down into four parts: his time running Foreign Armies East (the intelligence unit operating on the Eastern front), setting up and running the Gehlen Organization with the Americans on behalf of West Germany, converting that organization into the BND, and finally, some predictions of the future.

The first part is somewhat interesting. The second and third parts don't go into enough detail to be very fulfilling. He basically tells us that he made no mistakes and his team predicted all the major worldwide events of the time. In the fourth part, he manages to get every prediction wrong. (In his defense, it is really hard to predict the future.)

[Διόνυσος Ελευθέριος · Rating 2 out of 5]

In The Service, Reinhard Gehlen gives an account of his role in the nascent intelligence service first of allied-occupied West Germany, then of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. The "service" began as the Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost, an organization that would later become the Bundesnachrichtendienst. Gehlen, of course, was a Major General in Nazi Germany's Fremde Heere Ost, the military intelligence organization tasked with gathering intelligence on the Soviet Union during World War II. As the war came to a close, Gehlen sought the means of ensuring that he would end up in allied, rather than soviet, hands. The book itself is interesting for those drawn to the dramatic transformation of the Second World War into the Cold War, for in Gehlen's account, the transformation is particularly fluid: in his case, though his supporters changed, his enemy remained always the same. On the other hand, the fluidity of that transformation serves another end, one which it seems to me was very deliberately—if only very quietly—incorporated: Gehlen's account serves as a kind of apology (and I mean that in the strictest, original sense). In portraying his work as essentially and unwaveringly focused on the enemy of the rise of totalitarian communism, Gehlen downplays his role in the past threat of totalitarian Nazism. The "enemy" of Nazi Germany becomes, by his account, a merely mitigated threat when compared to the even greater threat after the war. The real threat does not come from the right, he seems to frequently be suggesting, but from the left. His role as a Nazi, it seems to be implied, should be weighed only after his service in The Service is considered. Is National Socialism to be measured in relation to its opposition to communism? That seems to me to be among his insinuations, for he depicts himself as the indispensable asset needed by his new American handlers to confront the new and now far greater threat. "We should be grateful for Herr Gehlen's services." Almost underlining this point is this strange fact: who could a once Nazi foe of the United States/now turned friend by means of the new mutual enemy of the Soviet Union, possibly turn to to translate his memoirs, memoirs which promise to show the nature of the real war going on, the real war for which the Second World War was only the dangerous foreplay? David Irving. Yes, that David Irving. David Irving the notorious holocaust denier David Irving. In reading this book about friends and enemies, we have a responsibility of keeping in mind, just that.

[Morten Borge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boka kom ut i 1972. Han var en høytstående etterretningsoffiser for nazi Tyskland under krigen og begynte å arbeide for amerikanerne etter krigen for å bygge opp etterretning i Vest Tyskland. Hans profetier mår det gjaldt Sovjetsamveldet (nå Russland higen etter å vinne territorier), konflikten i midt-østen og Kinas framvekst rundt om i verden var helt spot on. En interressang bok.

[Philip S · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointing as the information about Borman was proven wrong. He also travels very lightly over his service. You will find much more from other books on the subject.

[Jill Craven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Post-WWII Europe was basically the Wild West. Gehlen describes, in transactional terms, the switching of the West’s alliances, from Russia to Germany. Towards the end of the war, he calculated that Hitler would lose and that West Germany would need an intelligence service. He was able to position himself and his inner circle as the obvious candidates for this role by exploiting their knowledge of the Soviets, gathered during his time as head of all Eastern intelligence operations during the war. He used this knowledge to build strategic relationships with the US military intelligence and subsequently the CIA, and eventually set up and became head of the West German intelligence service.

Displaying strikingly arrogance, Gehlen criticises Hitler, not for his rank ideology or war crimes, but for his leadership failures and not taking his advice during the German campaigns on the eastern front. For example: “I still believe that we could have achieved our 1941 campaign objectives had it not been for the pernicious interventions of Adolf Hitler.” Indeed, chapters two and three read as if Gehlen wanted Germany to win the war. At the same time, he tries to distance himself and the Wehrmacht from Nazism. While the Wehrmacht was been described as operating as a ‘State within a State’, it shared the view of the National Socialists that post-WWI, Germany should be remade into a militarised Volksgemeinschaft, purged of those deemed as ‘internal enemies’, such as the Jews who were believed to betrayed Germany in 1918. So Gehlen’s account, through his assumptions and omissions, perpetuates the myth of the ‘clean Wehrmacht’.

At any rate, Gehlen’s memoir provides fascinating albeit terrifying insights into the ice cold pragmatism of post-WWII international relations.

[Bernardas Gailius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Negaliu pasakyti, kad tai patys įdomiausi iš mano skaitytų žvalgų atsiminimų. Labai taupiai pasakojami konkretūs įvykiai ar nuotykiai ir, bent mano skoniui, kiek per daug savimeilės. Tai nestebina: Gehlenas buvo keistoka asmenybė ir net kitų žvalgų kontekste jis atrodo šiek tiek susireikšminęs ir paranojiškas. Kai ką apie jį pasako tas faktas (kuriuo jis didžiuojasi), kad jo - žvalgybos tarnybos vadovo, iš veido negalėjo atpažinti daugelis įstaigos darbuotojų.

Nepaisant to, yra dvi priežastys, dėl kurių verta skaityti Gehleno atsiminimus. Pirma, tai unikali žvalgybos pajėgumų "konservavimo" ir atkūrimo istorija. Gehlenas sukūrė savo tinklą dar tarnaudamas Hitlerio kariuomenėje, paskui laiku paslėpė visus dokumentus, pasidavė amerikiečiams ir jų padedamas atkūrė organizaciją, galiausiai tapusią Vakarų Vokietijos žvalgyba - iki šiol veikiančia BND. Nemanykite, kad tai labai lengva: jam reikėjo daug gudrauti ir kietai derėtis - tiek su amerikiečiais, tiek su pačiu Konradu Adenaueriu.

Antra priežastis: labai blaivus Gehleno požiūris į Sovietų Sąjungą ir pasaulinį komunizmą. Iš visų mano skaitytų autorių, jis geriausiai paaiškino, kaip puikiai sovietų politikoje dera idealistinis tikėjimas galutine komunizmo pergale ir "realpolitik". Vienas kitam nė kiek neprieštarauja, kaip visuomet ir įtariau.

Tiems, kurie domisi žvalgybos ir Šaltojo karo istorija, verta iškęsti švelnų generolišką Gehleno pasipūtimą ir perskaityti visą knyga.

[Ebbe Negenman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A smart man can solve a problem, a wise man can avoid it. Gehlen was responsible for the army intelligence of the German army against the Sovjets during the Hitler period. That Gehlen was allowed to continue his intelligence work against the Sovjets after WO 2, was putting oil on the fire of the Cold War, in a time when water needed. However, I found it still an interesting historical read. Mainly due to the first part. In the first part, Gehlen is downplaying his relation with Hitler like a child downplaying his master. But only because it did not work out as planned.
Personal reflection is not in Gehlen’s mind.
Neither does he takes responsibility for the team he was (a not trivial) part of. In the remaining of the book he is conforming himself that the communists are still the evil empire and so he is on the good side. Gehlen has not a growth mindset. But he who does not change his mind, is not learning.

[tbt · Rating 1 out of 5]

An atrocious book. Gehlen provides practically no interesting information. Obviously he sidesteps his Nazi past, but he brushes over huge amounts of the Cold War. He includes the ludicrous deal he signed with the US, which proves Dulles and other such ppl disobeyed FDR’s direct orders for unconditional surrender, but other than that it’s a waste of time.

My copy was translated by David Irving. I assume he took the job to finally be part of something where nobody could call him the biggest Nazi involved.

[Stephen Curran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seems very dated but I am sure was a very relevant book when it was published

[Haydar · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to sayings about this book i understand that a history researcher must read it İ really wonder this book but couldnt found anywhere yet

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although a touch self-serving, and by no means completely revealing, for obvious reasons, this is a fascinating look into cold war espionage.

[Ronald Dahle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been a long tome, but I remember it to be very interesting. May dust it off and re-read it.