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Eberhard Blum
Eberhard Blum (April 28, 1919 – July 9, 2003), born in Kiel, was the fourth head of the German Federal Intelligence Bureau (BND). He served for the Wehrmacht on the Eastern front during World War II, last in the position of a Rittmeister. After the war he finished his university studies in law and state science and in 1947 joined the Gehlen Organization, the precursor of the BND. He became personal consultant to Reinhard Gehlen under the codename HARTWIG. From 1961 to 1964 he was head of the subdivision "Personnel" of the BND. 1964 to 1968 he became resident spy of the BND in London. After the period in London he returned to Pullach as head of Department IV Administration (Abeitlung IV Verwaltung), a position he kept until 1970 when major disputes with the then BND president Gerhard Wessel arose and he was transferred as resident spy to Washington where he remained until 1982. He overtook the position as head of the Bundesnachrichtendienst in 1982 and remained in office unti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiel
Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland peninsula on the southwestern shore of the Baltic Sea, Kiel has become one of Germany's major maritime centres, known for a variety of international sailing events, including the annual Kiel Week, which is the biggest sailing event in the world. Kiel is also known for the Kiel mutiny, Kiel Mutiny, when sailors refused to board their vessels in protest against Germany's further participation in World War I, resulting in the abdication of the Wilhelm II, German Emperor, Kaiser and the formation of the Weimar Republic. The Olympic sailing competitions of the 1936 Summer Olympics, 1936 and the 1972 Summer Olympics#Venues, 1972 Summer Olympics were held in the Bay of Kiel. Kiel has also been one of the traditional homes of the German Nav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Swabian Jura and the Black Forest. Stuttgart has a population of 635,911, making it the sixth largest city in Germany. 2.8 million people live in the city's administrative region and 5.3 million people in its metropolitan area, making it the fourth largest metropolitan area in Germany. The city and metropolitan area are consistently ranked among the top 20 European metropolitan areas by GDP; Mercer listed Stuttgart as 21st on its 2015 list of cities by quality of living; innovation agency 2thinknow ranked the city 24th globally out of 442 cities in its Innovation Cities Index; and the Globalization and World Cities Research Network ranked the city as a Beta-status global city in their 2020 survey. Stuttgart was one of the host cities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bundesnachrichtendienst
The Federal Intelligence Service (German: ; , BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin and is the world's largest intelligence headquarters. The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries. In 2016, it employed around 6,500 people; 10% of them are military personnel who are formally employed by the Office for Military Sciences. The BND is the largest agency of the German Intelligence Community. The BND was founded during the Cold War in 1956 as the official foreign intelligence agency of West Germany, which had recently joined NATO, and in close cooperation with the CIA. It was the successor to the earlier Gehlen Organization, often known simply as "The Organization" or "The Org", a West German intelligence organization affiliated with the CIA whose existence had not been officially acknowledged. The most central figure in the BND's history was former W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previously used term and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted. After the Nazi rise to power in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler's most overt and audacious moves was to establish the ''Wehrmacht'', a modern offensively-capable armed force, fulfilling the Nazi régime's long-term goals of regaining lost territory as well as gaining new territory and dominating its neighbours. This required the reinstatement of conscription and massive investment and defense spending on the arms industry. The ''Wehrmacht'' formed the heart of Germany's politico-military power. In the early part of the Second World War, the ''Wehrmacht'' employed combined arms tactics (close-cover ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rittmeister
__NOTOC__ (German and Scandinavian for "riding master" or "cavalry master") is or was a military rank of a commissioned cavalry officer in the armies of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Scandinavia, and some other countries. A ''Rittmeister'' is typically in charge of a squadron (a company-sized unit called a "troop" in the United States, as opposed to the U.S. cavalry squadron of larger battalion size), and is the equivalent of a ''Hauptmann'' rank (en: captain). The various names of this rank in different languages (all Germanic, plus Estonian) were: * sv, ryttmästare * da, ritmester * no, rittmester (bokmål; the spelling ''ritmester'' was used until 1907) or ''rittmeister'' (nynorsk) * german: Rittmeister * et, rittmeister The Dutch equivalent, ''Ritmeester'', is still the official designation for officers in the cavalry branches of the Royal Dutch Army. The Norwegian rank, ''rittmester''/''rittmeister'', still serves as the official designation for officers in the armoured ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reinhard Gehlen
Reinhard Gehlen (3 April 1902 – 8 June 1979) was a German lieutenant-general and intelligence officer. He was chief of the Wehrmacht Foreign Armies East military intelligence service on the eastern front during World War II, spymaster of the CIA-affiliated anticommunist Gehlen Organisation (1946–56) and the founding president of the Federal Intelligence Service (''Bundesnachrichtendienst'', BND) of West Germany (1956–68) during the Cold War. Gehlen became a professional soldier in 1920 during the Weimar Republic. In 1942, he became chief of Foreign Armies East (FHO), the German Army's military intelligence unit on the Eastern Front (1941–45). He achieved the rank of major general before he was fired by Adolf Hitler in April 1945 because of the FHO's "defeatism", the pessimistic intelligence reports about Red Army superiority. In late 1945, following the 7 May surrender of Germany and the start of the Cold War, the U.S. military (G-2 Intelligence) recruited him to esta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Resident Spy
A resident spy in the world of espionage is an agent operating within a foreign country for extended periods of time. A base of operations within a foreign country with which a resident spy may liaise is known as a "station" in English and a (, 'residency') in Russian. What the U.S. would call a "station chief", the head spy, is known as a () in Russian. Types of resident spies In the former Soviet Union and Russian nomenclature, there were two types of resident spies: ' (, legal resident spy) and ' (, illegal resident spy). In U.S. parlance, the same distinction is between "official cover" and "non-official cover". A legal resident spy operates in a foreign country under official cover (such as from his country's embassy). He is an official member of the consular staff, such as a commercial, cultural, or military attaché. He has diplomatic immunity from prosecution and cannot be arrested by the host country if suspected of espionage. The host country can expel such a person, r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pullach
Pullach, officially Pullach i. Isartal, is a municipality in the district of Munich in Bavaria in Germany. It lies on the Isar Valley Railway and is served by the S 7 line of the Munich S-Bahn, at the Großhesselohe Isartalbahnhof, Pullach and Höllriegelskreuth railway stations. The headquarters of the intelligence agency of the German government, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), was located in Pullach before the agency moved to Berlin. The new headquarters was completed in 2017 and opened officially in February 2019. Until the move to Berlin, ‘Pullach’ was a metonym for ‘the BND’ just as ‘Langley’ is for ‘the CIA’. Geography Pullach sits on the western bank of the Isar river, just south of Munich. Neighbouring municipalities On the opposite bank of the Isar, lies the municipality of Grünwald, Bavaria, with the municipality of Baierbrunn further south. The municipality is bordered to the north by Munich, specifically the suburbs of Solln and Harlaching. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerhard Wessel
Gerhard Wessel (December 24, 1913 – July 28, 2002) was President of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Federal Intelligence Bureau from May 1968 to December 1978. He previously served in the Reichswehr (1932–35) and German Army (Wehrmacht), Army, including the Foreign Armies East of Reinhard Gehlen during World War II. After the war, he was part of the Gehlen Organisation, and then the Bundeswehr (1956–1952). He was head of the BND, Germany's Federal Intelligence Service from 1 May 1968 to 31 December 1978. According to his obituary in the Los Angeles Times, entitled ''Gerhard Wessel, 88; Did Espionage Work for Hitler, West Germany'', the "former intelligence officer in Adolf Hitler’s anti-Soviet spy operations" ... "is credited with modernizing the BND by hiring academic analysts and electronics specialists". The obituary issued by the New York Times News Service summarized some of the BND's successes under Wessel: "It informed the government three months in advance of the Sov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Klaus Kinkel
Klaus Kinkel (17 December 1936 – 4 March 2019) 5. March 2019 was a German statesman, civil servant, and lawyer who served as the (1992–1998) and the |
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