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Kampfgruppe Gegen Unmenschlichkeit
The Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit (KgU) (German for "Combat Group against Inhumanity") was a German anti-communist resistance group based in West Berlin. It was founded in 1948 by Rainer Hildebrandt, Günther Birkenfeld, and Ernst Benda, and existed until 1959. Hildebrandt would later establish the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. History The KgU received significant financial support from several Western intelligence agencies as well as the government of West Germany and the Ford Foundation. The US Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) provided funding from the group's creation in the late 1940s. By the early 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) gradually replaced the CIC as the KgU's most prominent American backer. According to CIA documents, the KgU ran approximately 500 agents in East Germany in the early 1950s, which, according to historian Enrico Heitzer, put it on par with the Gehlen Organization, the predecessor to the West German intelligence service Bundesnachri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterpropaganda
Counterpropaganda is a form of communication consisting of methods taken and messages relayed to oppose propaganda which seeks to influence action or perspectives among a targeted audience. It is closely connected to propaganda as the two often employ the same methods to broadcast messages to a targeted audience. Counterpropaganda differs from propaganda as it is defensive and responsive to identified propaganda. Additionally, counterpropaganda consists of several elements that further distinguish it from propaganda and ensure its effectiveness in opposing propaganda messages. Definition Counterpropaganda and propaganda share a symbiotic relationship. Counterpropaganda is employed in situations to counter existing propaganda efforts and thus to understand the former requires a clear understanding of the latter. Practitioners and academics alike have advanced multiple definitions of propaganda. For the sake of clarity this article acknowledges the definition proposed by Garth Jowett a ... [...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] |
Wolfgang Kaiser (KgU)
Wolfgang Kaiser (born Leipzig 16 February 1924: executed Dresden 6 September 1952) was a member of Rainer Hildebrandt's "Struggle against Inhumanty" group (KgU / ''Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit'') which campaigned against the one party dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic. In the 1952 Hildebrandt conspiracy show trial, he was identified on 8 August as the "chief chemist" of the KgU and, on 9 August, condemned to death in the country's Supreme Court. Life Background Wolfgang Kaiser was a chemistry student. He was studying at the Humboldt University, then in East Berlin, though he actually lived in West Berlin. The political division of Berlin complicated his life. He attempted without success to switch to the newly established Free University in West Berlin, but lost his student place in the process.Gerhard Finn: ''Nichtstun ist Mord. Die Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit - KgU'', Westkreuz-Verlag, Bad Münstereifel 2000, The "Struggle against inhumanity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Burianek
Johann Burianek (16 November 1913 – 2 August 1952) was a former Wehrmacht soldier and CIA-backed insurgent who planned and committed several attacks against the German Democratic Republic and a member of the anti-communist KGU. In a 1952 trial he was condemned to death in the country's Supreme Court for preparing attacks on railway bridges. He was the first person to receive a death sentence from the new country's justice system. Life Early years Burianek was born in the Rheinland at Düsseldorf, the son of a master shoe maker. He underwent an apprenticeship as a machinist and in 1932 relocated to Czechoslovakia, taking Czechoslovak nationality in 1932/33. He served in the German airforce during the 1930s and in 1939 took back his German nationality. Wehrmacht Service in WWII During the Second World War, Burianek served in the Wehrmacht. In the final days of the war, Burianek arrested Herbert Kloster, a deserter whom he then delivered to his military headquarters. Kloster was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitlerism (german: Hitlerfaschismus). The later related term "neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War. Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the use of eugenics into its creed. Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist '' Völkisch'' movement which had been a prominent aspect of German nationalism since the late 19th century, and it was strongly influenced by the paramilitary groups that emerged af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the head of government, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maintaining state authority, i.e., the "Sword and Shield of the Party" (). This was accomplished primarily through the use of a network of civilian informants. This organization contributed to the arrest of approximately 250,000 people in East Germany. The Stasi also conducted espionage and other clandestine operations abroad through its subordinate foreign intelligence service, the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance, Office of Enlightenment, or Head Office A (german: Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung). They also maintained contacts and occasionally cooperated with West German terrorists. The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Lichtenberg (locality), Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller facilities throughout the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a Federation, federal union of Republics of the Soviet Union, fifteen national republics; in practice, both Government of the Soviet Union, its government and Economy of the Soviet Union, its economy were highly Soviet-type economic planning, centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Saint Petersburg, Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kyiv, Kiev (Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Ukrainian SSR), Minsk (Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Byelorussian SSR), Tas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stay-behind
In a stay-behind operation, a country places secret operatives or organizations in its own territory, for use in case an enemy occupies that territory. If this occurs, the operatives would then form the basis of a resistance movement or act as spies from behind enemy lines. Small-scale operations may cover discrete areas, but larger stay-behind operations envisage reacting to the conquest of whole countries. Stay-behind also refers to a military tactic whereby specially trained soldiers let themselves be overrun by enemy forces in order to conduct intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance tasks often from pre-prepared hides. History Stay-behind operations of significant size existed during World War II. The United Kingdom put in place the Auxiliary Units. Partisans in Axis-occupied Soviet territory in the early 1940s operated with a stay-behind element. During the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) coordinated and the Central Inte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tarantel (magazine)
''Tarantel'' ( tr, Tarantula) was a German monthly satirical magazine in Berlin, West Germany, which was in circulation between 1950 and 1962. Being a propaganda publication it was started to address the readers in East Germany and was funded by the American intelligence organization CIA. History and profile ''Tarantel'' was launched in West Berlin in 1950. Its founder was the German journalist Heinz Wenzel, known as Heinrich Bär, who also edited the magazine. The magazine was first published by Freiheitsverlag Leipzig in a miniature format on a monthly basis. Later Heinrich Bär Verlag became the publisher of the magazine. The company employed ''Tarantel'' as part of its propaganda war against East Germany which was ridiculed by the magazine. It also mocked the establishment of the Soviet Union, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Communist Party of East Germany and East German government officials. Christian F. Ostermann argues that the Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit (Kg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rundfunk Im Amerikanischen Sektor
RIAS (german: Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor; en, ''Radio in the American Sector'') was a radio and television station in the American Sector of Berlin during the Cold War. It was founded by the US occupational authorities after World War II in 1946 to provide the German population in and around Berlin with news and political reporting. History By the end of 1945 the US military administration in Allied-occupied Berlin decided to establish its own broadcasting system, after the Soviets had refused to provide air time on the ''Berliner Rundfunk'' radio station. Supervised by the US Information Control Division, broadcasting commenced on 7 February 1946. For the first months the programme could be distributed via telephone line only (as DIAS – '' Drahtfunk im amerikanischen Sektor''), until a first medium wave transmitter was installed in September. By its creative and innovative programming, the station quickly gained much popularity. Its importance was magnified during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economic Warfare
Economic warfare or economic war is an economic strategy utilized by belligerent nations with the goal of weakening the economy of other states. This is primarily achieved by the use of economic blockades. Ravaging the crops of the enemy is a classic method, used for thousands of years. In military operations, economic warfare may reflect economic policy followed as a part of open or covert operations, cyber operations, information operations during or preceding a war. Economic warfare aims to capture or otherwise to control the supply of critical economic resources so friendly military and intelligence agencies can use them and enemy forces cannot. The concept of economic warfare is most applicable to total war, which involves not only the armed forces of enemy countries, but also mobilized war-economies. In such a situation, damage to an enemy's economy is damage to that enemy's ability to fight a war. Scorched-earth policies may deny resources to an invading enemy. Polici ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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