The Study and Training Group for Military Reconnaissance (German: ; LAFBw) was a highly classified clandestine unit of the foreign

intelligence agency An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of informa ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) from 1964 to 1979.

History

Stay-behind units were formed in occupied West Germany right after World War II by the British, US and French intelligence services in their respective sectors as well as the Dutch and Danish in northern West Germany. The running of these Stay-behind organizations (SBOs) was coordinated with the Organization Gehlen, which later became the

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 head ...

(BND), the West German foreign intelligence service. In 1956, the BND took over these networks and merged them into one SBO, the Lehr- und Ausbildungsgruppe für das Fernspähwesen der Bundeswehr (LAFBw) or Teaching and Training Group for Long Range Reconnaissance of the German Armed Forces. pp.14-16 The STGMR was founded as the ''Special tasks unit 404/III'' within the BND and used the military name as a cover. It was officially disbanded in 1979.

Duties

In the

state of defence The state of defence (, ) is the constitutional state of emergency in Germany if the country is "under attack by armed force or imminently threatened with such an attack". Established by a constitutional amendment in 1968 during the Cold War, this ...

, the unit's task would have been tasked with secret operations as a

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 sp ...

unit. The planned role of BND-led Stay-behind units during the early phase of a

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist repub ...

invasion would have been marginal. Stay-behind agents were instructed to survive an invasion, and to lay low and quiet during the early occupation phases. Plans called for at least 500 LAFBw personnel in case of a conflict.https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=29105&pdf=29105 Only in what the BND described as the third phase, ‘every-day/routine occupation’, would they start sending messages, recruit fighters, and then conduct ‘massive sabotage operations’. These operations included partisan warfare against occupying forces, smuggling of equipment and personnel, reconnaissance and training BND and Bundeswehr personnel in commando warfare. In the 1980s, the BND tried to regain one of its stay-behind missions to assist friendly aircrew to escape from Warsaw Pact-led forces by conducting SAR ops.

Organization

Training

The unit's training was conducted by the

Bundeswehr The ''Bundeswehr'' (, meaning literally: ''Federal Defence'') is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The ''Bundeswehr'' is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part con ...

, the Bundesgrenzschutz, and the US Army's 10th Special Forces Group in Bad Tölz.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{cite book , title=Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America , last= McSherry, first=J. Patrice, year=2005, publisher= Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, location=Lanham, Maryland, isbn=978-0742536876

External links

''Reinhard Gehlens Schattentruppe – die Stay-Behind-Organisation des BND 1956 bis 1968''
Intelligence operations Special forces of West Germany Federal Intelligence Service