German Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND): Records related to War Crime Trials, German Federal Archives Koblenz (BND B 206)

The Federal Intelligence Service (German: Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Chancellor's Office. The BND was founded during the Cold War in 1956 as the official foreign intelligence agency of West Germany, which had recently joined NATO. It was the successor to the earlier Gehlen Organization, often known simply as "The Organization" or "The Org.", whose existence had not been officially acknowledged. The most central figure in the BND's history was Reinhard Gehlen, the leader of the Gehlen Organization and later the founding president of the BND, who was regarded as "one of the most legendary Cold War spymasters."[2] From the early days of the Cold War the Gehlen Organization and later the BND had an intimate cooperation with the CIA, and often was the western intelligence community's only eyes and ears on the ground in the eastern bloc. The BND was also regarded as one of the best informed intelligence services in regards to the Middle East from the 1960s. Both Russia and the Middle East remain important focuses of the BND's activities, in addition to violent non-state actors. The predecessor of the BND was the German eastern military intelligence agency during World War II, the Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost or FHO Section in the General Staff, led by Wehrmacht Major General Reinhard Gehlen. Its main purpose was to collect information on the Red Army. After the war Gehlen worked with the U.S. occupation forces in West Germany. In 1946 he set up an intelligence agency informally known as the Gehlen Organization or simply "The Org" and recruited some of his former co-workers. Many had been operatives of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris' wartime Abwehr (counter-intelligence) organization, but Gehlen also recruited people from the former Sicherheitsdienst (SD), SS and Gestapo, after their release by the Allies. The latter recruits were later controversial because the SS and its associated groups were notoriously the perpetrators of many Nazi atrocities during the war.[3] The organization worked at first almost exclusively for the CIA, which contributed funding, equipment, cars, gasoline and other materials. On 1 April 1956 the Bundesnachrichtendienst was created from the Gehlen Organization, and was transferred to the West German government, with all staff. Reinhard Gehlen became President of the BND and remained its head until 1968. [Source of information is Wikipedia]. Organization Website: www.bnd.de

Bundesarchiv (Germany)

Source of acquisition is the Bundesarchiv Berlin, Germany (Federal Archive). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the filmed collection via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum International Archival Programs Division in August 2018.