Reinhard Gehlen was one of hitlers most decorated officers and cheif of the third reich's eastern army front. He was also hitlers master spy. During the Russian front in WW2 he had run a network of German spies against the russians to gather intelligence. After the surrender of Germany to the Allied forces, Gehlen surrendered himself over to american forces saying that he had information on the soviet union that he was willing to give to the government.
During WW2 German officers were very impressed by his intelligence gathering on the Russians in the eastern front. Because of this he was promoted to Senior Intelligence officer of the German army on the eastern front. When Gehlens surrendered himself to the US Army he made a deal with US intelligence officers that if he was given his freedom and the freedom of his colleagues in the American POW camps he would provide the US with his intelligence on the Russians and the command of his German spies still in the soviet union. After Gehlen was released by the US he handpicked 350 former german intelligence officers and spies to go into the soviet union the give information the CIA. This number eventually grew to 4000 spies for the CIA during the cold war. These spies were known as the Gehlen Organization.
If you have seen the movie inglourious basterds the german officer at the end who surrenders himself was based off Gehlen but he surrendered himself under different circumstances. I thought this was very interesting because of how many spies he had in the soviet union and the fact that a major movie role was based off of him.
source: http://www.carpenoctem.tv/cons/german.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Gehlen
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