Tibère, Clément Reinhard Gehlen

L'espion du siècle?

Reinhard Gehlen (19021979) was a man behind the scenes who survived the most tragic hours of the 20th century with unparalleled skill, from the Nazi secret service to the CIA to the secret service of the Federal Republic of Germany. But who was the man who was long considered the spy of the century? A staunch nationalist and professional soldier, he rose through the ranks of the Wehrmacht in the 1930s to reach the highest echelons of leadership. In 1942, he was appointed head of the Foreign Army Services East, the military intelligence structure of the Wehrmacht High Command. There he acquired unique knowledge about the Red Army and the USSR and influenced Germany's operational decisions on this front. However, as he had criticised Hitler's strategic decisions in the early years of the war, he became close to the conspirators of July 1944, but escaped the purge after the failure of Operation Valkyrie. But this enabled Gehlen to pull off his masterpiece: he managed to conceal his past after the fall of the Third Reich and entered the service of the United States. From Munich, he ran a secret service, the Gehlen Organisation, for ten years with CIA funding and did not hesitate to employ former Nazis. His network, his methods and his pronounced anti-communism soon made him indispensable, and Chancellor Adenauer appointed him the first head of the West German foreign intelligence service.