The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) is the current German Federal Intelligence
Service. It was established in post-war Germany in 1946 by the US occupation
authorities as the Organisation Gehlen (OG).
On 1 April 1956, control of the
agency was handed over to the German Government and its name was changed to
Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the Federal Intelligence Service.
Until 2019, the organisation was located in Pullach, after which it was relocated to Berlin.
BND is known within the
American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
by its codename CASCOPE.
The task of the BND is to gather foreign intelligence and to act as an
early warning system to threats from abroad.
It is the only German agency
that operates outside the country's borders [1].
In addition, Germany also has a domestic counterpart:
the Bundesamt für Verfassingsschutz (BfV)
and 16 Landesämter für Verfassungsschutz
(state offices for protection of the constitution).
The country also has a military counterintelligence agency:
the Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD).
The predecessor of the current German Federal Intelligence Service BND,
was established shortly after WWII, in 1946, by the US occupation authorities under the authority of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS,
later: CIA).
It was known as Organisation Gehlen (OG),
named after its head – former Wehrmacht generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen –
who had been the head of the German Military Intelligence Service
Fremde Heere Ost (FHO) during the war.
Specialised in covert intelligence gathering in Eastern Block countries,
Gehlen recruited many former FHO
and Abwehr personnel and their agents.
OG played an important role during the
early years of the Cold War.
Bundesnachrichtendienst
1956
After much critisism from the public
for hiring former Nazis, the US handed over control
of the agency to the German Government on 1 April 1956, after which its
name was changed to Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). Nevertheless, Gehlen
stayed on as president of the organisation until his retirement in 1968.
The diagram below shows the history of the BND from WWI to the present.
Operation RUBICON
In June 1970, BND entered into a secret joint venture with the USCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) — internally known as
Operation Thesaurus (later: Rubicon) —
in which they covertly purchased Crypto AG,
a Swiss manufacturer of cryptographic equipment, with the intention of
controlling its cryptographic algorithms and, indirectly,
Crypto AG's
worldwide customer base. In 1994, BND left the operation,
but CIA continued
for several more decades, until they sold the company in 2018.
Kevin C. Ruffner, Forging an Intelligence Partnership: CIA and the Origins of the BND CIA, History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence.
European Division, Directorate of Operations.
➤ Available for download below as 8 separate files. 1
Any links shown in red are currently unavailable.
If you like the information on this website, why not make a donation?
Đ Crypto Museum. Created: Thursday 29 September 2016. Last changed: Sunday, 06 September 2026 - 18:11 CET.
