Misplaced Pages

#162837

153-600: Together with the Federal Intelligence Service and the Military Counterintelligence Service , the BfV is one of the three federal intelligence services . The BfV investigates efforts and activities directed against the federal level of Germany or transnational , in matters of foreign policy significance and at the request of a state authority for the protection of the constitution . The BfV

306-630: A Free Socialist Republic was proclaimed at the Berlin Palace . The proclamation was issued by Karl Liebknecht , co-leader with Rosa Luxemburg of the communist Spartakusbund ( Spartacus League ), a group of a few hundred supporters of the Russian Revolution that had allied itself with the USPD in 1917. On the same day, in a move that was contrary to the constitution because only the Kaiser could appoint

459-577: A " Working Committee of German Associations " was founded with representatives of many groups considered "fit for good society". In 1919 the Weimar National Assembly established a parliamentary committee to inquire into the events that had led to the "outbreak, prolongation and loss of the First World War". Its results were of questionable value due to a lack of cooperation from the civil service and military and to increasing interference from

612-463: A "war guilt lie". In line with national conservative and bourgeois right-wing parties, they accused the governing parties of having contributed to Germany's humiliation by signing the treaty and of denying it the right to self-determination. The young republic was exposed from the beginning to attacks from both the extreme right and extreme left. The Left accused the Social Democrats of betraying

765-618: A chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, at Ebert's request, transferred his powers as chancellor to him. In view of the mass support for more radical reforms among the workers' councils, a coalition government called the Council of the People's Deputies ( Rat der Volksbeauftragten ) was established, consisting of three MSPD and three USPD members. Led by Ebert for the MSPD and Hugo Haase for the USPD, it governed Germany from November 1918 to January 1919. Although

918-564: A coalition government; Hitler's far-right Nazi Party held two out of ten cabinet seats. Von Papen, as Vice-Chancellor and Hindenburg's confidant, was to serve as the éminence grise who would keep Hitler under control; these intentions severely underestimated Hitler's political abilities. By the end of March 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 were used in the perceived state of emergency to effectively grant

1071-555: A consequence, the Chancellery issued an executive order banning BND operational measures against journalists with the aim to protect the service. The committee published a final report in 2009, which mostly confirmed the allegations, identifying the intent to protect the BND from disclosure of classified information and finding a lack of oversight within the senior leadership of the service but did not identify any responsible members from within

1224-471: A general strike. The putsch quickly failed due in large part to the refusal of the ministerial bureaucracy to obey Kapp's orders. The Reichswehr, however, proved itself to be unreliable. It adopted a wait-and-see attitude under General von Seeckt, the head of the Troop Office , who said that "Reichswehr do not fire on Reichswehr". Some among the working class did not limit themselves to passive resistance to

1377-565: A great deal of monetary and political stability was restored, and the republic enjoyed relative prosperity for the next five years; this period, sometimes known as the Golden Twenties , was characterised by significant cultural flourishing, social progress, and gradual improvement in foreign relations. Under the Locarno Treaties of 1925, Germany moved toward normalising relations with its neighbours, recognising most territorial changes under

1530-541: A later date (Article 233). In the short term it was required to pay the equivalent of 20 billion gold marks in installments through April 1921 (Article 235). The most contentious article of the treaty, the so-called War Guilt Clause , did not use the word "guilt". It stated that Germany accepted full responsibility for all the loss and damage from a war that was imposed on the Allies by the aggression of Germany and its allies ( Article 231 ). The implications of Article 231 and

1683-545: A member of the SA , a Nazi judicial prosecutor involved in cases against racially and politically persecuted individuals who were later murdered in Auschwitz , and an SS executioner in occupied France . Since 1972 the BfV is also concerned with activities of foreign nationals in Germany, especially extremists and terrorists who operate in the country or plan their activities there, such as

SECTION 10

#1732852578163

1836-736: A number of affairs destroyed its reputation as a counter-intelligence service by the early 1980s. In this, the MfS profited from the West German border regime which allowed any GDR citizen into the Federal Republic without restrictions. From 1992 to 2006, the BfV was monitoring The Republicans party. The BfV has responsibility for combatting terrorism in Germany . It has drawn harsh criticism for its role in several bungled counterterrorism operations. Shortly after German reunification , an undercover BfV agent named Klaus Steinmetz successfully infiltrated

1989-539: A number of easily preventable mistakes involving the BfV and the various police services involved in the operation, Germany's Federal Minister of the Interior, Rudolf Seiters , took full responsibility and resigned from his post. The even more preventable failure of the BfV to even detect the activities of the 9/11 conspirators in Hamburg has similarly raised questions about their competence. The rise of far right extremism in

2142-437: A parliamentary system. The rebellion caused great fear among supporters of the monarchy and in the middle classes because of the soviet-style aspirations of the councils. To centrist and conservative citizens, the country looked to be on the verge of a communist revolution. By 7 November, the revolution had reached Munich , resulting in the flight of King Ludwig III of Bavaria . The MSPD decided to make use of their support at

2295-623: A peacetime army. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles , the new army, the Reichswehr , was limited to 100,000 men and the Reichsmarine (navy), to 15,000. The treaty prohibited an air force, submarines, large warships and armoured vehicles. The official formation of the Reichswehr took place on 1 January 1921, after the limitations had been met. The soldiers of the Reichswehr took their oath to

2448-658: A result it was the leadership of the Reichswehr with its largely anti-democratic civil service personnel that, along with the Foreign Office, determined the portrayal of the war in the Weimar Republic. All in all, there was little objective and critical questioning of the causes of the war or of Germany's responsibility for it in academia, politics or the media during the Weimar period. The official view of history continued to follow

2601-541: A speech delivered by Adolf Hitler at a Nazi Party rally in Munich on 24 February 1929. A few weeks later, the term Weimarer Republik was first used again by Hitler in a newspaper article. Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany. According to historian Richard J. Evans : The continued use of the term 'German Empire', Deutsches Reich , by the Weimar Republic ... conjured up an image among educated Germans that resonated far beyond

2754-457: Is absolutely reliable." Helms' information came from the BND. A further laudable success involved the BND's activity during the Czech crisis in 1968; by then, the agency was led by the second president, Gerhard Wessel. With Pullach cryptography fully functioning, the BND predicted an invasion of Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia. CIA analysts on the other hand did not support

2907-519: Is archived for 10 years "for long-term analysis". Apparently though, this long-term storage doesn't hold any Internet communications, data from social networks, or emails. In December 2022, a high-ranking employee of the BND was arrested on alleged treason. Carsten L. is said to have disclosed information from his professional activity to the Russian domestic secret service FSB . The Public Prosecutor General accuses him of treason ("Landesverrat") because it

3060-544: Is intended to promote cooperation between the intelligence services and contribute to the standardization of intelligence work. In the basic course, legal, constitutional, political, business, economic, financial and social science fundamentals of administrative action are taught, as well as organization and information processing. Topics of the main course are operational procurement and observation, intelligence service information evaluation, state, administrative, criminal, international and European law, international politics and

3213-652: Is overseen by the Federal Ministry of the Interior as well as the Bundestag , the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information and other federal institutions. The Federal Minister of the Interior has administrative and functional control of the BfV. Parliamentary control is exercised by the Bundestag in general debate, question times and urgent inquiries, as well as by its committees, most notably

SECTION 20

#1732852578163

3366-611: Is said to have been state secrets. The new BND headquarters in Berlin, near the former Berlin Wall , was completed in 2017. At the official opening in February 2019, Angela Merkel , then Chancellor of Germany , made this statement: "In an often very confusing world, now, more urgently than ever, Germany needs a strong and efficient foreign intelligence service". At the time, some 4,000 employees were expected to work from this location, moving here from

3519-648: Is so called because the Weimar National Assembly that adopted its constitution met in Weimar from 6 February to 11 August 1919, but the name only became mainstream after 1933. Even though the National Assembly chose to retain the old name Deutsches Reich (Art. 1 of the Constitution), hardly anyone used it during the Weimar period, and no single name for the new state gained widespread acceptance. To

3672-630: Is supposedly collected across the world, but the exact locations remains unclear to this date. The Bundestag committee investigating the NSA spying scandal has uncovered that the German intelligence agency intercepts communications traveling via both satellites and Internet cables. It seems certain that the metadata only come from "foreign dialed traffic", that is, from telephone conversations and text messages that are held and sent via mobile phones and satellites. Of these 220 million data amassed every day, one percent

3825-609: Is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany , directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office . The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin . The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries. In 2016, it employed around 6,500 people; 10% of them are military personnel who are formally employed by the Office for Military Sciences. The BND is the largest agency of the German Intelligence Community . The BND

3978-631: Is the most significant unit within BND and has the highest number of employees. The department is located at the former BND HQ in Pullach , Bavaria. One of the major SIGINT stations after WW2 was Bad Aibling Station , which was operated for decades in cooperation with the National Security Agency (NSA). Furthermore, Station Gablingen, Station Rheinhausen , Station Schöningen , Station Starnberg-Söcking and Station Stockdorf . Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic , officially known as

4131-574: The Los Angeles Times , reported that he "is credited with modernizing the BND by hiring academic analysts and electronics specialists". Reinhard Gehlen's memoirs, The Service, The Memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen (English title), were published in 1977, (World Publishers, New York). A Review of the book published by the CIA makes this comment about Gehlen's achievements and management style: "Gehlen's descriptions of most of his so-called successes in

4284-625: The 1848 German revolutions was named as the national flag in the Weimar Constitution . It was abolished after the entry into force of the Enabling Act of 1933, when the Nazi Party gained total power, in favour of two co-official national flags: the old black-white-red imperial tricolour and the flag of the Nazi Party . From 1935, the Nazi flag with the symbol offset became the sole national flag of

4437-516: The Allies , and the proclamation of the Weimar Republic on 9 November 1918. In its initial years, grave problems beset the Republic, such as hyperinflation and political extremism , including political murders and two attempted seizures of power by contending paramilitaries ; internationally, it suffered isolation, reduced diplomatic standing and contentious relationships with the great powers. By 1924,

4590-622: The Black Reichswehr , a secret reserve networked within the Reichswehr and organised as labour battalions ( Arbeitskommandos ) to circumvent the Treaty of Versailles' 100,000 man limit on the German army. The Black Reichswehr was never involved in direct military action and was dissolved in 1923 after a group of its members attempted to overthrow the government in the Küstrin Putsch . The Reichswehr also developed far-reaching cooperation with

4743-682: 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. Several publications have criticized Gehlen and his organizations for hiring ex-Nazis. An article in The Independent on 29 June 2018 made this statement about some of the BND employees: "Operating until 1956, when it

Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution - Misplaced Pages Continue

4896-633: The Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces). One high point of BND intelligence work culminated in its early June 1967 forecast – almost to the hour – of the outbreak of the Six-Day War in the Middle East on 5 June 1967. According to declassified transcripts of a United States National Security Council meeting on 2 June 1967, CIA Director Richard Helms interrupted Secretary of State Dean Rusk with "reliable information" – contrary to Rusk's presentation – that

5049-549: The Eastern Bloc . The BND is also regarded as one of the best informed intelligence services in regards to the Middle East from the 1960s. The BND was quickly established as the western world's second largest intelligence agency, second only to the CIA. Both Russia and the Middle East remain important focuses of the BND's activities, in addition to violent non-state actors . The BND today acts as an early warning system to alert

5202-537: The German Reich , was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic . The period's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar , which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English,

5355-451: The Kiel mutiny on 3 November. Sailors, soldiers and workers began electing workers' and soldiers' councils ( Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte ) modelled after the soviets of the 1917 Russian Revolution . The revolution spread throughout Germany, and participants seized military and civil power in individual cities. The power takeovers were achieved everywhere without loss of life. At the time,

5508-621: The Kurdistan Workers' Party . One of the major intelligence failures in this field were the riots by supporters of the PKK in 1998, which the BfV missed due to the Cologne carnival . The counter-intelligence activities of the BfV were mostly directed against the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi), another employer of ex-Gestapo agents. The MfS successfully penetrated the BfV and in

5661-472: The Parliamentary Oversight Panel and the G 10 Commission  [ de ] . The BfV is also under judicial control and all its activities can be legally challenged in court. Based on the right of information, the general public can direct inquiries and petitions at the BfV. Unlike the intelligence agencies of some other countries, the agents of the German intelligence services, including

5814-582: The Red Army Faction (RAF), the Far Left terrorist organization founded by Andreas Baader , Ulrike Meinhof , and Gudrun Ensslin . As a result, Third Generation RAF leaders Birgit Hogefeld and Wolfgang Grams were to be taken into custody by German law enforcement at the railway station at Bad Kleinen , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on 27 June 1993. Instead, both Wolfgang Grams and GSG 9 police officer Michael Newrzella died during an ensuing gunfight. Due to

5967-618: The Reichswehr from the control of the Reichstag . Under Seeckt the Reichswehr developed into what many historians consider a "state within the state". During the 1920 Kapp Putsch , Seeckt refused to deploy the Reichswehr against the Freikorps involved in the putsch but immediately afterwards had the Ruhr Red Army brutally suppressed during the Ruhr uprising . In 1921 the Reichswehr organized

6120-667: The Silesian Uprisings and the Greater Poland uprising in the German Province of Posen , which became part of the Second Polish Republic under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In the four years following the First World War, the situation of most German civilians remained dire. The post-war economic crisis was a result of lost pre-war industrial exports, the loss of imported raw materials and foodstuffs due to

6273-631: The Spartacus League and the left wing of the USPD. In January, the Spartacus League, in what was known as the Spartacist uprising , took advantage of a large strike in Berlin and attempted to establish a communist government. The uprising was put down by paramilitary Freikorps units consisting of volunteer soldiers. Following bloody street fights, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were summarily killed after their arrests on 15 January. With

Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution - Misplaced Pages Continue

6426-985: The Third Reich . Nevertheless, material on the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was essential for banning the party by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany in August 1956. Over the years, a number of associations and political groups were banned on the basis of materials provided by the BfV. In 1965, the Brown Book exposed that a large number of BfV officers had previously held prominent positions in Nazi Germany . Initially dismissed as "Communist propaganda", subsequent historical research confirmed its accuracy to be up to 99%. For instance, their head from 1955 to 1972, Hubert Schrübbers  [ de ] , had been

6579-425: The Trizone outlined the competences of federal police and intelligence ( German : Polizeibrief of 14 April 1949). In accordance with this outline the BfV was established on 7 November 1950. At first the BfV was mostly concerned with Neo-Nazism and communist revolutionary activities. Soon the BfV also became involved in counter-espionage. From the beginning, the BfV was troubled by a number of affairs. First, in

6732-410: The Vulkan affair in April 1953, 44 suspects were arrested and charged with spying on behalf of East Germany (GDR), but were later released as the information provided by the BfV was insufficient to obtain court verdicts. Then, in 1954 the first president of the BfV, Otto John , fled to the GDR. Shortly after that it became public that a number of employees of the BfV had been with the Gestapo during

6885-582: The Weimar Constitution . The commander-in-chief was the Reich president , while the Reich minister of the armed forces exercised command authority. Military right of command ( Kommandogewalt ) was in the hands of the OHL. The resulting dualism between civilian power and military command was to become a heavy burden on the Republic. Whereas Reichswehr Minister Otto Gessler was content with limited political and administrative duties during his tenure (1920–1928), Colonel General Hans von Seeckt , Chief of Army Command from 1920 to 1926, succeeded in largely removing

7038-428: The "war against terror". The Bundestag constituted an investigative committee ("Parlamentarischer Untersuchungsausschuss") to investigate the allegations. The committee tasked the former Federal Appellate Court (Bundesgerichtshof) judge Dr. Gerhard Schäfer  [ de ] as special investigator, who published a report confirming illegal BND operations involving and targeting journalists between 1993 and 2005. As

7191-502: The 1919 Treaty of Versailles and committing never to go to war. The following year, it joined the League of Nations , which marked its reintegration into the international community. Nevertheless, especially on the political right, there remained strong and widespread resentment against the treaty and those who had signed and supported it. The Great Depression of October 1929 severely impacted Germany's tenuous progress; high unemployment and subsequent social and political unrest led to

7344-436: The 2003 incident which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq . The payments of 3,000 Euros monthly were made by a cover firm called Thiele und Friedrichs (Munich). As a result of the premature cancellation, al-Janabi filed a lawsuit at the Munich labour court and won the case. Several former senior BND officials publicly stated that the agency had repeatedly warned the CIA not to take Curveball's information as fact. Hanning,

7497-506: The BND also found out from its sources, the Cuban exiles living in Miami, that Cuba was also trying to get hold of weapons through German dealers. According to a BND report, Cuba was also able to recruit four former Waffen-SS officers as instructors for the Cuban armed forces. However, the identity of the men was blacked out in the report. "This negative view of BND was certainly not justified during ... [1967 and] 1968." The BND's military work "had been outstanding", and in certain sectors of

7650-468: The BND gathers both military and civil intelligence . While the Strategic Reconnaissance Command  [ de ] (KSA) of the Bundeswehr also fulfills this mission, it is not an intelligence service. There is close cooperation between the BND and the KSA. The domestic secret service counterparts of the BND are the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution ( Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz , or BfV) and 16 counterparts at

7803-422: The BND has been lost. An exasperated Chancellor Helmut Kohl called the service "idiots". A few weeks later BND president Konrad Porzner and minister of defence Gerhard Stoltenberg rated the transfers as not to be problematic, since the equipment was only handed over for trials and was supposed to be returned afterwards. On 5 February 2003, Colin Powell made the case for a military attack on Iraq in front of

SECTION 50

#1732852578163

7956-411: The BND president at the time, even formulated his concerns about that in a letter to then CIA Director George Tenet . The CIA however ignored those warnings and presented the information as facts. Following the 2006 Lebanon War , the BND mediated secret negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah , eventually leading up to the 2008 Israel–Hezbollah prisoner exchange . In the beginning of 2008, it

8109-408: The BND's history was general 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." 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

8262-451: The BND's many successes under Wessel but noted that there had been "a number of incidents of East Germans infiltrating the West German government, particularly intelligence agencies, on Gen. Wessel's watch". The kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich was a watershed event for the BND, following early warnings from other countries, because it led the agency to build counter-terrorism capabilities. In 1970

8415-408: The BfV was €399 million; with a total of 3,864 staff members employed. While the BfV uses all kinds of surveillance technology and infiltration , they mostly use open sources . The BfV publishes a yearly report ( Verfassungsschutzbericht ) which is intended to raise awareness about anti-constitutional activities. Main concerns of the BfV are: The BfV employed civil servants. As in the rest of

8568-409: The BfV, have no police authority. This is due to the history of abusive police power in previous regimes. In particular, they are not allowed to arrest people and do not carry weapons. The BfV is based in Cologne . It is headed by a president (currently Thomas Haldenwang) and two vice-presidents (currently Ernst Stehl and Sinan Selen ) and organised in twelve departments: In 2019 federal funding for

8721-429: The CIA and the BND bought the Swiss informations and communication security firm Crypto AG , for $ 5.75 million. Already in 1967 the BND tried, together with the French intelligence service, to buy the company from its founder Robert Hagelin. This deal though fell through due to Hagelin, who was already cooperating with the CIA, refusing. The CIA at the time did not cooperate with the French. In 1969, after negotiations with

8874-445: The East German security service, later known as Stasi . Several informants in East Berlin reported in June and July 1961 of street closures, clearing of fields, accumulation of building materials and police and army deployments in specific parts of the eastern sector, as well as other measures that BND determined could lead to a division of the city. However, the agency was reluctant to report communist initiatives and had no knowledge of

9027-432: The GDR regime. They knew the carrying capacity of every bridge, the bed count of every hospital, the length of every airfield, the width and level of maintenance of the roads that Soviet armor and infantry divisions would have to traverse in a potential attack on the West. Almost every sphere of eastern life was known to the BND. Unsung analysts at Pullach, with their contacts in the East, figuratively functioned as flies on

9180-479: The Gehlen Organisation to the BND. ... Instead of expelling them, the BND even seems to have been willing to recruit more of them – at least for a few years". The authors of the book A Nazi Past: Recasting German Identity in Postwar Europe state that Reinhard Gehlen simply did not want to know the backgrounds of the men that the BND hired in the 1950s. The American National Security Archive states that "he employed numerous former Nazis and known war criminals". On

9333-647: 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" He recruited some of his former co-workers at Gestapo Trier: Dietmar Lermen, Heinrich Hädderich, August Hill, Friedrich Walz, Albert Schmidt, and Friedrich Heinrich Busch. Many had been operatives of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris ' wartime Abwehr (counter-intelligence) organization, but Gehlen also recruited people from

SECTION 60

#1732852578163

9486-512: The German government to threats to German interests from abroad. It depends heavily on wiretapping and electronic surveillance of international communications . It collects and evaluates information on a variety of areas such as international non-state terrorism, weapons of mass destruction proliferation and illegal transfer of technology, organized crime , weapons and drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal migration and information warfare . As Germany's only overseas intelligence service,

9639-505: The German officer class. A rift developed between the MSPD and USPD after Ebert called upon the OHL for troops to put down a mutiny by a leftist military unit on 23/24 December 1918 in which members of the Volksmarinedivision (People's Navy Division) captured the city's garrison commander Otto Wels of the MSPD and occupied the Reich Chancellery where the Council of the People's Deputies had its offices. The ensuing street fighting left 11 Volksmarinedivision members and 56 members of

9792-503: The Israelis would attack on a certain day and time. Rusk shot back: "That is quite out of the question. Our ambassador in Tel Aviv assured me only yesterday that everything was normal." Helms replied: "I am sorry, but I adhere to my opinion. The Israelis will strike and their object will be to end the war in their favor with extreme rapidity." President Lyndon Johnson then asked Helms for the source of his information. Helms said: "Mr. President, I have it from an allied secret service. The report

9945-469: The Kaiser that Germany needed to pursue an armistice and that the majority parties in the Reichstag, not the OHL, had to take responsibility for it. Although in retreat, the German armies were still on French and Belgian territory when the war ended on 11 November. Ludendorf and Paul von Hindenburg then began proclaiming that it was the defeatism of the civilian population – especially the socialists – that had made defeat inevitable. The stab-in-the-back myth

10098-417: The Kapp Putsch. Especially in the Ruhr , where dissatisfaction with the lack of nationalisation of key industries was particularly high, councils were formed that sought to seize local power. In the Ruhr uprising , civil war-like fighting broke when the Ruhr Red Army , made up of some 50,000 armed workers, mostly adherents of the KPD and USPD, used the disruption caused by the general strike to take control of

10251-399: The Kiel barracks. The sailors and soldiers welcomed him, and he was able to defuse the situation. On 9 November 1918, the German Republic was proclaimed by MSPD member Philipp Scheidemann at the Reichstag building in Berlin, angering Friedrich Ebert , the leader of the MSPD, who thought that the question of monarchy or republic should be answered by a national assembly. Two hours later,

10404-745: The Left and supporters of the former empire led to political violence and extremism . The young republic found itself in a nearly constant economic and political crisis until 1924. The Treaty of Versailles ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied powers and set the conditions for peace. It was signed 28 June 1919 and can be divided into four main categories: territorial issues, disarmament, reparations and assignment of guilt. Territorially, Germany had to renounce sovereignty over its colonies and in Europe lost 65,000 sq km (25,000 sq mi) or about 13% of its former territory – including 48% of its iron and 10% of its coal resources – along with 7 million people, or 12% of its population. The Saarland

10557-403: The March 1920 Kapp Putsch , Freikorps units under General von Lüttwitz occupied the government quarter in Berlin. In an attempt to reverse the revolution and install an autocratic government, the former Prussian civil servant Wolfgang Kapp appointed himself Reich chancellor and Lüttwitz Reichswehr minister and commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr. The legal government fled Berlin and called for

10710-426: The National Assembly convened in the city of Weimar , giving the future Republic its unofficial name. The Weimar Constitution created a parliamentary republic with the Reichstag elected by proportional representation . During the debates in Weimar, fighting continued sporadically across Germany. On 7 April 1919 the Bavarian Soviet Republic was declared in Munich but quickly put down by Freikorps and remnants of

10863-429: The National Assembly voted to approve the treaty on 23 June. It was signed in Paris five days later. Explaining the rise of extreme nationalist movements in Germany shortly after the war, British historian Ian Kershaw pointed to the "national disgrace" that was "felt throughout Germany at the humiliating terms imposed by the victorious Allies and reflected in the Versailles Treaty...with its confiscation of territory on

11016-588: The Protection of the Constitution (BfV). The published materials had been submitted in 2015 as part of a German parliamentary inquiry into the surveillance activities of the BND and its cooperation with the US National Security Agency . The BND has been reported to store 220 million sets of metadata every day. That is, they record with whom, when, where and for how long someone communicates. This data

11169-474: The Reichsführer-SS) men "reluctantly, under pressure from German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to deal with 'the avalanche of subversion hitting them from East Germany.'" From 2011 to 2018, an independent commission of historians studied the history of the BND in the era of Reinhard Gehlen. The results are published in comprehensive studies. So far (as of April 2020) eleven volumes have been published. During

11322-499: The Republic of Kosovo" had accepted responsibility for the bomb attack. Laboratory tests had shown no evidence of the BND agents' involvement. However, the Germans were released only 10 days after they were arrested. It was suspected that the arrest was a revenge by Kosovo authorities for the BND report about organized crime in Kosovo which accuses Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi , as well as

11475-518: The Rhineland and 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the river demolished. Germany was prohibited from having an air force, tanks, poison gas, heavy artillery, submarines or dreadnoughts . A large number of its ships and all of its air-related armaments were to be surrendered. Germany had to compensate the Allied Powers for the losses and damages of the war, with the exact amount left to be determined at

11628-629: The Soviet Red Army , leading among other things to the secret training of German military pilots in clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles. With Seeckt's fall in 1926, the Reichswehr made a change in course for which Colonel (later General) Kurt von Schleicher was primarily responsible. The goal was to arouse broad social support for rearmament and to militarize society itself for the purpose of future warfare. Under Paul von Hindenburg's Reich presidency, Reichswehr leadership gained increasing political influence and eventually helped determine

11781-753: The Third Reich, and after World War II, both the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic readopted the black-red-gold flag. The coat of arms was initially based on the Reichsadler ("imperial eagle") introduced by the Paulskirche Constitution of 1849, and announced in November 1919. In 1928, a new design by Karl-Tobias Schwab was adopted as national coat of arms, which

11934-533: The UN Security Council. Powell supported his case with information received from the BND, instead of Mr. Hans Blix and the IAEA . The BND had collected intelligence from an informant known as Rafid al-Janabi alias CURVEBALL, who claimed Iraq would be in possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction , apart from torturing and killing over 1,000 dissidents each year, for over 20 years. Rafid was employed before and after

12087-675: The US government should not be underestimated, because the BND was able to regularly provide the CIA with detailed information about Soviet arms deliveries through its very good sources in Cuba. There are indications that the secret service was also informed about military actions against Cuba. Ten days before the Bay of Pigs invasion , Gehlen reported to Bonn : "Within a relatively short period of time, large-scale military operations to defeat Fidel Castro will begin." In 1962,

12240-514: The US, the BND approached Hagelin anew and bought the company together with the US intelligence service. Crypto AG produced and sold radio, Ethernet, STM, GSM, phone and fax encryption systems worldwide. Its clients included Iran, Libya, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican. The BND and the CIA rigged the company's devices so they could easily decipher

12393-539: The Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Greater Berlin called for a National Congress of Councils ( Reichsrätekongress ) which took place from 16 to 21 December 1918. Against the opposition of the more radical members who demanded a socialist republic, Ebert, backed by the large MSPD majority at the Congress, was able to schedule the election for a provisional National Assembly that would act as an interim parliament and be given

12546-496: The ZNAF and the AfV. In a close connection between science and practice, the upper-service conveys the scientific methods and knowledge as well as the practical professional skills and knowledge that are required for the fulfillment of the tasks in the higher service in the federal constitution protection. In addition, it lays the foundation for a cross-agency knowledge and method base. The course

12699-473: The abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II was announced, marking the end of Imperial Germany and the beginning of the Weimar Republic. The armistice that ended the fighting was signed on 11 November. Germany lost the war because its allies were facing defeat and its economic resources were running out, while by late summer 1918 fresh American troops were arriving in France at the rate of 10,000 per day. Support among

12852-686: The ability to recognize and classify potential dangers for the security of the Federal Republic of Germany in a national and international context. The subject areas of the theoretical training are operational procurement and observation, operational information analysis, state and constitutional law, criminal law, laws on the intelligence services and other laws relating to intelligence services, international politics and forms of political extremism, security fields relating to intelligence services, in particular self-security, Counter-espionage, intelligence-psychology, foreign language training as well as household, cash and accounting. The training takes place at both

13005-411: The affirmation of Ebert, those responsible were not tried before a court-martial, leading to lenient sentences, which made Ebert unpopular among radical leftists. The National Assembly election , in which women were allowed to vote for the first time, took place on 19 January 1919. The MSPD won the largest share of the votes at 37.9%, with the USPD fifth at 7.6%. To avoid the ongoing fights in Berlin,

13158-576: The allegations. In 2014, an employee of BND was arrested for handing over secret documents to the United States. He was suspected of handing over documents about the committee investigating the NSA spying in Germany. The German government responded to this espionage by expelling the top CIA official in Berlin. In December 2016, WikiLeaks published 2,420 documents from the BND and the Federal Office for

13311-690: The argument issued by the OHL in 1914 that Germany had been threatened by invasion and encirclement. Revising the conditions of the Versailles Treaty became the main goal of German foreign policy. The consensus opposing the "war guilt clause" did much to promote agitation against foreign countries and the Weimar Constitution. Both the DNVP and, in particular, the NSDAP questioned the entire post-war order and propagated

13464-534: The caper would stay under wraps, the real spy was told to be ready for recall; he made his move to the West at the appropriate time. The East German regime, however, fought back. With still unhindered flight to the west a possibility, infiltration started on a grand scale and a reversal of sorts took hold. During the early 1960s as many as 90% of the BND's lower-level informants in East Germany worked as double agents for

13617-542: The codes that countries used to send encrypted messages. In 1986, the BND deciphered the report of the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin regarding the "successful" implementation of the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing . According to an interview with Stasi defector Col. Rainer Wiegand, BND agents were assigned to use the anti-Stasi protests in East Germany in order to covertly obtain files from Building No. 2, which houses

13770-470: The collapse of Chancellor Hermann Müller's grand coalition and the beginning of the presidential cabinets . From March 1930 onwards, President Paul von Hindenburg used emergency powers to back Chancellors Heinrich Brüning , Franz von Papen and General Kurt von Schleicher . The Great Depression, exacerbated by Brüning's policy of deflation , led to a surge in unemployment . On 30 January 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor to head

13923-472: The composition of the Reich governments. As a result, the Reichswehr contributed significantly to the development of an authoritarian presidential system during the final phase of the Weimar Republic. After Adolf Hitler announced the "regaining of military sovereignty" (reintroduction of conscription etc.) in 1935, two years after his rise to power , the Reichswehr was absorbed into the new Wehrmacht . It

14076-494: The continental blockade, the loss of Germany's overseas colonies and the worsening debt balances that had been exacerbated by Germany's heavy reliance on bonds to pay for the war. The economic losses can be attributed in part to the extension of the Allied blockade of Germany until the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 250,000 German civilians died of disease or starvation between

14229-545: The counterespionage directorate. Wiegand assisted by providing the blueprints of the building and indicated which offices the agents should prioritize. Operation Summer Rain was a highly classified joint mission involving the Federal Intelligence Service and special units of the German Armed Forces during the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s. The primary objective of the operation was to gather intelligence on

14382-533: The deal, saying it would result in several hundred millions of dollars in back tax payments, the sale remains controversial, as a government agency has paid for possibly stolen data . In November 2008, three German BND agents were arrested in Kosovo for allegedly throwing a bomb at the European Union International Civilian Office , which oversees Kosovo's governance. Later the "Army of

14535-624: The east bank near Cologne , Mainz and Koblenz . In addition, the Rhineland and an area stretching 50 kilometers east of the Rhine was to be demilitarized. France had demanded the occupation both to protect itself from a renewed German attack and as collateral for German reparations. The occupation was to last 5 years in the British zone, 10 in the American and 15 years in the French and Belgian zones, until 1934, but

14688-433: The eastern border and even more so its 'guilt clause'." Adolf Hitler repeatedly blamed the Republic and its democracy for accepting the oppressive terms of the treaty. Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty was widely perceived not only as a legal legitimisation of reparations but also as a moral condemnation of Germany, and it triggered a storm of indignation among the German public. The hostility towards it came from across

14841-417: The end of the war and the signing of the treaty. Many German civilians expected life to return to pre-war normality after it was lifted, but the severe food shortages continued. In 1922, for example, meat consumption had not increased since the war years. At 22 kilograms per person per year, it was less than half of the 52 kilograms consumed in 1913. German citizens felt the food shortages more deeply than during

14994-474: The enormous fall in the Papiermark 's value. After four years of war and famine, many German workers were disenchanted with the capitalist system and hoped for a new era under socialism or communism. Socialists dominated the new revolutionary government in Berlin, and numerous short-lived council republics were set up in cities across Germany. Even after they were suppressed, ideological conflicts between

15147-525: The federal service, the careers for civil servants are divided into simple, middle, upper and higher service. All employees must go through an extended security check with security investigations before they can work in the BfV. It's the highest security check in Germany. The BfV trains its staff for the middle and higher service itself, together with the BND . For the Middle-Service ( German : Mittlerer Dienst )

15300-457: The first years of oversight by the State Secretary in the federal chancellery of Konrad Adenauer of the operation in Pullach , Munich District , Bavaria , the BND continued the ways of its forebear, the Gehlen Organization. The BND racked up its initial east–west cold war successes by concentrating on East Germany . The BND's reach encompassed the highest political and military levels of

15453-460: The former Sicherheitsdienst (SD), SS and Gestapo , after their release by the Allies . The latter recruits were controversial because the SS and its associated groups were notoriously the perpetrators of many Nazi atrocities during the war. The organization worked at first almost exclusively for the CIA, which contributed funding, equipment, cars, gasoline and other materials. On 1 April 1956

15606-869: The former GDR has also been partly blamed on the BfV's failure to establish working structures there. The agency was heavily criticised for the destruction of files related to the National Socialist Underground , a neo-Nazi domestic terrorist organization. The ensuing scandal led to the resignation of BfV president Heinz Fromm in 2012. The agency has also been criticised for its lack of action against crimes and terrorism acts committed by illegal immigrants and far left groups. 51°01′10″N 6°53′29″E  /  51.01944°N 6.89139°E  / 51.01944; 6.89139 Federal Intelligence Service The Federal Intelligence Service ( German : Bundesnachrichtendienst , pronounced [ˌbʊndəsˈnaːχʁɪçtnˌdiːnst] ; BND )

15759-856: The former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj of far-reaching involvement in organized crime. According to reporting in Der Standard and profil , the BND engaged in espionage in Austria between 1999 and 2006, spying on targets including the International Atomic Energy Agency , the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries , the Austria Press Agency , embassies, and Austrian banks and government ministries. The government of Austria has called on Germany to clarify

15912-476: The former headquarters in Pullach , a suburb of Munich . The agency's total number of employees, in Germany and other countries, was approximately 6,500. The Bundesnachrichtendienst is divided into the following departments: BND is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes with content of German interest. The department Technische Aufklärung ( TA )

16065-525: The government, which wanted to prevent a German admission of guilt before the world public. The committee met until 1932. During the course of World War I, war reporting was the responsibility of the German General Staff and after 1918 of the Potsdam Reich Archives founded by General Hans von Seeckt , which dedicated itself to the task of "disproving" German war guilt and war crimes. As

16218-708: The government. In 1990, BND gave the Finnish Security Intelligence Service the so-called Tiitinen list —which supposedly contains names of Finns who were believed to have links to Stasi . The list was classified and locked in a safe after the Director of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service, Seppo Tiitinen, and the President of Finland, Mauno Koivisto , determined that it was based on vague hints instead of hard evidence. In

16371-421: The grassroots level and put themselves at the front of the movement. They joined the calls for Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicate, and when he refused, Chancellor Maximilian of Baden made a public announcement that the Kaiser and Crown Prince Wilhelm had already done so. Gustav Noske (MSPD) was sent to Kiel to prevent any further unrest and took on the task of controlling the mutinous sailors and their supporters in

16524-574: The higher non-technical administrative service as a junior executive with direct employment as a civil servant. An indirect predecessor of the federal office existed already in the Weimar Republic from 1920 to 1929, the Federal Commissioner for Monitoring of the Public Order  [ de ] . In the course of drafting the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany the military governors of

16677-408: The history of political ideas as well as forms of political extremism, internal security, counter-espionage, intelligence-psychology, foreign language training and intelligence service relevant topics from business and technology. A thesis has to be written during the preparatory service. The training takes place at both the ZNAF and the AfV. Above all, the BfV offers fully qualified lawyers entry into

16830-461: The ideals of the labour movement because of their alliance with the old elites; the Right held the supporters of the Republic responsible for Germany's defeat in the First World War, denigrating them as "November criminals" and insinuating that the German army, which was still fighting on enemy soil when the war ended, had been stabbed in the back by them and the revolution (the stab-in-the-back myth ). In

16983-543: The institutional structures Bismarck created: the successor to the Roman Empire ; the vision of God's Empire here on earth; the universality of its claim to suzerainty ; and a more prosaic but no less powerful sense, the concept of a German state that would include all German speakers in Central Europe ;– 'one People, one Reich, one Leader', as the Nazi slogan was to put it. The black-red-gold tricolour of

17136-457: The intelligence field the BND still showed brilliance: in Latin America and in the Middle East it was regarded as the best-informed secret service. The BND offered a fair and reliable amount of intelligence on Soviet and Soviet-bloc forces in Eastern Europe, regarding the elaboration of a NATO warning system against any Soviet operations against NATO territory, in close cooperation with

17289-407: The last foreign troops evacuated the Rhineland on 30 June 1930. The treaty's disarmament provisions were intended to make the future German army incapable of offensive action. It was limited to no more than 100,000 men with only 4,000 officers and no general staff; the navy could have at most 15,000 men and 1,500 officers. The Rhineland was to be demilitarized and occupied and all fortifications in

17442-517: The mid-1920s, most Germans referred to their government informally as the Deutsche Republik , but for many, especially on the right, the word " Republik " was a painful reminder of a government structure that they believed had been imposed by foreign statesmen and of the expulsion of Emperor Wilhelm II in the wake of a massive national humiliation. The first recorded mention of the term Republik von Weimar (Republic of Weimar) came during

17595-499: The most part, came from observation and not from clandestine penetration". The agency's second president, Gerhard Wessel, retired in 1978. According to his obituary in the Los Angeles Times in August 2002, the "former intelligence officer in Adolf Hitler's anti-Soviet spy operations" ... "is credited with modernizing the BND by hiring academic analysts and electronics specialists". The New York Times News Service obituary lauded

17748-503: The new Chancellor broad power to act outside parliamentary control. Hitler promptly used these powers to thwart constitutional governance and suspend civil liberties, which brought about the swift collapse of democracy at the federal and state level, and the creation of a one-party dictatorship under his leadership. Until the end of World War II in Europe in 1945, the Nazis governed Germany under

17901-522: The new government was confirmed by the Berlin Workers' and Soldiers' Council, it was opposed by the Spartacus League. On 11 November 1918, an armistice was signed at Compiègne by German representatives. It effectively ended military operations between the Allies and Germany. It amounted to a German capitulation, without any concessions by the Allies; the naval blockade was to continue until complete peace terms were agreed on. The Executive Council of

18054-623: The notion of "fraternal assistance" by the satellite states of Moscow; and US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Llewellyn Thompson , quite irritated, called the secret BND report he was given "a German fabrication". At 23:11 on 20 August 1968, BND radar operators first observed abnormal activity over Czech airspace. An agent on the ground in Prague called a BND out-station in Bavaria: "The Russians are coming." Warsaw Pact forces had moved as forecast. However,

18207-399: The officer corps, while Groener pledged that the military would be loyal to the government and that it would help it in its fight against left-wing revolutionaries. The agreement marked the acceptance of the new government by the military, but the new Reichswehr armed forces, limited by the Treaty of Versailles to 100,000 army soldiers and 15,000 sailors, remained fully under the control of

18360-435: The organization's credibility, and dazzling achievements became an infrequent commodity. A veteran agent remarked at the time that the BND pond then contained some sardines, though a few years earlier the pond had been alive with sharks. The fact that the BND could score certain successes despite East German communist Stasi interference, internal malpractice, inefficiencies and infighting, was primarily due to select members of

18513-586: The other hand, Gehlen himself was cleared by James H. Critchfield of the Central Intelligence Agency who worked with the Gehlen Organization from 1949 to 1956. In 2001, he said that "almost everything negative that has been written about Gehlen, [as an] ardent ex-Nazi, one of Hitler's war criminals ... is all far from the fact," as quoted in The Washington Post . Critchfield added that Gehlen hired former Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service of

18666-449: The political intelligence field are, in my opinion, either wishful thinking or self-delusion. ... Gehlen was never a good clandestine operator, nor was he a particularly good administrator. And therein lay his failures. The Gehlen Organization/BND always had a good record in the collection of military and economic intelligence on East Germany and the Soviet forces there. But this information, for

18819-660: The political spectrum, from the far right to the moderate governing parties to the KPD. After the treaty came into force, the Foreign Office continued the state's control of the debate over war guilt. The War Guilt Department financed and directed the Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War , which was to provide "scientific" support for the "campaign of innocence" abroad. For war-innocence propaganda at home,

18972-468: The population had begun to crumble in 1916, and by mid-1918 many Germans wanted an end to the war. Increasing numbers of them began to associate with the political left, such as the Social Democratic Party and the more radical Independent Social Democratic Party , which demanded an end to the war. When it became obvious to the generals that defeat was at hand, General Erich Ludendorff convinced

19125-492: The pretense that all the extraordinary measures and laws they implemented were constitutional; notably, there was never an attempt to replace or substantially amend the Weimar constitution . Nevertheless, Hitler's seizure of power ( Machtergreifung ) had effectively ended the republic, replacing its constitutional framework with Führerprinzip , the principle that "the Führer's word is above all written law". The Weimar Republic

19278-477: The regular army dead. The USPD leaders were angered by what they believed was treachery by the MSPD, which in their view had joined with the anti-communist military to suppress the revolution. As a result, the USPD left the Council of the People's Deputies after only seven weeks. On 30 December, the split deepened when the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was formed out of a number of radical left-wing groups, including

19431-596: The regular army. The fall of the Munich Soviet Republic to these units, many of which were on the extreme right, resulted in the growth of far-right, antisemitic movements and organisations in Bavaria , including Organisation Consul , the Nazi Party , and societies of exiled Russian monarchists. Revolutionary sentiment also arose in the eastern states where interethnic discontent between Germans and minority Poles led to

19584-500: The republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" (a term introduced by Adolf Hitler in 1929) not commonly used until the 1930s. The Weimar Republic had a semi-presidential system . At the end of the First World War (1914–1918), Germany was exhausted and sued for peace in desperate circumstances. Awareness of imminent defeat sparked a revolution , the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II , formal surrender to

19737-540: The requested GDR weapon systems (an SA-6 system, a ZSU-23/4 and other equipment) to Israel. The transfers were shipped using the ports and airports of Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven , Manching and Alhorn . In late 1991, a shipment labeled "agricultural machinery" was unexpectedly inspected by the Wasserschutzpolizei and weapons were discovered. A state’s attorney started an investigation and parliamentary designated BND-overseer Willy Wimmer concluded, that control over

19890-423: The right of the spectrum, the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model and were appalled to see the honour of the traditional word Reich associated with it. The Catholic Centre Party favoured the term Deutscher Volksstaat (German People's State), while on the moderate left, Chancellor Friedrich Ebert 's Social Democratic Party of Germany preferred Deutsche Republik (German Republic). By

20043-616: The scope and timing because of conflicting inputs. The erection of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 thus came as a surprise, and the BND's performance in the political field was thereafter often wrong and remained spotty and unimpressive. There was a great success for the Federal Intelligence Service during the Cuban Missile Crisis . In 1962, the BND was the first Western intelligence service to have information about

20196-410: The slowly sinking efficiency of BND in the last years of Reinhard Gehlen became evident. By 1961, it was clear that the BND employed some men who were Soviet "moles"; they had come from the earlier Gehlen Organization. One mole, Heinz Felfe, was convicted of treason in 1963. Others were not uncovered during Gehlen's term in office. Gehlen's refusal to correct reports with questionable content strained

20349-419: The socialist movement, which represented mostly labourers, was split among two major left-wing parties: the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which called for immediate peace negotiations and favoured a soviet-style command economy, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), also known as the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which had supported the war and favoured

20502-469: The staff who took it upon themselves to step up and overcome then existing maladies. Abdication of responsibility by Reinhard Gehlen was the malignancy; cronyism remained pervasive, even nepotism (at one time Gehlen had 16 members of his extended family on the BND payroll). Only slowly did the younger generation then advance to substitute new ideas for some of the bad habits caused mainly by Gehlen's semi-retired attitude and frequent holiday absences. Gehlen

20655-425: The state level Landesämter für Verfassungsschutz (State Offices for the Protection of the Constitution); there is also a separate military intelligence organisation, the Military Counterintelligence Service ( Militärischer Abschirmdienst , or MAD). 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

20808-434: The stationing of Soviet medium-range missiles on the caribbean island and passed it on to the United States . Between 1959 and 1961, Reinhard Gehlen called on Washington several times in vain to "insert the dangerous communist bastion, which at the same time represents an excellent starting point for the communist infiltration of Latin America , into the [USA] sphere of power by rapid access." Gehlen's influence on

20961-417: The task of writing a democratic constitution for a parliamentary government. To ensure that the fledgling government maintained control over the country, Ebert and General Wilhelm Groener , Ludendorff's successor as leader of the Supreme Army Command (OHL), concluded the secret Ebert–Groener pact on 10 November. Over the telephone, Ebert promised that he would allow sole command of the troops to remain with

21114-406: The territorial losses especially angered the Germans. The treaty was reviled as a dictated rather than a negotiated peace. Philipp Scheidemann , then minister president of Germany, said to the Weimar National Assembly on 12 May 1919, "What hand should not wither that puts this fetter on itself and on us?" He resigned rather than accept the terms, but after the Allies threatened to resume hostilities,

21267-403: The training conveys the theoretical knowledge and methods as well as the practical professional knowledge and skills that are required for the fulfillment of the tasks in the middle service in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. In addition, the training should enable the candidates to act responsibly in a liberal, democratic and social constitutional state. This also includes

21420-418: The wake of the German reunification in 1991, Israel requested access to GDR weapon systems. In March 1991 a parliamentary commission decided to not give the requested weapons to Israel. Six month later, under the supervision of BND-director Volker Foertsch, the service, in conjunction with elements within the Federal Ministry of Defence , still without political clearance to do so, arranged several transfers of

21573-416: The wall in ministries and military conferences. When the Soviet KGB suspected an East German army intelligence officer, a lieutenant colonel and BND agent, of spying, the Soviets investigated and shadowed him. The BND was positioned and able to inject forged reports implying that the loose spy was actually the KGB investigator, who was then arrested by the Soviets and shipped off to Moscow. Not knowing how long

21726-852: The war because the reality contrasted so starkly with their expectations. Immediate post-war industrial production fell to the levels of the 1880s, or 57 percent of its value in 1913. The 1919 per capita GDP was only 73 percent of the comparable 1913 figure. Controlled demobilisation kept unemployment initially at around one million. By January 1922, the unemployment rate had sunk to just 0.9%, but inflation caused most workers' real wages to be significantly lower than they were in 1913. The hyperinflation that peaked in late 1923 had its worst effects on government workers, whose wages did not keep pace with private sector workers, and on middle class Germans who had invested in war bonds or who relied on savings, investments or pensions for their living. What had once been substantial savings became essentially worthless due to

21879-403: The weapons systems utilized by Soviet forces. In 2005, a public scandal erupted (dubbed the Journalistenskandal , journalists scandal) over revelations that the BND had placed a number of German journalists under surveillance since the-mid 1990s, in an attempt to discover the source of information leaks from the BND regarding the activities of the service in connection with the war in Iraq and

22032-417: The world, the final Allied offensive began in August 1918, and the position of Germany and the Central Powers deteriorated, leading them to sue for peace. After initial offers were rejected by the Allied Powers, the hunger and privation of the war years came together with the awareness of an impending military defeat to help spark the German Revolution . On 9 November 1918, a republic was proclaimed , and

22185-434: Was ceded to the Allied powers, and Danzig went to the League of Nations as the Free City of Danzig . The Polish Corridor left East Prussia physically separated from the rest of Germany. Under the terms of both the Armistice of 1918 and of the Treaty of Versailles, French, British, Belgian and American troops occupied the Rhineland , the area of Germany on the west bank of the Rhine river , together with bridgeheads on

22338-408: Was forced out in April 1968 due to "political scandal within the ranks", according to one source. His successor, Bundeswehr Brigadier General Gerhard Wessel, immediately called for a program of modernization and streamlining. With political changes in the West German government and a reflection that BND was at a low level of efficiency, the service began to rebuild. Years later, Wessel's obituary in

22491-438: Was founded during the Cold War in 1956 as the official foreign intelligence agency of West Germany , which had recently joined NATO , and in close cooperation with the CIA . It was the successor to the earlier Gehlen Organization , often known simply as "The Organization" or "The Org", a West German intelligence organization affiliated with the CIA whose existence had not been officially acknowledged. The most central figure in

22644-430: Was put under the control of the League of Nations for 15 years, and the output of the area's coal mines went to France. Alsace–Lorraine , which Prussia had annexed following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, once again became French. The northern part of Schleswig-Holstein went to Denmark following a plebiscite. In the east, a significant amount of territory was lost to a restored Poland . The Memel Territory

22797-414: Was revealed that the BND had managed to recruit excellent sources within Liechtenstein banks and had been conducting espionage operations in the principality since the beginning of the 2000s. The BND mediated the German Finance Ministry's $ 7.3 million acquisition of a CD from a former employee of the LGT Group – a Liechtenstein bank owned by the country's ruling family. While the Finance Ministry defends

22950-437: Was spread by the Right throughout the 1920s and ensured that many monarchists and conservatives would refuse to support the government of what they called the "November criminals". The destabilising effect of the stab-in-the-back myth on the Weimar democracy was an important factor in the rise of National Socialism . On 29 October 1918, a rebellion broke out among sailors at Wilhelmshaven ; similar unrest then spread to become

23103-427: Was superseded by the BND, the Gehlen Organisation was allowed to employ at least 100 former Gestapo or SS officers. ... Among them were Adolf Eichmann 's deputy Alois Brunner , who would go on to die of old age despite having sent more than 100,000 Jews to ghettos or internment camps, and ex-SS major Emil Augsburg . ... Many ex-Nazi functionaries including Silberbauer , the captor of Anne Frank , transferred over from

23256-449: Was the unified armed forces of the Nazi regime. Germany and the Central Powers fought the Allies of WWI between 28 July 1914 and 11 November 1918. The war ended with 20 million military and civilian deaths, including 2,037,000 German soldiers and from 424,000 to 763,000 civilians, many of them from disease and starvation as a result of the Allied blockade of Germany . After four years of war on multiple fronts in Europe and around

23409-407: Was used until being replaced by the Nazi Reichsadler in 1935, and readopted by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950. Following Germany's defeat in World War I, several million soldiers of the Imperial German Army either simply dispersed on their own or were formally demobilized. The provisional civilian government and the Supreme Army Command (OHL) planned to transfer the remaining units to

#162837