Short review: Covert Legions: U.S. Army Intelligence in Germany, 1944-1949 (1 Viewer)

[ROAN]

For those interested in U.S. Army Intelligence, counter-intelligence at the tail end of the war, cold war history, espionage, or early CIA history
highly recommend Covert Legions: U.S. Army Intelligence in Germany, 1944-59 by Thomas Boghardt,


Boghardt, a former Bundeswehr Panzer officer, an Oxford Ph.D., and now a senior historian at the Army Center for Military History, has written what must be the definitive history of Army intelligence operations in the late war and early cold war period.


The book is encyclopedic in depth and detail-everything you would want to know-and more. For example, discussing Skorzeny’s aptly named Operation Grief​, Boghardt introduces Otto Stuller, one of the hapless Germans-definitely not a volunteer-in American uniforms that were rounded up-and shot. Before the war, Stuller was a ballet dancer(ballet photo included)who performed in the U.K. and the U.S.(was reminded here of “who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel” as a Times editorial opined about the sentencing of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in the Redlands drug case).


Further on in the book there’s a map of Berlin, with the address and map pinpoints of: the CIA’s old HQ(formerly Keitel’s mansion, now housing a chiropractor’s office)CIC and CIA safe houses, the HQ of Soviet Intelligence Berlin sector, and no less than seven Soviet intelligence offices.


Boghardt also covers the CIC in Germany, the Army Security Agency(ASA), the Intelligence School in Oberammergau, the Berlin Documents Center, the United States Military Liaison Mission(USMLM)at Potsdam, Project Paperclip, and Operation Rusty; the latter evolved into the CIA-backed Gehlen Org. at Pullach, which later became the BND, and the Target Intelligence Committee(TICOM)units who were mainly tasked at finding high level scientific documents.


(Note: not in this book, but one of the TICOM units was, according to author James Costello, alleged to have found at Kronberg Castle incriminating correspondence between Edward, Duke of Windsor and Hitler. Kronberg Castle later went on to achieve infamy as the site-then an Army officer’s club, where the theft of the Hesse crown jewels by some Army officers-including a WAC captain, took place).


Covert Legions can be downloaded free here:


https://history.army.mil/html/books/045/45-5/index.html
(the hard copy was supposed to be available via the Government Printing Office but it is now available on Amazon).

 

[ROAN]

"(Note: not in this book, but one of the TICOM units was, according to author James Costello, alleged to have found at Kronberg Castle incriminating correspondence between Edward, Duke of Windsor and Hitler. Kronberg Castle later went on to achieve infamy as the site-then an Army officer’s club, where the theft of the Hesse crown jewels by some Army officers-including a WAC captain, took place)."

From my post the above author name should be John Costello not James and his book is titled "Mask of Treachery" about Anthony
Blunt.

Blunt visited Kronberg Castle as a MI5 captain charged with retrieving correspondence between Queen Victoria and her daughter the Princess Royal;
the wife of Kaiser Friedrich III and the mother of Wilhelm II. Blunt's papers search aroused the curiosity of Captain Kathleen Nash, the manager of
the Kronberg Castle officer's club, which led to the theft of the Hesse Crown Jewels.

Below is a link to my article about the theft published in Military History magazine posted on my Google Drive:

drive.google.com/file/d/1aUMpOnk0xeVWYip8wHzrP9aGnARPv6e0/view?usp=sharing