Department III b

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The Section III b / Division III b (short A III b ) was the military intelligence service of the Prussian / German Army until shortly after the end of the First World War .

Origin and tasks

The intelligence service was founded in 1889 as a section in the Great General Staff . For the first time, this task remained as a permanent form of organization in the Great General Staff even during peacetime.

At the beginning of the First World War, the section was upgraded to a department. Initially, the area of ​​responsibility of Section IIIb comprised intelligence gathering information and counter-espionage . A foreign reconnaissance was only available to a limited extent. The objective of the intelligence service was initially directed against France, from 1893 increasingly against Russia and from the summer of 1914 also against England in coordination with the intelligence department N in the Admiral's staff . For example, between 1891 and 1893, for the “ Russia Enlightenment ”, news collection points were set up on the borders of the empire , for example in Gumbinnen , Jarotschin , Kempen , Lublinitz , Lyck , Soldau and Thorn . From 1906, officers (NO) trained in intelligence services were deployed in the individual army corps in the direction of France (west) and Russia (east).

Heads of A III b

structure

Seal of the war press office in Berlin

In the construction years up to 1908, only 3 officers were entrusted with intelligence tasks in Section IIIb.

Since 1910, there has been close cooperation with the kuk registry office in Vienna.

The peace-keeping strength of Division IIIb was in 1914: 5 General Staff officers and was divided into 4 sections. At that time there was a close cooperation with the Italian intelligence service.

With the outbreak of war in August 1914, the work of Section III b was divided. The chief of III b moved into the field with the Supreme Army Command - Western Front. The mobile intelligence service, the "mob III b", acted at his side. The structure that remained in Berlin was assigned to Deputy III b in the Deputy General Staff. Only the NO in the 1st Army Corps remained at his post in Königsberg.

During the First World War in 1915, Department IIIb was enlarged and the areas of press, propaganda, intelligence and defense were subdivided. Three main departments were created, which were combined under the roof of "Chef III b" and had the following structure in mid-1915:

  1. Mobile Department III b ( OHL )
  2. Deputy Department III b (Berlin)
    • politics
    • Intelligence service
    • Counterintelligence in Germany
    • Press
  3. War Press Office
    • Information point
    • Head of censorship
    • Foreign office
    • Domestic office

War years and dissolution

The need to intensify the German intelligence service resulted from the activities of the War Propaganda Bureau (WPB), which was founded in August 1914. The WPB very quickly put the emphasis in its war propaganda on demonizing the enemy in order to strengthen the morale of its own soldiers who should believe that they were defending civilization against the barbarians. The German counter-propaganda was by no means able to achieve comparable successes. Well-known employees of the A III b were Georg Foertsch , the editor-in-chief of the Kreuzzeitung , and Elsbeth Schragmüller , the head of the Antwerp war intelligence agency.

The German secret service's results were also poor in the investigation. The network of agents in the enemy countries collapsed shortly after the start of the war because the majority of the agents were exposed and arrested. So it was almost impossible to obtain meaningful data about opposing operational intentions and deployment plans. Department IIIb only worked on the intelligence department of the Great General Staff (from 1917 Foreign Armies Department ), which compiled an overall situation there. Often the reports of the still active secret service employees turned out to be incorrect. The lack of separation of intelligence gathering and analysis turned out to be a major problem, especially since the staff of the General Staff only communicated with the agents in writing. There was hardly any objective knowledge of the seriousness of the sources, which led to misinterpretations. In addition, the A III b was in competition with the naval intelligence service and the secret service operations of the Foreign Office . In 1917, Department IIIb was authorized to conduct domestic reconnaissance. An independent department was supposed to carry out tasks similar to the British WPB, but it could hardly be efficiently active within just one year until the end of the war.

Department IIIb also ended its work at the end of 1918 with the dissolution of the Deputy General Staff of the Field Army in Berlin. Some of the employees were distributed to other departments. Department head III b Walter Nicolai was released on "vacation" on November 12, 1918, mainly to avoid the increasing criticism in public and in the Reichstag. As a temporary solution, the former head of III b West, Major Paul Stotten († 1956), whose public image was less polluted, was appointed head of III b in Berlin in 1919. At the beginning of February 1919 the news department was transformed into a news section and Stotten was replaced by Major Friedrich Gempp (former head of III b Ost). As early as the end of February 1919, the former A III b, renamed the news group, was subordinated to Oberquartiermeister F, Major General Detlof von Winterfeldt , in the General Staff and incorporated into the Foreign Armies Department.

With the dissolution of the Great General Staff and the formation of the Reichswehr Ministry under Gustav Noske in the summer of 1919 , the reconstruction of a military intelligence service began under camouflage, as this contradicted the Versailles Treaty . Under Major Gempp, some former employees of A III b remained in the 3rd department in the troop office while continuing the intelligence work . From mid-1919, the structure and technical competence of the Defense Department within the Reichswehr Ministry was developed from parts and with the help of suitable officers .

literature

  • Florian Altenhöner: Total War - Total Control? German Military Intelligence on the Home Front, 1914–1918. In: The Journal of Intelligence History. Vol. 5, No. 2, 2005, pp. 55-72, doi : 10.1080 / 16161262.2005.10555117 .
  • Robert T. Foley: Easy Target or Invincible Enemy? German Intelligence Assessments of France Before the Great War. In: The Journal of Intelligence History. Vol. 5, No. 2, 2005, pp. 1-24, doi : 10.1080 / 16161262.2005.10555115 .
  • Hanne Hieber: "Mademoiselle Docteur": The Life and Service of Imperial Germany's Only Female Intelligence Officer. In: The Journal of Intelligence History. Vol. 5, No. 2, 2005, pp. 81-108, doi : 10.1080 / 16161262.2005.10555119 .
  • Heinz Höhne : Canaris. Patriot in the twilight. Special edition. Bertelsmann, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-570-01608-0 .
  • Markus Pöhlmann : German Intelligence at War, 1914-1918. In: The Journal of Intelligence History. Vol. 5, No. 2, 2005, pp. 25-54, doi : 10.1080 / 16161262.2005.10555116 .
  • Jürgen W. Schmidt : Against Russia: Department IIIb of the Deputy General Staff, Berlin, and Intelligence, Counterintelligence and Newspaper Research, 1914–1918. In: The Journal of Intelligence History. Vol. 5, No. 2, 2005, pp. 73-89, doi : 10.1080 / 16161262.2005.10555118 .
  • Jürgen W. Schmidt: Against Russia and France. The German military secret service 1890–1914 (= secret service history. 1). 3. Edition. Ludwigsfelder Verlags-Haus, Ludwigsfelde 2009, ISBN 978-3-933022-44-8 (also: Hagen, Fernuniversität, dissertation, 2005).
  • Jürgen W. Schmidt (ed.): Secret services, military and politics in Germany (= secret service history. 2). 2nd Edition. Ludwigsfelder Verlags-Haus, Ludwigsfelde 2010, ISBN 978-3-933022-55-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Max Ronge : War and industrial espionage. Twelve years of service as a scout. Amalthea, Zurich et al. 1930.
  2. ↑ Walter Nicolai : Secret Powers. International espionage and the fight against it during World War I and today Koehler, Leipzig 1923.
  3. ^ Martin Schramm : The picture of Germany in the British press 1912-1919. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-05-004422-4 , p. 11 ff.
  4. ↑ Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic. 1919-1933. Federal Archives. online .
  5. ↑ a b Florian Altenhöner: Communication and control. Rumors and urban publics in Berlin and London 1914/1918 (= publications of the German Historical Institute London. 62). Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58183-6 , p. 96 ff.
  6. ↑ a b Helmut R. Hammerich: "Always on the enemy!": The Military Shield Service (MAD) 1956–1990 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019, ISBN 978-3-647-36392-9 , pp. 39 ( google.de [accessed June 1, 2020]).
  7. ^ Cees Wiebes: Intelligence and the War in Bosnia, 1992-1995 . LIT Verlag Münster, 2003, ISBN 978-3-8258-6347-0 , p. 87 ( google.de [accessed June 1, 2020]).