Oscar Reile

Signature of Reiles (1930s).

Signature of Reiles (1970).

Oscar Max Arthur Reile (nickname also in the spelling Oskar ) (born December 3, 1896 in Strutzfon , West Prussia , † April 27, 1983 in Mölln ) was a German secret service employee of the Abwehr , the Gehlen organization and the Federal Intelligence Service .

Life

Until 1920

Oskar Reile was the son of the farmer and later mayor Bernhard Reile and his wife Mathilde, née Künzele, and grew up as the oldest of three siblings on his parents' farm in the West Prussian district of Kulm . The family comes from Swabian settlers who emigrated to West Prussia in the 18th century. From 1907 he attended the grammar school in Graudenz . On August 5, 1914, while still in high school, Reile reported as a volunteer with the 3rd West Prussian Infantry Regiment No. 129 for military service in World War I and received an emergency "secondary school diploma" (12th grade). In 1919 he subsequently got his Abitur .

As a reserve officer candidate, Reile was promoted to non-commissioned officer in November 1915 and a few weeks later to non-budgetary vice sergeant , which corresponded to the rank of ensign in the career of a professional officer. On June 14, 1917 he became a lieutenant in the Landwehr . He was wounded twice during operations on the Eastern and Western Fronts. In April 1917 he received the Iron Cross, 2nd class. The last time he was with the 8th West Prussian Infantry Regiment No. 175 , he was taken prisoner near Cambrai on November 21, 1917, where he remained until November 1919. Reile was released from military service at the end of December. Reile spent the year 1920 on his parents' farm in Strutzfon.

Detective 1921-1934

After the Kulm area was assigned to Poland after the end of the war , Reile's family first moved to East Prussia and later to Berlin . Oscar Reile contrast, effective January 1, 1921 as a sergeant in the Criminal Investigation Department of the Free City of Danzig one. On October 1, 1921, he was appointed detective inspector and head of the Aliens Police . In April 1931 he was appointed Kriminalrat and on December 15, 1933 head of the Danzig criminal police.

In 1922, Reile got in contact with the Wehrmacht's espionage service (Abwehrstelle Ostpreussen) through the then defense man Walter Weiß , for which he worked as an unofficial employee from then on, without first informing his superiors. Until 1934, Reile led numerous Polish informants and paid agents for the Abwehr . As early as the late 1920s, he was exposed in Polish newspapers as a secret service employee.

On March 1, 1933, Reile became a member of the NSDAP . On behalf of the Danzig SA leader Max Linsmayer , he abused his function as a police officer in order to politically examine the Danzig SA members. In 1934, Reile got into internal party disputes between Linsmayer, the Senate President of the Free City of Danzig Hermann Rauschning, and the Senator for the Interior SS Oberführer Arthur Greiser , which Greiser won. Reile, who had backed the wrong horse, resigned from the police force in September 1934. His claim, made after the Second World War , that he was dismissed by Greiser in July 1934 for behavior hostile to the NSDAP, is incorrect.

In November 1924, Reile married Helene Lockenwitz, who came from Danzig . In 1926 the daughter Friderun was born. Reile was interested in literature. From 1929 to 1931 he was a guest student in philology at the Technical University of Danzig . Without naming his name, he and a police colleague gave the illustrated book “Abgetrenntes deutsches Land. Photos from Danzig and the surrounding area ” (Königsberg 1931). Reile also wrote lyrical poems, which he published in 1933, "to compensate for the strenuous, hard-hitting secret activity."

Defense officer 1934–1945

Oscar Reile had applied for his position in the military secret service of the Wehrmacht in the early summer of 1934 and from October 1934 - with a three-month probationary period - officially became a member of the Abwehr, where he was listed first as a Landwehr captain and from March 1935 as a supplementary officer . First he was a consultant in the IIIF ( counter-espionage ) department of the Army Service in Kassel (later renamed General Command IX. Army Corps ), then in the Abwehrstelle Wiesbaden ( XII. Army Corps ). From August 1939 to May 1940, Reile was the clerk of the Abwehr branch in Trier , where he was responsible for uncovering French espionage and for contact with informants in France and Belgium. On November 1, 1939, he was promoted to major . In 1935, Reile also met the head of the Foreign Defense Office, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris , with whom he later officially met several times. With a few interruptions, Reile was officially registered as resident in Trier until the end of 1954.

Hotel Lutetia in Paris, seat of the German counter-espionage 1940–1944.

After the attack on Poland , as part of the planning for an attack on Belgium and France, Reile was given the task of setting up an "Abwehrkommando" which was supposed to capture and sift through important files during the western campaign . This Abwehr-Einsatzkommando "Fadango" ("Kommando OKW IV"), to which 137 soldiers and 28 officers of the Secret Field Police belonged, was under Reiles leadership from May 10th to June 20th 1940 in action with varying success. In Luxembourg , the command freed 7 of its own detained agents, including Roger Hentges . In June 1940 Reile became a clerk (III F - counter-espionage) at the Defense Control Center France , which was housed in the Paris Hôtel Lutetia . The focus of his work was initially espionage against the Vichy regime , and later combating the Resistance , with the Abwehr using the secret field police, which was subordinate to it, and working closely with the SS security service . From November 1, 1941, the previous supplementary officer was transferred to the "active troop officers". At the beginning of March 1942 Reile was promoted to lieutenant colonel and in March 1943 appointed head of Department III of the Abwehr control center in France.

In February 1944, Reile was appointed commander of Leitstelle III West for front reconnaissance , a group of around 550 men made up of four front reconnaissance units that were supposed to serve as anti-sabotage units. After the Allied landing in Normandy , Reile tried in vain to set up an "R-Netz" organization of saboteurs who were supposed to allow enemy troops to run over them. Reile left Paris on August 18, 1944. By the end of the war, he and his department withdrew from France via Belgium and the Netherlands to Riedelbach im Taunus . In May 1945 he was initially able to escape captivity. On May 31st he reported to the police in Trier and stated that his house had been destroyed and that he knew nothing about the whereabouts of his wife and daughter; In addition, he asked for a replacement document to be obtained and for his presence to be reported to the Allied occupation. Then Reile surrendered to the American Counter Intelligence Corps .

According to his own account, Reile remained in British captivity until mid-1948 and then in French captivity for “a few more months” . The British interrogators noted that at the beginning of his internment, Reile refused to give incriminating information about his officers or agents. It was however possible to convince him to change his mind, and he had freely (freely) talked about these things. His statements are reliable . When Reile returned to the German secret service in 1949, he kept silent about these interrogations and his willingness to give evidence.

Organization Gehlen and BND 1949–1961

In the autumn of 1949 Oscar Reile joined the Gehlen Organization (OG) , the forerunner of the BND. There he had the code name Rischke . At the beginning of 1950 he began to set up a counter-espionage branch on the upper floor, but it was disbanded after nine months.

In 1951 Reile became head of counter-espionage in the OG general agency L in Karlsruhe , where the former SD man Heinz Felfe , who was later exposed as a Soviet spy, worked under him. After tensions with the head of the general agency, in the summer of 1952 Reile moved to the counter-espionage department at the BND headquarters in Pullach , where he was followed by Felfe in autumn 1953. In 1953/54 Reile succeeded according to his own account in uncovering an eastern espionage network. At the trial he appeared as the chief witness for the federal prosecutor 's office. According to his own information, Reile was increasingly restricted in his work by his superiors and asked - together with his old colleague Hermann Giskes - at the end of 1955 to be transferred to another office. In January 1956, Reile left the counter-espionage department at his own request. In 1961, Reile retired after reaching retirement age.

Within the Gehlen organization, Reile was a declared opponent of Gehlen, whom he accused with biting criticism of inadequate espionage practice, "secretive" management style and, in particular, the serious misjudgment in the case of the double spy Heinz Felfe. Reile wants Gehlen had warned Gehlen about Felfe at the end of 1952. Furthermore, in May 1955 he actually made inquiries about Felfe, on the one hand from Johannes Horaczek, the former head of the Warsaw Defense Center, and on the other hand from Karl Kleineberg from the protection of the constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia . In June 1956 Reile was questioned about Felfe himself. However, Felfe was not arrested until November 6, 1961. In connection with the exposure and arrest of Heinz Felfe, Reile himself came under suspicion of being a Soviet spy.

In 1957 Reile married the second marriage in Straßlach-Dingharting to the former competitive athlete Annchen Wilhelmine Ida Groth, born in 1915, with whom he initially lived in Geretsried , Bavaria . In 1971 the couple moved to Mölln in northern Germany. In 1972 Annchen Reile published a book with sports anecdotes. She died on July 13, 2008 in Ratzeburg .

Writing activity 1961–1979

Immediately after his retirement, Reile began to write and publish several books on the activities of the Abwehr and the secret services during the Cold War . Unlike the spin-Doctor Gert Buchheit seemed to him doing a defense of the BND against the attacks of the SED - agitator Julius Mader no meaning to have. Reile's representations rather gave the impression that the author had a lot of fun leading his opponents by the nose.

However, it should be noted that Reile was a member of the April 9th ​​Committee as early as 1965 , the forerunner of the Working Group of Former Defense Members (AGEA) founded in 1967 . Its central goal was to defend the activities of the former defense against defamatory attacks in the press, radio and television. Even if - unlike Buchheit - he published very few articles in the rearguard, the AGEA newsletter, it becomes clear in these that Reile also tried to correct representations that were wrong in his view. The fact that Reile agreed with the dominant position of Gert Buchheit , who was protected by the AGEA chairman Gerhard Henke as a defense historiographer in the AGEA until 1971 , can be doubted in view of Reile's extremely critical stance towards the BND President Gehlen . On the other hand, it is clearly recognizable how, under his influence, the AGEA in the early 1970s placed the amicable relations with formerly leading Resistance members (Jacques Abtey, Colonel Rémy) in the foreground. The great respect that Reile enjoyed in the ranks of the Resistance is particularly evident in Colonel Rémy's foreword to the French translation of Reile's book Die Abwehr ( L'Abwehr , Paris 1970).

Personality and attitude

According to his official assessments from the Nazi era , Reile had a “bureaucratic tendency”, but was considered a “particularly talented officer with a quick grasp” and “impeccable National Socialist attitude”. In around 1946, after numerous interrogations, the British secret service described Reile's personality as strange. He is at the same time naive and astute (shrewd). He writes poetry, is a nature lover and a dreamer, but this has not been detrimental to his career in counter-espionage.

In retrospect, Reile was described by his former colleague and Soviet agent Felfe as a “typical representative of the ' man's ideology '”: “He was and remained one of the intellectual elite of anti-communism, as he saw himself.” And for the American political scientist and intelligence expert Kenneth J. Campbell was Reile "a highly successful spy who failed".

After leaving the Federal Intelligence Service, Reile published numerous books on the work of the Abwehr and other secret services. The publications reveal a high degree of self-righteousness and a deep urge for self-expression. Again and again his outspoken hostility towards Poland, his anti-communism and his tendency towards bureaucratism become clear. Reile's distancing from National Socialism is half-hearted and vague in the wording. He denies Germany's guilt for the Second World War . Anyone who asserts this is continuing “the slanderous propaganda that has been carried out against us since the beginning of this century.” He mentions the resistance of numerous other members of the defensive against Hitler, without providing an assessment or his own opinion. Reile's enthusiasm for the head of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Canaris, was not based on his negative attitude towards National Socialism, but on his leadership qualities.

Reile hides his own NSDAP membership and claims that “until 1933 he had no contact with representatives of the NSDAP. I was not familiar with their structure. I didn't have the time to deal with domestic political issues. ”Reile's descriptions of the defense work are apologetic and gloss over the cooperation with the SS security service and the deployment of the secret field police between 1940 and 1945, in which thousands of French were killed. In his dissertation on Hitler's military enemy intelligence, the military historian Magnus Pahl judged Reile sharply: “His work is characterized by a strong rhetoric of justification. He completely left out critical fields ”.

Politically, Reile was undoubtedly right-wing conservative. According to a secret service anthology by two former MfS officers, he was temporarily a member of the NPD .

Publications

• Longing dreams. Danzig Publishing Company, Danzig 1933; (New edition of Verlag Welsermühl, Munich / Wels 1970).
• Secret western front. The defense 1935–1945. Verlag Welsermühl, Munich / Wels 1962 (French translation: L'Abwehr. Paris 1970).
• Secret Eastern Front. The German defense 1921–1945. Verlag Welsermühl, Munich / Wels 1963 (Russian translation: Tajnaja vojna. Moscow: Centrpoligraf, 2002).
• Cold war, hot Europe. Verlag Welsermühl, Munich / Wels 1965.
• Power and impotence of the secret services. Verlag Welsermühl, Munich / Wels o. J. [1969].
• L 'Defense. Éditions France-Empire, Paris 1970.
• Hans-Heinrich Sievert. Great athlete and person. Pohl, Celle 1972 DNB 730071189 .
• Meet Lutetia Paris. Verlag Welsermühl, Munich / Wels 1973 ISBN 3-85339-124-9 (New edition: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 2: Western Front. Augsburg: Weltbild-Verlag, 1990 ISBN 3-89350-069-3 ).
• Women in the secret service. Federmann, Illertissen o. J. [1979] ISBN 3-922260-00-4 .
• The German secret service in World War II. Volume 1: Eastern Front. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 1990 ISBN 3-89350-068-5 .

literature

• Gerhard Sälters: Phantoms of the Cold War. The Gehlen organization and the revival of the Gestapo enemy image "Red Chapel". (= Publications of the Independent Historical Commission for Research into the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 Volume 2) Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-921-6 (in particular the chapter on experiences in the fight against the Resistance: Oskar Reile , Pp. 87-93).

Web links

• Literature by and about Oscar Reile in the catalog of the German National Library
• Photo by Oscar Reile

Individual evidence

1. ↑ So consistently in Reile Reichswehr and Wehrmacht personnel files; Reile used the spelling himself, at least in the 1930s, s. signed résumé 1934, ibid.
2. ↑ death certificate; City archive Mölln. Reile was buried in Mölln on May 6, 1983: his grave no longer exists; Communication from the Evangelical Lutheran Church Community of Mölln.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Personnel Office of the Army Command in the Reichswehr Ministry : Personnel files for Reile, Oskar. (incomplete), approved document from the holdings of the CIA ( digitized 5.5 MB, accessed on September 13, 2013).
4. ↑ Who is who? XVI (1969/70), p. 1026.
5. ^ Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 1: Eastern Front. Augsburg 1990, pp. 25, 27.
6. ^ Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 1: Eastern Front. Augsburg 1990, p. 148.
7. ↑ membership number 1508011. Reile was living in Danzig, Rabbitberg 136 at this time; Federal Archives Berlin (formerly BDC), NSDAP local group index.
8. ^ Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 1: Eastern Front. Augsburg 1990, pp. 140-144.
9. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Interrogation Report, The National Archives , Kew, KV 2/2850 ( Memento of the original dated December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
10. ^ Friderun Reile (born March 30, 1926 in Danzig), married Schultz. The senior medical advisor, who later lived in Munich, did her doctorate in medicine in 1952 and worked as a doctor for psychiatry and neurology. Reile's grandson Ulrich Schultz (* 1952) also became a doctor. He is professor and chief physician of the clinic for psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychosomatics at the Evangelical Hospital Bergisch Gladbach. s. Who is who? XVI (1969/70), p. 1026; Friderun Reile: About the tuberculin reactions and stimulus thresholds in vaccinations with AT and GT Med. Diss. Würzburg 1952; Ulrich Schultz: Career suggestions for rehabilitation patients with epilepsy after work trials, medical, social and psychological determinants. Med. Diss. FU Berlin 1983, p. 189; Vita Ulrich Schultz ( Memento of the original from August 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on May 12, 2014). 
11. ^ Quote from Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 1: Eastern Front. Augsburg 1990, p. 15; That. Longing dreams. Poems. Danziger Verlags-Gesellschaft 1933, new edition Munich 1970; Reile's formulation of lyric poems is the example of a pleonasm .
12. ^ Oscar Reile: Secret Western Front. Munich / Wels 1962, pp. 16-17; there pp. 25–57 detailed account by Reile about his activities in Trier.
13. ^ Before the war, together with his daughter Friderun at Ostallee 35a (1936 as a merchant, 1938 as an officer). The card from the Trier residents' registration office concerning him no longer existed after the war, which was noted on his daughter Friderun's card: “Oskar Reile, geb. December 3, 1896 Strutzfon, gem [eldet] v [om] April 22, 1936 - May 10, 1940 (campaign in France). Card from OR no longer available, R. was an officer, probably destroyed by the secret service. ”After returning from prisoner-of-war until June 19, 1948, he lived in Trier, Speestr. 22, together with the nurse H. Reile, 1949 in Olewigerstr. 50, temporarily in Karlsruhe in 1950, Turmbergstrasse 13. On January 26, 1955, he moved to Straßlach / Upper Bavaria. Messages from the Trier City Archives.
14. ↑ In detail, Oscar Reile: Secret Western Front. Munich / Wels 1962, pp. 71-80; Ders .: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 2: Western Front. Augsburg 1990, pp. 15-45.
15. ^ ^{A b} Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 2: Western Front. Augsburg 1990, passim.
16. ^ Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 2: Western Front. Augsburg 1990, especially pp. 332, 363-369.
17. ↑ ^{a b} Klaus Eichner / Gotthold Schramm (ed.): Attack and Defense. The German secret services after 1945. Berlin 2007, p. 96.
18. ^ Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 2: Western Front. Augsburg 1990, p. 383f.
19. ↑ ^{a b} CIA letter, May 7, 1968 ( digitized 211 kB), approved document from the CIA holdings (accessed on September 13, 2013).
20. ↑ ^{a b c} Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 2: Western Front. Augsburg 1990, pp. 391-395.
21. ↑ Research Aid: Cryptonyms and Terms in Declassified CIA Files Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Disclosure Acts ( IWG , June 2007), p. 50 ( PDF 412 kB; accessed on September 2, 2013).
22. ↑ Heinz Felfe: In the service of the enemy. Autobiography. Berlin (Ost) 1988, pp. 194-197.
23. ↑ A BND success against eastern spies cannot be proven for the period. In 1953, however, members of an alleged spy ring were arrested by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution after an employee of the GDR's foreign intelligence service, the Institute for Economic Research, defected. The allegations against most of the arrested turned out to be incorrect (" Vulkan affair "); s. The cabinet minutes of the Federal Government 1954 .
24. ^ Hermann Zolling, Heinz Höhne: Pullach intern. General Gehlen and the history of the Federal Intelligence Service. Hamburg 1971, pp. 167-168. The Reiles personnel file in the BND archive has not yet been evaluated.
25. ^ Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 2: Western Front. Augsburg 1990, pp. 393-400.
26. ↑ Felfe's curriculum vitae in tabular form, untitled, undated [1961] ( digitized 2.6 MB), approved document from the holdings of the CIA (accessed on September 13, 2013).
27. ↑ Who is who? XVI (1969/70), p. 1026; Oscar Reile death certificate; Estate matter Annchen Reile, public invitation 7 VI 280/08 v. March 19, 2010; Annchen Reile-Groth: Laugh yourself fit in the 1972 Olympic year with 72 sports anecdotes. Schwarzenbek 1972.
28. ↑ So in clarification of the enemy preparations for the invasion ( Overload ) ( Die Nachhut 9, 1970) and to the book "No Longer Secret" by Charisius-Mader ( Die Nachhut 10, 1970).
29. ↑ So z. B. in To the meeting of the former members of the defense in Würzburg from October 5 to 7, 1971 ( The rear guard 15/16 (1972) with pictures) and friendly encounter between Colonel Rémy and Lieutenant Colonel Reile (The rear guard 31/32, 1975).
30. ↑ See also the article Remarkable proposal from the French Colonel Remy to Comrade O. Reile. In: The rearguard. No. 11/12 (1971), pp. 17-18, with an excerpt from a letter from Rémys to Reile.
31. ↑ Heinz Felfe: In the service of the enemy. Autobiography. Berlin (East) 1988, pp. 194, 196.
32. ↑ Kenneth J. Campbell: Oskar Reile. A Highly Successful Spy, Who Failed. In: American Intelligence Journal 26, No. 2 (Winter 2008-2009), pp. 75-79 (Campbell's article was not available as text).
33. ^ Władysław Kozaczuk : Bitwa o tajemnice. Służby wywiadowcze Polski i Rzeszy Niemieckie 1922–1939. Warsaw 1967.
34. ^ Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 2: Western Front. Augsburg 1990, passim, quote: p. 115, on Canaris in particular p. 376-380.
35. ^ Oskar Reile: The German secret service in World War II. Volume 1: Eastern Front. Augsburg 1990, p. 142.
36. ↑ Magnus Pahl: Foreign armies East. Hitler's military enemy reconnaissance. Berlin 2012, p. 336 note 115.