X-2

This article describes a special division of the American military intelligence service; further terms for X-2 are explained under X2 .

X-2 was the name of a special intelligence department of the American military intelligence service Office of Strategic Services (OSS) founded in 1942 by the United States Department of Defense .

The special unit was initially used to supplement the British signals intelligence service Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS). During the Second World War , the unit dealt mainly and generally with the task of counter-espionage . At the end of the war, this was expanded to include the task of tracking down Nazi criminals, as the American government assumed that it had to uncover extensive Nazi underground organizations (e.g. the werewolf organization ). As early as September 1945, the then head of the unit, James R. Murphy, established that there was no longer any active Nazi espionage activity. The Americans then provide theirsMilitary reconnaissance on espionage against the Soviet Union and its area of ​​influence. In doing so, they primarily used former members of the German intelligence services. As part of these tasks, she was also responsible for the selection and recruitment, for example in the Camp King prison camp, of personnel for the organization Gehlen u. German authorities.

literature

• Helmut Roewer , Stefan Schäfer, Matthias Uhl : Lexicon of the secret services in the 20th century . Herbig, Munich 2003 ff p. 504, ISBN 3-7766-2317-9 .
• Wilhelm Ritter von Schramm : Secret services in World War II , book publishers Langen Müller Herbig, Munich (2003), ISBN 3-7766-2241-5