Operation Rusty

 

Operation Rusty was the name of a US Military Intelligence Service project in the immediate post-WWII period that combined Hermann Baun's espionage group of former Abwehr agents (project KEYSTONE) and Reinhard Gehlen's group of former Foreign Army East staff (project BOLERO) into a single espionage organization. Operation Rusty resulted in the Gehlen Organization, named after its leader Reinhard Gehlen, former head of the Foreign Armies East (Fremde Heere Ost, FHO), which had done espionage for the Nazi Wehrmacht at the Eastern front. The Gehlen Org, which at first consisted entirely of former FHO personnel, was transformed into the Bundesnachrichtendienst, to this day Germany's foreign intelligence service.

Shortly before the end of World War II, on April 4, 1945, Gehlen and his deputy, Gerhard Wessel, both still leading the FHO, met with Hermann Baun, a German Abwehr officer who had coordinated espionage close to the front during the Wehrmacht's entire Russian campaign, as well as his adjutant Graber in Bad Elster. They agreed to offer key personnel and materials to the Americans once the war was over. This meeting has also  become known as the “Pact of Bad Elster” (Pakt von Bad Elster). The attendees decided to give all the FHO members the code name “Fritz,” and the Abwehr members the code name “Otto.”  (more...)

Operation Rusty