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Gehlen: Germany's Master Spy
The full story of the most important spy of the twentieth century.
Perfect for fans of Ben Macintyre, Judith Pearson and Larry Loftis.
During World War Two, Reinhard Gehlen had been Hitler’s top intelligence officer on the Eastern Front. However, while many of high-ranking fellow Nazis were tried, convicted, and incarcerated for their actions, Gehlen instead found work with the Americans, at the CIA.
What work had Gehlen done during the Second World War that made him so valuable to the United States of America? And how was this leading German spy able to change his allegiance to Allies so swiftly to become an integral spy master of the emerging Cold War?
The lives of spies are notoriously shrouded in secrecy, however, by utilizing Gehlen’s own memoirs as well as numerous other sources from his years during World War Two and the Cold War, Charles Whiting is able to piece together the story of this mysterious man.
Germany’s Master Spy traces his early days as Heinz Guderian’s chief of Intelligence on the Eastern Front through his successful organization of a military spy system in the Soviet Union, to his post-war years with the CIA and the founding of West Germany’s own intelligence system.
This book is essential reading for all interested in the shadowy world of espionage, revealing the story of how one Second World War spy came to shape the power dynamics of the Cold War.
Perfect for fans of Ben Macintyre, Judith Pearson and Larry Loftis.
During World War Two, Reinhard Gehlen had been Hitler’s top intelligence officer on the Eastern Front. However, while many of high-ranking fellow Nazis were tried, convicted, and incarcerated for their actions, Gehlen instead found work with the Americans, at the CIA.
What work had Gehlen done during the Second World War that made him so valuable to the United States of America? And how was this leading German spy able to change his allegiance to Allies so swiftly to become an integral spy master of the emerging Cold War?
The lives of spies are notoriously shrouded in secrecy, however, by utilizing Gehlen’s own memoirs as well as numerous other sources from his years during World War Two and the Cold War, Charles Whiting is able to piece together the story of this mysterious man.
Germany’s Master Spy traces his early days as Heinz Guderian’s chief of Intelligence on the Eastern Front through his successful organization of a military spy system in the Soviet Union, to his post-war years with the CIA and the founding of West Germany’s own intelligence system.
This book is essential reading for all interested in the shadowy world of espionage, revealing the story of how one Second World War spy came to shape the power dynamics of the Cold War.
- GenresHistoryWorld War II
271 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1972
104 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
About the author
Charles Whiting
257 books52 followersCharles Whiting was a British writer and military historian and with some 350 books of fiction and non-fiction to his credit, under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms including Ian Harding, Duncan Harding, K.N. Kostov, John Kerrigan, Klaus Konrad, and Leo Kessler.
Born in the Bootham area of York, England, he was a pupil at the prestigious Nunthorpe Grammar School, leaving at the age of 16 to join the British Army by lying about his age. Keen to be in on the wartime action, Whiting was attached to the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment and by the age of 18 saw duty as a sergeant in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany in the latter stages of World War II. While still a soldier, he observed conflicts between the highest-ranking British and American generals which he would write about extensively in later years.
After the war, he stayed on in Germany completing his A-levels via correspondence course and teaching English before being enrolled at Leeds University reading History and German Language. As an undergraduate he was afforded opportunities for study at several European universities and, after gaining his degree, would go on to become an assistant professor of history. Elsewhere, Whiting held a variety of jobs which included working as a translator for a German chemical factory and spells as a publicist, a correspondent for The Times and feature writer for such diverse magazines as International Review of Linguistics, Soldier and Playboy.
His first novel was written while still an undergraduate, was published in 1954 and by 1958 had been followed by three wartime thrillers. Between 1960 and 2007 Charles went on to write over 350 titles, including 70 non-fiction titles covering varied topics from the Nazi intelligence service to British Regiments during World War II.
One of his publishers, Easingwold-based Rupert Smith of GH Smith & Son said he was a quiet man and prolific writer.
"He's one of a band of forgotten authors because he sold millions of copies and still, up to his death was doing publishing deals.He was the kind of man who was very self-effacing, one of Britain's forgotten authors, still working at 80 years of age, with his nose down and kicking out books."
Charles Henry Whiting, author and military historian died on July 24 2007, leaving his wife and son.
Born in the Bootham area of York, England, he was a pupil at the prestigious Nunthorpe Grammar School, leaving at the age of 16 to join the British Army by lying about his age. Keen to be in on the wartime action, Whiting was attached to the 52nd Reconnaissance Regiment and by the age of 18 saw duty as a sergeant in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany in the latter stages of World War II. While still a soldier, he observed conflicts between the highest-ranking British and American generals which he would write about extensively in later years.
After the war, he stayed on in Germany completing his A-levels via correspondence course and teaching English before being enrolled at Leeds University reading History and German Language. As an undergraduate he was afforded opportunities for study at several European universities and, after gaining his degree, would go on to become an assistant professor of history. Elsewhere, Whiting held a variety of jobs which included working as a translator for a German chemical factory and spells as a publicist, a correspondent for The Times and feature writer for such diverse magazines as International Review of Linguistics, Soldier and Playboy.
His first novel was written while still an undergraduate, was published in 1954 and by 1958 had been followed by three wartime thrillers. Between 1960 and 2007 Charles went on to write over 350 titles, including 70 non-fiction titles covering varied topics from the Nazi intelligence service to British Regiments during World War II.
One of his publishers, Easingwold-based Rupert Smith of GH Smith & Son said he was a quiet man and prolific writer.
"He's one of a band of forgotten authors because he sold millions of copies and still, up to his death was doing publishing deals.He was the kind of man who was very self-effacing, one of Britain's forgotten authors, still working at 80 years of age, with his nose down and kicking out books."
Charles Henry Whiting, author and military historian died on July 24 2007, leaving his wife and son.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 7, 2018
This is a very typical Charles Whiting book -- fast, fun, easy to read, and somewhat superficial. I have a great deal of affection for Whiting, whose WW2 books have entertained me so thoroughly over the years, but I am not completely blind to his faults, and this little book is a testament to his best and worst qualities both.
Reinhard Gehlen was a seemingly unassuming German General Staff officer who headed the Foreign Armies East branch of Hitler's army during WW2 -- essentially, he was chief of intelligence for the entire Eastern Front from 1942 - 1945, despite the fact that Hitler despised him and once threatened to lock him up in a lunatic asylum for furnishing reports the tyrant did not wish to hear. When Germany was defeated, he managed to keep both his files on the Red Army, his personal staff, and his extensive network of contacts in the East intact, and "sold" them to the Americans in one of the greatest trade deals (or swindles, depending on your point of view) of all time. Overnight, Gehlen went from a defeated ex-spy to the chief of an organization responsible for guiding West Germany through the perilous, troubled waters of the Cold War. By the mid-1950s he had become one of the most powerful, feared, and mysterious men in Europe, running the "Gehlen Organization" for the Allies and then the BND (Federal Intelligence Service) for West Germany. Inevitably, he was subjected to attack by rivals and by his opposite numbers in East German and Soviet intelligence, and finally fell from power in the middle 1960s, only to resurface as an "retired advisor" to the organization he created, thus proving himself as elusive and enigmatic in defeat as he was in victory.
All of Whiting's books read like novels, and he has a special flair for spycraft (as evidenced in his wonderful ramble, "Ardennes: The Secret War"). I burned through this paperback in about three or four days, and enjoyed nearly all of it, though as always, the breathless speed with which Whiting moves the story, his tendency to do fast, not terribly deep research, and his tendency to draw dubious conclusions that would not have survived the pokes and prods of my college history teachers, forces the reader to take much of what he says with a grain of salt. To gain a more complete (or less incomplete) picture of Gehlen, one must also read, at the minimum, David Irving's,
"The Service," which is also flawed (as Irving himself admits) but paints a rather deeper and more nuanced picture than this swift, entertaining sketch. The ultimate questions about Gehlen, of course, will probably not be answered for generations, if ever. Was he really a Master Spy, as so many believed and still believe, or was he merely a master swindler, who pretended to be the holder of vital secrets, sold them dearly, and then persuaded both the Allies and postwar Germany that they could not survive without him?
Reinhard Gehlen was a seemingly unassuming German General Staff officer who headed the Foreign Armies East branch of Hitler's army during WW2 -- essentially, he was chief of intelligence for the entire Eastern Front from 1942 - 1945, despite the fact that Hitler despised him and once threatened to lock him up in a lunatic asylum for furnishing reports the tyrant did not wish to hear. When Germany was defeated, he managed to keep both his files on the Red Army, his personal staff, and his extensive network of contacts in the East intact, and "sold" them to the Americans in one of the greatest trade deals (or swindles, depending on your point of view) of all time. Overnight, Gehlen went from a defeated ex-spy to the chief of an organization responsible for guiding West Germany through the perilous, troubled waters of the Cold War. By the mid-1950s he had become one of the most powerful, feared, and mysterious men in Europe, running the "Gehlen Organization" for the Allies and then the BND (Federal Intelligence Service) for West Germany. Inevitably, he was subjected to attack by rivals and by his opposite numbers in East German and Soviet intelligence, and finally fell from power in the middle 1960s, only to resurface as an "retired advisor" to the organization he created, thus proving himself as elusive and enigmatic in defeat as he was in victory.
All of Whiting's books read like novels, and he has a special flair for spycraft (as evidenced in his wonderful ramble, "Ardennes: The Secret War"). I burned through this paperback in about three or four days, and enjoyed nearly all of it, though as always, the breathless speed with which Whiting moves the story, his tendency to do fast, not terribly deep research, and his tendency to draw dubious conclusions that would not have survived the pokes and prods of my college history teachers, forces the reader to take much of what he says with a grain of salt. To gain a more complete (or less incomplete) picture of Gehlen, one must also read, at the minimum, David Irving's,
"The Service," which is also flawed (as Irving himself admits) but paints a rather deeper and more nuanced picture than this swift, entertaining sketch. The ultimate questions about Gehlen, of course, will probably not be answered for generations, if ever. Was he really a Master Spy, as so many believed and still believe, or was he merely a master swindler, who pretended to be the holder of vital secrets, sold them dearly, and then persuaded both the Allies and postwar Germany that they could not survive without him?
February 19, 2021
Osobnost gen.Gehlena je velmi rozporuplná.Jeho vidění reality ke konci WW2 bylo: snaha zachránit si život i za cenu smyšlenek, a v podvedení Američanů o svých možnostech v řízených "agent.sítích". Svoji karieru udělal ve štábech, byl Hitlerem povyšován během války, nikdy neřídil operativní součást Abhweru v Rusku, byl jen analytikem od stolu. Britové by na spolupráci s tímto člověkem nikdy nepřistoupili. Po válce antihitlerovský odboj Gehlena ignoroval, Konrad Adenauer jej v jednom okamžiku chtěl nechat zavřít. Gehlen se pletl "konspirativně" do politiky NSR, rozehrával své hry.. Samolibý maminčin mamánek.. Jeho Paměti, které vyšly po r. 1989 i v ČR jsou opravdu kuriozní. Gehlen v nich ze sebe dělá mj.vědce, a není ochoten přiznat, že byl po r. 1969 odejít z vedení BND i kvůli tomu, že jeho BND byla prolezlá komunistickými agenty, viz tzv.Rudý říjen 1968, kdy spáchalo několik vysoce postavených důstojníků BND včetně jeho zástupce "sebevraždu", když po defekci rozvědčíka ČSSR Bittmana na západ. Gehlen dále věděl o úkrytu Eichmana již koncem 50.let 20.stol., tuto informaci v rámci liason, jaksi zapomněl předat těm, kteří si jej v r. 1962 vyhledali sami... Qui bono ?
July 31, 2025
What separates great spy masters, Gehlen, Wolfe, from just average, Helms, Dulles, is not information but imagination. Put in charge by Hitler of all German intelligence on the Eastern Front Reinhard Gehlen imagined what it must be like to be a Russian general plotting an offensive against the Germans and let his spies fill in the blanks. No object was too small for Gehlen to see significance in it, not even the garbage in Soviet forward bases. Small wonder the CIA recruited him after World War II and Konrad Adenauer made him chief of West German intelligence.
June 2, 2025
Superficial and prone to conspiracy theories, the worst mix for a historical book about secret services
August 9, 2024
Spymaster
This is a revealing book. It’s all true. Spies exist and so do licensed assassins.
The depths of human nature are explored. Interesting but depressing.
This is a revealing book. It’s all true. Spies exist and so do licensed assassins.
The depths of human nature are explored. Interesting but depressing.
September 18, 2024
An excellent ccount of the activities of the Gehlenorg
May 8, 2021
This was a very interesting book. This detailed the career of Reinhard Gehlen, who was a high functioning spy for the Nazi's. He was very good at his job and ran an efficient ship in this department. Other Allied intelligence agencies would have loved his services. I thought that it was really neat to read about World War II spies, because I do not know much about them. This was a good read.
April 12, 2016
I read this after reading Gehlen's memoirs, "The Service." Whiting, in his usual easy-reading style, conveys much more information than revealed by Gehlen himself. Very worthwhile read.
September 22, 2015
interesting
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews