Superspy: Reinhard Gelhen

English | 1 x 60 minutes

Producer: Peter Batty Productions.
Availability: Worldwide, all media (on request).



This is the remarkable story of Reinhard Gehlen, former Head of the West German Secret Service, who helped to found the CIA, the American Central Intellingence Agency.

Over the years he has been called many names such as 'The man in shadows', 'The man with a thousand ears' and 'The man of a million mysteries'. Gehlen was Hitler's Chief of Intelligence on the Russian Front during WWII. But long before May 1945 he had secreted himself and his files on the Soviets away from Berlin to the so-called Alpine Redoubt in southern Germany, while he waited his chance to bargain for his freedom with the advancing Americans.

In this programme the story is traced from Gehlen's joining the Nazi Party during the early 1930's to his retirement on a CIA pension in the late 1960's. He died in 1979.

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