Agency 114 was a Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

-era clandestine front of the Bundesnachrichtendienst

Bundesnachrichtendienst

The Bundesnachrichtendienst [ˌbʊndəsˈnaːχʁɪçtnˌdiːnst] is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Chancellor's Office. Its headquarters are in Pullach near Munich, and Berlin . The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries...

 used for domestic counter-intelligence purposes which served as a main entrance for former Nazis.

Origin

Agency 114 was established within the Gehlen Organization

Gehlen Organization

Gehlen Organization was an intelligence agency established in June 1946 by U.S. occupation authorities in the United States Zone of Germany, and consisted of former members of the 12th Department of the Army General Staff...

 following the end of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. The United States Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

, seeking intelligence on Soviet agents' activities within the American-occupied zone, brought the assignment to Reinhard Gehlen

Reinhard Gehlen

Reinhard Gehlen was a General in the German Army during World War II, who served as chief of intelligence-gathering on the Eastern Front. After the war, he was recruited by the United States military to set up a spy ring directed against the Soviet Union , and eventually became head of the West...

 who proceeded to initiate the operation.

Cold War

At the height of the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 in the 1960s, the agency had been merged into the BND

Bundesnachrichtendienst

The Bundesnachrichtendienst [ˌbʊndəsˈnaːχʁɪçtnˌdiːnst] is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Chancellor's Office. Its headquarters are in Pullach near Munich, and Berlin . The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries...

, the successor of the Gehlen Org. It was located in Karlsruhe and the Zimmerle & Co. served as the front, specializing in roller blinds. Aside from Soviet counter-intelligence activities, the agency also began monitoring domestic leftists and pacifists.

By this time it was headed by Alfred Benzinger, a former sergeant of the secret Nazi military police Geheime Feldpolizei

Geheime Feldpolizei

The ' or GFP, was the secret military police of the German Wehrmacht until the end of Second World War. These units were used to carry out plain-clothed security work in the field such as counter-espionage, counter sabotage, detection of treasonable activities, counter-propaganda and to provide...

. Among the former Nazis who worked in the agency were Konrad Fiebig and Walter Kurreck.

Operations to whitewash German responsibility for the II World War

In 1956 Alfred Bezinger proposed a coordinated action to propagate a deceitful term ""Polish Concentration Camps". It would suggest, contrarily to the facts, that Poles, not Germans, were responsible for the mass genocide during WWII.