Abstract
Amt VI C, which was responsible for SD Persian operations from 1941 until the final months of the war, had certain unique features among the Ländergruppen of Amt VI. It was the only group to preserve its designation intact throughout its history, during the course of which it underwent fewer territorial modifications than any other geographical group. Most significantly, in 1941, it absorbed the Near and Middle East from VI B. From then on, VI C covered the widest sphere of all the Amt VI groups, and from the start of the Russian campaign, it remained throughout the war the most important operational group, bar none, primarily because of its responsibility for the Soviet Union.2
These men, who had not been psychologically prepared for the work, and who had completely false ideas about the character of the intelligence service, were sent abroad with a lot of money and no character or intelligence test, and proved quite unsuitable. (Walter Schellenberg)1
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Notes
Schulze-Holthus, Daybreak, 261; also quoted by Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, Halbmond und Hakenkreuz: Das Dritte Reich, die Araber und Palästina (Darmstadt: WBG, 2006), 195.
See Reinhard R. Doerries, Hitler’s Last Chief of Foreign Intelligence: Allied Interrogations of Walter Schellenberg (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 80.
Gräfe’s early career, including his intellectual growth, political journalism, and correspondence, are discussed at length in Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten, 105 passim. For an introduction to the Völkisch movement in general and its relationship to Nazism, see Uwe Puschner, ‘“One People, One Reich, One God”: The Völkische Weltanschauung and Movement,’ German Historical Institute London Bulletin 24, no. 1 (May 2002): 5–28.
See Heinz Höhne, ‘Canaris und die Abwehr zwischen Anpassung und Opposition,’ in Der Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus: Die deutsche Gesellschaft und der Widerstand gegen Hitler, ed. Jürgen Schmädeke and Peter Steinbach (Munich: Piper, 1985), 408–10.
Ibid. For more about Nasir Khan, see Abbas Milani, Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941–1979, vol. 2 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2008), 261–6.
See Thorsten J. Querg, ‘Spionage und Terror: Das Amt VI des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes 1939–1945’ (Dr phil diss., Berlin, 1997), 369n855.
According to Reinhard Spitzy, former SS officer and Abwehr Sonderführer (special officer) — an unusual combination — who worked for both Canaris and Ribbentrop, mentioned in Querg, ‘Spionage und Terror,’ 364n850. See also in general Reinhard Spitzy, How We Squandered the Reich, trans. G.T. Waddington (Wilby, Norwich: Russell, 1997).
Siegfried Beer, ‘Von Alfred Redl zum “Dritten Mann”: Österreicher und Österreicherinnen im internationalen Geheimdienstgeschehen 1918–1947,’ Geschichte und Gegenwart: Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 16, no. 1 (1997): 10.
See Otto Skorzeny, For Germany: The Otto Skorzeny Memoirs, ed. Craig W.H. Luther and Hugh Page Taylor (San Jose, CA: Bender, 2005), 130.
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© 2014 Adrian O’Sullivan
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O’Sullivan, A. (2014). Ideologues and Brutes. In: Nazi Secret Warfare in Occupied Persia (Iran). Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137427915_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137427915_6
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