The Fighting Group against Inhumanity (Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit; KgU) began in Berlin in 1948 and was at first a U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) operation. It was then subsidized and guided by the CIA’s Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) as Project DTLINEN, approved on May 24, 1949. responsible for nom-attributable Soviet Zone operations. DTLINEN was initially conceived to expose to the residents of both East and West Germany the conditions existent in prisoner-of-war and concentration camps in the Soviet Zone. A secondary purpose was to provide a source of helpful information concerning the psychological situation within East Germany.
Cryptonyms included CAJERSEY for the KgU, EARTHENWARE, DTLINEN, and GRAVEYARD for the CIA projects.DTLINEN was divided into an overt and covert operation in Berlin; the former carried out all attributable-type activities, while the latter was responsible for nom-attributable Soviet Zone operations.
The KgU covert section (for which support the majority of the CIA subsidy was used) had a staff of 15, five in the central office in Berlin and two in each of the five field divisions. To these field divisions (one for each of the East German States), a total of 125 East German co-workers regularly reported giving positive intelligence and receiving administrative harassment and propaganda material for infiltration and distribution.
At one point in the 1950s, funding for the overt side of KgU came from Radio Free Europe as a grant for the working arrangement between the KgUin in Goettingen, West Germany, and RFE for collecting information from refugee camps used in programming. The Ford Foundation acted as a financial conduit for the CIA and provided grants to the NCFE. For example, in 1951, the Ford Foundation granted NCFE $150,000. NCFE then made three grants of $50,000 to RFE, which then paid KgU $7,500 monthly for “humanitarian and welfare purposes” – the overt side of the KgU.
During an average month in 1954, in addition to twenty administrative harassment operations, the KgU distributed 700,000 propaganda items in the Soviet Zone, mainly by balloon launchings. The KgU, under CIA guidance, distributed Russian-language propaganda material aimed at inducing defection among Soviet military personnel. KgU distribution costs due to this activity were reimbursed by the CIA project CATIDAL.
In January 1955, for example, the Frankfurt Chief of Mission reported to CIA headquarters, “Over the past 12 months, the KgU carried out 157 major administrative harassment operations, including:
· False instructions and invitations (70)
· Countermanding of East German governmental and party instructions (16)
· False information (41)
· Warnings to governmental and party functionaries (6)
· True anti-communist information under false letterheads (16)
· Demands for payment of notional accounts (6)
· Falsified orders for materials (8)
· Forged postage stamps and documents (4)”
Time, The New Yorker, The New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and other leading American and European newspapers and periodicals carried positive articles on the KgU.
Here are extracts from a declassified CIA document:
Memorandum March 1951
Subject: DTLINEN OPERATION EASTER BUNNY
As the opening gun for a series of operations that will aim at the disruption of the HBREBEL (Russian Occupation Zone) administrative system, an operation was mounted in BGQUEEN (East Berlin) and HBREBEL directed against the H.O. (Handels- Organization). Purportedly originating with the H.O., leaflets advertised a substantial lowering of prices starting March 22 as an Easter present to the HBBEBEL population.
This operation was carried out in two phases:180 envelopes purporting to come from the District Head Administration of' the H.O. were mailed to all leading H.O. stores, each containing several hundred leaflets and "special instructions" demanding that these leaflets be brought to the attention of the customers immediately. It further stated that it was highly desirable that all employees of all branch stores be instructed to discuss with the population these notable price reductions, which proved that the DDR is doing everything to raise the standard of living and to show the tremendous advantages vis-a-vis the imperialistic countries of the West. These leaflets were mailed from the state capitols and distributed in HBREBEL and BGQUEEN in a blow-like operation.
It can be stated that this was one of the most successful DTLINEN operations ever undertaken. We give credit to the successful reorganization of DTLINEN's Department II B, which is in charge of all operations mounted in HBREBEL or BGQUEEN. A verbal report from BGHABIT (U.S. Army CIC) in WSCORMY IBerlin) states that several of their sources reported the success of this operation.
The KgU activites ceaaed in 1959.
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