The Fighting Group against Inhumanity (Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit; KgU) ©

The Fighting Group against Inhumanity (KgU)

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 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.

The 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. 

The 1954 objectives were: “Harras and weaken the Soviet administration of East Germany ( including East Berlin) and itsGerman collaborators, to help retard East German economic

development, to help promote and sustain popular anti-Communist resistance within East Germany, and too help exposeconditions within the Soviet Zone to the Western world. This project supports an effective CIA-guide d administrativeharassment and propaganda organization engaged in helping further rthese objectives 1n East Germany.”

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, distributedRussian-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. 

The KgU activites ceaaed in 1959.

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