Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit

The Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit (KgU) (German for "Combat Group against Inhumanity") was a German anti-communist resistance group based in West Berlin. It was founded in 1948 by Rainer Hildebrandt, Günther Birkenfeld, and Ernst Benda, and existed until 1959.[1][2] Hildebrandt would later establish the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. It has been described as a terrorist group.[3]

Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit
Formation1948 (1948)
FounderRainer Hildebrandt
Günther Birkenfeld
Ernst Benda
Dissolved1959 (1959)
TypeResistance group
PurposeTo disrupt Communist activity in East Germany
Location
Key people
Ernst Tillich

History

The KgU received significant financial support from several Western intelligence agencies as well as the government of West Germany and the Ford Foundation.[3] The US Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) provided funding from the group's creation in the late 1940s. By the early 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) gradually replaced the CIC as the KgU's most prominent American backer. According to CIA documents, the KgU ran approximately 500 agents in East Germany in the early 1950s, which, according to historian Enrico Heitzer, put it on par with the Gehlen Organization, the predecessor to the West German intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst.

The KgU's activities included sabotage, arson and poison attacks[4] as well as aggressive economic warfare, such as Operation Osterhase ("Easter Bunny"), in which the group sent 150,000 fake letters to East German stores, ordering drastic price cuts in order to cause a run on already scarce consumer goods. Other activities included collecting data on individuals imprisoned in East Germany and passing it on to their relatives, as well as collecting names of informers to the East German government and passing it on to RIAS, which would then broadcast so-called "snitch reports" in order to silence informers and discourage others from engaging in similar activities. It also printed and distributed a satirical magazine, Tarantel, in East Germany.[5]

The KgU also aided the CIA in building up a so-called stay-behind network to be used in the event of a hypothetical Soviet invasion. Infiltration of the KgU by Stasi operatives and the arrest of several of its agents in East Germany eventually caused the group to dissolve in 1959, with many of its records going to the CIA. Although some KgU members, such as Rainer Hildebrandt and Ernst Tillich, had served time in prison during the Third Reich for anti-Nazi activities, as historian Enrico Heitzer points out, the group also used numerous activists with a Nazi past, many of whom hadn't changed their political views.[6]

The KgU has been infiltrated by Stasi informants when the organization was still active.[7]

Notable members

Alleged terrorist activities in East Germany

William Blum has alleged,[3] based on various news articles from the 1950s, that the group carried out the following actions in East Germany:

  • Engaging in industrial sabotage against power stations, factories, shipyards, canals, dams, gas stations, shops, public transport, public buildings, a dam and a radio station using methods including explosives, arson, short circuiting and contaminating machinery with sand and special acids.
  • Engaging in sabotage against the transport infrastructure of East Germany, through methods such as derailing freight trains, destroying key equipment on freight trains, blowing up road and railway bridges, burning the cars of one freight train and in one case attempting to blow up bridge of the Berlin-Moscow railway line.
  • Poisoning and killing 7000 cows in a dairy cooperative by poisoning the wax coating of the wire used to bale corn fodder.
  • Adding soap to powdered milk destined for East German schools
  • Raided and attacked left-wing offices in West and East Berlin to steal membership lists, in order to assault leftists and in some cases to kidnap and murder them.
  • Attempting to disrupt the World Youth Festival in East Berlin by sending out forged invitations, false promises of free bed and board, false notices of cancellations; carried out attacks on participants with explosives, firebombs, and tire-puncturing equipment; set fire to a wooden bridge on a main motorway leading to the festival.
  • Attempting to cause chaos for economic planners by forging ration cards to cause shortages and confusion, forged tax notices and government directives to cause disorganization and inefficiency within industry and unions.

See also

References
  1. "Deutschland Im Kalten Krieg 1945 Bis 1963". www.dhm.de. Archived from the original on 25 June 2006. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  2. "Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit | Jugendopposition in der DDR".
  3. Blum, William (2003). Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. London: Zed Books. p. 62. ISBN 1-84277-368-2. Retrieved 15 October 2017. combat groups against inhumanity cia.
  4. Boghardt, Thomas. "The Fighting Group against Inhumanity: Resistance and Espionage in the Cold War, 1948–1959 (German title: Die Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit (KgU): Widerstand und Spionage im Kalten Krieg 1948–1959) Enrico Heitzer (Bӧhlau Verlag, 2015)". Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  5. Christian F. Ostermann (2021). Between Containment and Rollback: The United States and the Cold War in Germany. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-1-5036-0763-7.
  6. Boghardt, Thomas. "The Fighting Group against Inhumanity: Resistance and Espionage in the Cold War, 1948–1959 (German title: Die Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit (KgU): Widerstand und Spionage im Kalten Krieg 1948–1959) Enrico Heitzer (Bӧhlau Verlag, 2015)". Retrieved 15 October 2017.
  7. Koehler 2000, p. 322.

Bibliography
  • Koehler, John O. (2000). Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police. USA: Westview Press. ISBN 978-0813337449.
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