caption branch death_place death_date birth_place allegiance awards battles birth_date rank image article_title name
colonel reinhard gehlen , c. 1943 wehrmacht heer starnberg , west germany 08 june 1979 erfurt , german empire weimar 1933-45 -rrb- united states west germany republic -lrb- to 1933 -rrb- nazi germany -lrb- deutsches großes bundesverdienstkreuz am schulterband kreuz in silver during the second world war world war ii cold war 3 april 1902 generalmajor bundesarchiv bild 183-27237-0001 , reinhard gehlen.jpg reinhard gehlen
 reinhard gehlen
reinhard gehlen

reinhard gehlen -lrb- 3 april 1902 -- 8 june 1979 -rrb- was a german general who served as chief of the foreign armies east -lrb- fho -rrb- military intelligence unit during the second world war and who later became leader of the gehlen organization and the first president of the federal intelligence service during the cold war .
gehlen is considered one of the most legendary cold war spymasters .
he was appointed chief of fho , the german army 's military intelligence unit on the eastern front , in 1942 .
as an officer in the german wehrmacht , he reached the rank of major general just before being sacked by hitler for his accurately pessimistic intelligence reports .
as the cold war began , he was recruited by the united states military to set up a spy ring directed against the soviet union -lrb- known as the gehlen organization -rrb- which employed numerous former ss , sd and wehrmacht officers , and eventually became head of the west german intelligence apparatus .
he served as the first president of the federal intelligence service until 1968 .
as president of the federal intelligence service , itself a civilian office , he was promoted to lieutenant-general of the reserve in the west german bundeswehr and thus became the country 's highest-ranking reserve officer .
