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pathbreaking work by Johannes Erasmus—Der geheime Nachrichtendienst
(The Intelligence Service)—appeared in a scholarly series under the aegis
of the University of Göttigen. Such was the strong interest it evoked that a
second edition was issued within two years. Erasmus focused on the myriad
legal questions that surround the operation of an espionage service, empha-
sizing, at the same time, its deeper historical roots by citing Hugo Grotius,
Carl von Clausewitz, and Heinrich von Treitschke.
Other important books soon followed by such writers as Gert Buch-
heit, Janusz Piekalkiewicz, Margret Boveri, Heinz Höhne, and Hermann
Zolling. Yet these works have tended to be the distinct exception in the
Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). In his richly detailed study of the
interaction of German and Russian espionage over the centuries—Der
Krieg im Dunkeln—Höhne stressed the failure of professional historians to
give due credit to the intelligence dimension in reconstructing the past—a
prejudice only reinforced by the mass media’s tendency toward sensation-
alism and even demonization. Admittedly, it is a common complaint of
intelligence scholars in other Western countries, but from all indications,
the German case seems especially pronounced.
The havoc caused by two world wars is certainly a contributing factor. In
the case of World War I, the bulk of the military records were a casualty of
the revolution that erupted in November 1918 as well as the British bomb-
ing of Potsdam in March 1945. Nevertheless, some documents ended up
in the Bavarian and Württemberg war ministries prior to 1919 and are now
housed in the archives in Munich and Stuttgart. The primary source remains
the Gempp Report, the 14-volume official history of Abteilung IIIb written
by a prominent veteran of the organization between 1927–1944. Intended
for the internal use of the Abwehr, it includes some background chapters on
the prewar period beginning in 1866 and is considered quite reliable overall.
After the Allies found a rough typescript draft, a microfilm copy was made
for the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and the original returned to
the German Federal Archives in Freiburg. Likewise housed at Freiburg are the
surviving records of German naval intelligence.
Obtaining primary sources regarding World War II has posed far fewer
obstacles for researchers. Even though numerous documents were destroyed
both accidentally and deliberately in the final phrase of the war, large quanti-
ties survived. As David Kahn pointed out in his pioneering history of German
military intelligence, Hitler’s Spies, the Americans and the British microfilmed
the records of the Wehrmacht, the various ministries, the Foreign Office, and
the SS, making them accessible at the National Archives while returning the
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