BIBLIOGRAPHY • 527originals to three main repositories in Germany. Important supplements have
been provided by Allied postwar interrogations and the transcripts of various
war crimes trials.
Much can be still learned about German wartime intelligence in the
archives of other countries. A case in point is a recent study by a young
British scholar of the aggressive counterespionage efforts of the Vichy
government. Using the Moscow Collection—three tons of documents re-
patriated to France from the former Soviet Union during the 1990s—Simon
Kitson was able to show that French officials arrested 1,500–2,000 agents
working for Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1942, despite an official
policy of collaboration between the two countries. Another notable correc-
tive to conventional thinking about World War II was provided by Robert
W. Stephan’s Stalin’s Secret War: Soviet Deception Operations against the
Nazis. Because of the considerable literature about the brilliantly executed
Double Cross system by the British, it is all too easy to overlook the ac-
complishments of Soviet operations.
The Cold War period presents a starkly contrasting historiographical
picture. On the one hand, no comprehensive studies based on original
sources have yet to appear on any of the three major intelligence organiza-
tions of the FRG—the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the Bundesamt für
Verfassungsschutz, or the Militärischer Abschirmdienst. For many years, in
spite of a few factual discrepancies, Höhne’s work on Reinhard Gehlen has
served as the standard source on the BND and was recently supplemented
by Gegen Freund und Feind—an account written by two West German in-
vestigative journalists, Peter F. Müller and Michael Mueller. The refusal of
the BND to declassify any of the documents relating to its 50-year history
has been a prime deterrent for scholars. A further obstacle is the paucity of
autobiographies and diaries published by former officials, although much
can be learned from the court transcripts of numerous spy cases as well as
various parliamentary reports.
On the other hand, the literature dealing with the Ministerium für Sta-
atssicherheit (MfS or Stasi) of the former German Democratic Republic
(GDR) has grown to immense proportions since 1990. An exhaustive
bibliography was compiled by the Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen
der Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen
Republik (BStU, Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Se-
curity Service of the Former German Democratic Republic). It is worth
recalling, however, that during the 40-year existence of the GDR, academ-
ics and writers—with only a few notable exceptions such Karl Wilhelm