The Illegal apparet of the Communist Party of Germany

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-00915R000100040002-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 12, 1997
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: October 20, 1947
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Rele 78`
20 October 1947
emorandum #16
The Illegal Apparat of the Communist Party of Germany
1. The clandestine or "illegal" organizations established by the
Communist Parties of the world at the express direction of the Executive
Committee of the Communist International appear to have generally eluded
effective police and counterintelligence observation.
These illegal parallels were apparently ddveloped,,in one form or
another, beside most of the fairly well organized legal Parties before the
war, and sufficient indications already exist to attest to their continued
or renewed existence today. They represent, a powerful arm of the Communist
movement, not only as the indispensable factor in organizing paramilitary
activities in a revolutionary situation, but also in carrying out such
espionage, penetration, and subversion tasks which cannot be securely or
effectively managed by legal Party personnel.
The degree to which such "illegal" or clandestine organizations
have been developed in individual countries has unquestionably varied with
the strength and capabilities of the Party concerned, and with the political,
social, and police situation in each country--and an even superficial
analysis of the quite limited evidence available clearly illustrates a great
diversity in their extent, structure, and types of activity.
Z. An overall analysis of the information available on the illegal
Apparats of the world is in process and will be issued in the near future.
In the interim it is felt that a description of the growth, structure, and
activities of the apparently most developed and efficient of these clandes-
tine organizations--that of the German Communist Party before 1933--will
provide a concrete illustration of what Communist intentions and capabili-
ties are in this field and permit a somewhat more informed approach to this
aspect of Communist Party coverage,
3. This study is based principally on captured Gestapo records, and
on the interrogations of surviving Gestapo and Illegal Apparat personnel,
supplemented by the published accounts of individual Communist defecters.
These records, for the most part second. hand, cannot of course be considered
conclusive, but they do permit what is probably a fairly accurate recon-
struction of the German Illegal Apparat. Many of the statements made are
presented with distinct reservations and may have to be revised or reversed
on the basis of new evidence, but the declarative form is used throughout
in order to present a simpler and clearer narrative.
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THE ILLEGAL-AP P. RA3' OF THEGERYANCOWUNIST PARTY
Terminology
The word "Apparat" is a direct English transliteration of the German
and Russian'Apparatuwhich in its political sense carries the general
meaning of "machine" (Kelly-Nash machine) or organizational mechanism,
It is accordingly employed to refer to the structural elements of any
political party or organization or to particular segments thereof. The
word "apparat" without qualification is therefore normally applicable to
the structure of any A'legal" or overt Communist Party, though European
intelligence usage frequently applies it to the "illegal" or clandestine
Party organization. This latter sense is more correctly given by "Illegal
Apparat" the term normally employed in this paper, though the elliptical
form is sometimes used for convenience.
Both the Conditions for Admission to the Communist International
(1920) and the Comintern Statutes (1920) called for the establishment of
secret or "illegal" organizations by each of the national sections in
order both to guarantee their continued existence when and if they were
forced to go underground (underground. apparat) and to carry on such pre-
revolutionary activities as could not safely be performed by the Legal
Party (paral7.e1 ap arat). The Illegal Apparat of the German Communist
Party described in the following pages fills into this latter class; it
worked "parallel" to the legal Party up to 1933 and to the underground Party
after it had been outlawed by the Nazis. Set up almost as early as the
legal Party itself, the illegal CPG apparat with few exceptions functioned
quite separately from it at all echelons. Some "illegal" personnel occupied
legal Party positions for cover, but the great majority of functionaries
and routine workers di:;sociated themselves completely from public Party
membership and activity.
Historical Development of the Illegal Apparat
Since the Illegal Apparat is simply the undercover arm of the "legal''
Party, its evolution can hardly be considered outside the context of the
developments of the latter. The development both of the Communist Party
of Germany (CPG) and of the Illegal Apparat can be conveniently considered
to four stages, roughly the Putsch period (1919-23), the pre-Nazi period
(1924-32), the underground period (1933-1944), and the post-war years.
During the first period of Party development, characterized by violent
Communist putsches in Hamburg, Munich, Central Germany, and the Ruhr, the
Illegal Apparat first took shape. It began as a secret pass office where
documents necessary to personnel living or travelling illegally could be
counterfeited.
As early as 1918 the Spartacus League, out of which the Party grew,
ha.4 been engaged in producing and disseminating pamphlets and leaflets in
a propaganda campaign aimed at the subversion of the police and the army.
When the CPG was formally founded on 1 January 1919, it at once set up a
special subversive section -(Zersetzungsdienst) on strictly clandestine
principles in order more safely and efficiently to conduct this campaign,
a campaign considered by the Party of cardinal importance in preparation
for the optimistically anticipated revolution, Somewhat later (by 1923),
as the program of putschism developed, a section was set up to administer
the Party's stocks #~f arms and ammunition, and the first steps were taken
to develop a Counterintelligence Section at least as early as 1922, Thus
in its first four years all the basic functions of the Illegal Apparat were
given organizational shape: subversion, and its attendant intelligence
work, counterintelligence, munitions supply, and a counterfeiting service!
Kippenberger, apparently appointed Chief of the Illegal Apparat in 1921
(at the age of 23) and destined to remain its leader for the greater part
of its active existence, was already in 1921 giving thought to the overall
problems of organization and administration connected with Illegal Apparat
work,
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The following eight years saw the legal Party gradually coming under
the complete control of the CPG Politburo, with Ernst Thaelmann effective
chief of the Party throughout the entire period, and working under the
ruling slogans of "centralization of control" and "national bolshevism".
In 1925 the end of the period of the stabilization of capitalism was
announced by the Comintern, and the Party actively began preparations to
exploit the revolutionary situation which was then declared in existence.
The abortive and, on the whole, stupidly mismanaged Communist uprisings
of 1920-23 had given clear proof of the emphatic need for better organiza-
tion and intelligence work. Kippenberger, the Apparat Chief, was accordingly
summoned to Moscow where he put in a period of intensive study and returned
to Germany in 1925 carefully briefed to organize and develop the Party's
Illegal Apparat. His first step was to separate the already existing clan-
destine units of the Party into two main divisions: the AM Apparat and the
House Department. Kippenberger himself took over personal direction of the
AM (Military-political) Apparat, and turned the second division over to Leo
Flieg, the founder of the Party Secretariat. The latter was known as the
House Department (Haus-abteilung) because, as opposed to the AM Apparat,
it was directed from Party Headquarters itself, the Karl Liebknecht Haas in
Berlin. These two divisions, which were to last until 1932, were consti-
tuted as follows:
Ab-Ap arat:
Counterintelligence Section
"E" Section
"ZER" Section
Army Section
NSDAP Section
"BB" Section
House Department:
Counterfeiting Section
Weapons Section
(carters Section
Kippenberger's public career carried him to the Reichstag, but inside the
Party his name came to be synonymous with "intelligence" work and the AM-
Apparat was often referred to as the Kippenberger Apparat. Under his capable
management the AM-Apparat reached a high degree of organization, with a
national chi(.--f for each section ("AM-Mann I"?), separate staffs at the
district level, and numerous sub-district functionaries and workeri,though
on the local level several functions were often filled by one man. At the
district and sub-district (Bezirl, and Unterbezirk) level the AM-Apparat
leaders were given the title "AM-Mann II".
In mid-1932 a reorganization of the Illegal Apparat placed the
House Department directly under Kippenberger--thereby eliminating Leo
Fliog--consolidated the ZER (Poliee) Section and the Army Section, and
added an Emigrants Section.
During its period of exile and illegality (1933-44), the CPG Central
Committee moved to Paris, and later to Moscow, with Wilhelm Pieck replacing
Thaelmann at the helm. The Party strove to maintain the framework of its
underground organization inside Germany by establishing (in 1936) a regional
system of controls, each of the eight regions (Abschnitte) being responsible
to a control point in a nearby country, e.g., Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg,
Denmark, France, and Holland. The Illegal Apparat also continued to function
during part of this period, though many of its personnel were identified
and imprisoned by the Gestapo. Yippenberger reportedly fled first to
Prdguo, and then. transferred to'-LParis'.whence he continued-to direct Apparat
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activities, It appears from the available evidence that the Apparat
as such, was formally abolished in 1937 as no longer suited to the re-
quirements of the situation.*
In post-war Germany, although there is in principle no national
headquarters of the CPG, the leading Communist members of the Central
Secretariat of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), Russian Zone, are
virtually identical with the leading figures of the CPG Central Committee
as constituted in Paris in 1937 and clearly provide central control to
CPG elements in all zones. It has also gradually become clear that some
form of Illegal Apparat is again functioning in the western zones of
Germany, controlled from Berlin, and engaged not only in gathering polit-
ical, military, and economic intelligence, but also in carrying out certain
Party security and counterintelligence functions. The exact form of the
current organization and the degree to which it operates indepondently of
the legal Party Apparat are not as yet clear, but the principle of paral-
lel illegal activity is clearly again at work.
To Command Channels
It is only natural that the evidence for the top controls and high-
level liaisons of the Illegal Apparat is extremely meager. There can be
little question that the extensive and yet elastic functions of the
illegal organization were of direct value to the legal Party (particularly
to the underground Party after 1933), to the field representatives of the
Comintern, and to the intelligence agencies of the Soviet government.
It may safely be assumed that the chief of the Illegal Apparat normally
received some degree of direction from the CPG Politburo and in turn re-
ported to it--the Apparat fulfilled so many functions of purely national
Party interest that any other system of control would have been organi-
zationally unthinkable. It is a plausible assumption, but nothing more,
that the coordination of Apparat action with the legal Party was managed
within the CPG Central Committee by Ernst Wollweber (Chief of the Organi-
zation Section up to 1933) who later headed a large-scale Ccmintern
sabotage organization in Northwest Europe,.
The evidence is fairly clear that Soviet intelligence representatives
in Germany were directly connected with at least some phases of Apparat
intelligence work, The ?BB" Section, for example, developed close ties
with official Soviet representatives in Berlin, who were thus able to
exploit the Party's intelligence-gathering machinery in the vital sector
of industrial information.
Kippenberger, himself, was for many years in close contact with
General Putna, the Soviet Military Attache in Berlin, and was apparently
considered by the German General Staff as a useful unofficial link in the
chain of Russo-German military collaboration based on the secret treaty
of 1921. The implications of this liaison for Apparat work are, however,
unknown.
"The nature of un derLround Party work, as distinguished from Illegal
Apparat work is illustrated by the career of one Paul Helms. Helms
who joined the CPG in 1920, was never in the Illegal Apparat, devoting
his entire career to actual Party work up to 1941 when he was arrested
by the Gestapo. Until 1932 he was engaged exclusively in factory cell
work, Imprisoned by the Germans from 1933 to 1935, he immediately made
contact with the underground party upon his release, and was summoned
to Copenhagen to participate in the councils of the exiled Party. From
Denmark he dispatched suitable representatives to the Hamburg area,
briefing them on the propaganda line of the CPG, the locations of the
most vital factories, and the identity of the CPG group leaders resident
in Hamburg. On the basis of the political situation reports smuggled
out of Hamburg by these representatives, Helms drew up articles for the
CPG press and radio,. Helms had nothing to do with intelligence proper,
however, and stated categorically that he refused to have anything to
do with this field.
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Principal Sections of the Apparat
The Illegal Apparat of the German Communist Party, generally known
in the pre-war period as the AM-Apparat ("AY" apparently for Abteilung Fuer
Military citik,"Military-Political Department"), was at its largest ex-
tension divided into ten sections or Ressorts:
1. The "All-Sect n o("All for Abwehr ' counterintelligence" ). The
"A" Section comprised two sub-sections devoted respectively to general
counterintelligence and to defensive counterintelligence work.
The General Counterintelligence (Allgemeine Abwehr) Section
carried on five broad types of activity:
a. It carried out surveillance on Party members and reported
instances of breaches of discipline, deviations from the current
Party line, etc.*
b. It drew up blacklists of persons known or suspected to be
dangerous to the Party. A photostatic reproduction of part of
one such list, entitled I'Sitzel-Almanach, or Spy Almanac, is
available. Marked "Not for sale, property of the organization", it
contains names and photographs of persons dangerous to the Party,
and was obviously of greet value to all echelons of the legal and
illegal organizations. Members of this sub-section systematically
gathered material for these lists by keeping the Government's
political police under surveillance and by entering into friendly
contact with those police officials who were specifically charged
with controlling. Communist activities. They also kept a close watch
on persons suspected of acting as informers for the police by,
for example, maintaining surveillance on police stations and adjacent
restaurants.
One, Lothar Hofmann, for example, who became a member of the
AM-Apparat in 1930, was assigned (by Kippenbergor in Paris in
July 1934) to Saarbrucken to screen Communist refugees who were
entering France from. Germany. After several months of this
activity, Hofmann was recalled to Paris and ordered to Copenhagen,
where he was to determine whether Albert Fleischer, an AM*Apparat
man in Hamburg, had become an informer for the German police--
Fleischer was cleared on the basis of Hofmann's investigations.
Hofmann then proceeded to Moscow to attend the "M" School for
training Apparat members, but was not accepted as an Apparat
worker, and eventually returned to Copenhagen to work in the
circle of CPG refugees.
c. It was responsible,apparently on the basis of its knowledge
of police methods, for assuring the security of couriers, and it
gave advice on the safest means for holding rendezvous.
d. It collected and evaluated the intelligence procured by
other sections, and was thus enabled to maintain a constant check
on the reliability of all Apparat intelligence agents.
e. It served, finally, as message center (Poststelle) for
the district Party offices (Bezirksleitungen).
*In the post-war Party there is an "Abwehrmann" at each Party
echelon who has the function of keeping a card file on all
Party members in his area.
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The Preventive Counterintelligence (Vorbeugende Abwehr) Sub-section
focussed more narrowly on the defensive or security aspects of illegal
activity:
a. It studied and analyzed the damage resulting to the Party
from hostile police activities and from the non-observance of
clandestine security principles. The results of these inquiries
were evaluated and applied to the task of protecting the organiza-
tion from future errors. On the action-level, this sub-section had
the duty of neutralizing suspicious and unsuitable Party personnel
detected as the result of these investigations. This would involve,
for example, transferring a loyal but insecure Party member to other
more innocuous duties, arresting and punishing guilty Party members,
etc. The sub-section also had the duty of disposing of hostile
elements outside the Party by a variety of methods which included
murder.
The assassination of two police officers in Berlin on 9 August
1931 illustrates this latter function. The two officers, Anlauf
and Lenk, had been working against subversive activities in Berlin,
particularly those which were Communist-inspired, and clearly
threatened Party interests in the Berlin area. The plans for their
elimination were drawn up in detail by Kippenberger himself, and
the murders were carried out by two members of the Ordnerdienst,
the secret Communist military formation. After the mission had been
successfully accomplished, the two executants, Ziemer and Miolke
by name, escaped via Party channels to the USSR.*
Another example of this sub-sections work is provided by the
career of one POPALL. A Party member since 1924, Popall was taken
on in the counterintelligence section in 1932, and became section
chief (Abwehrleiter) for Hamburg-Altona in 1933. He fled to
Copenhagen when the Nazis came in to power but returned the following
year to Germany to become counterintelligence chief for Berlin.
It appears that shortly before his arrest by the Germans in 1935
he had been specifically ordered to investigate and report on the
reasons for the recent series of arrests of some of the Apparat's
leading counterintelligence functionaries
b. The sub-section also controlled the finances of the
Illegal Apparat.
c. It acted as the executive arm of the Party court system.
So much for the functions of the "A" Section. Formed in the
early 1920rs and successively referred to as the Party Police (Partei olizei)
as the Intelligence Service (Nachrichtendienst or "ND"), and finally as
the counterintelligence (Abwohr) service, this section clearly formed
the professional and operational core of the Illegal Apparat, since it
controlled its funds, provided security for the legal and illegal organi-
zation, and processed the intelligence output of the other sections. There
is, in fact, some evidence that in the period after 1933 the section's
authority became synonymous with that of the entire AM Apparat, all thc
other sections being grouped under two offices, called respectively
offensive and defensive counterintelligence--as ropresontod in the .follow-
ing chart;
*It is of interest to observer that Mielko has returned to Germany
since the end of the war and is now Vice-President of the Central
Administration of the Interior for tho Russian Zoxue of Germany.
er/,nrT
%.f S. 1% 1 It a- I
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Head Office
AM
I (Military-political)
.QPn+.; ~r 1
Offensive Counterintelligence)
1. P i Govt. SFD Right N
o Offi- Cen- Wing S
m 1 cials i ter Par- D
y i T. ties A
c U's P
e
Private
employees
Private
businesses
Defensive Counterintelligence
Weapons
Pass jSurveil-
OfficeI lance
Training{
The career of one Walter Nuding has some interest as illustrating
various phases of a varying legal and illegal career:
Organization Chief (Orgleiter) of the Party's Berlin-Brandenburg
district about 1932, Nuding was later placed in charge of the Party's
Central Control Commission which reportedly took over the CI functions
of the AM Apparat in 1935--although this probably represented a shift
of functions for Nuding rather than an assumption of Apparat direction
by the underground Party. Nuding apparently worked in Paris as "A" Chief
until 1937 when he was replaced by Paul Beitz. Nuding has now turned up
as a member cf the Party directorate for the American zone of Germany and
also a member of the directorate of the Central Sanitaire Suisse, an in-
ternational cover organization originally established to supply Communist
forces fighting in Spain during the Civil War.
The post-war equivalent of the pre-war Organization-Section is now
called the Cadre Section (Kaderabteilung), and contains a CI officer
(Abwehrmann;,. The existence of these CI officers in present day Germany
does not appear to be a particularly secret matter, and it is tentatively
assumed that the Abwehr.ann is an overt Party official.
The Socialist Unity Party in the Russian Zone is employing under-
cover "instructors" who travel about and report on all leading Party
members, political conditions, government personalities, etc. Such agents
travel under a variety of covers and generally employ a network of in-
formants to aid them in their task*.
2. The "ZER" for Zersetzung "subversion" Section. The "ZER" Section,
one of the first of the ressorts to be formed and originally called the
"Prop" (for propaganda) Apparat, also went under the name of the "S"
(for Schutzpolizei "police") Section, and focussed on the neutralization
and subversion of the police. It carried on a steady propaganda campaign
among the police by written and oral means. It made detailed intelligence
studies of their organization, personnel, equipment, physical installations
and morale, paying special attention to the police intelligence system,
personnel, codes and ciphers, etc. It established secret Communist cells
within the police forces and constantly sought to recruit new policemen
for the Party.
*One such agent is stated to be a former Nazi SS officer who went
over to the Russians and received special training in this work.
One SED district chief, in a recent conversation with a Marxist
comrade, complained, "One can't even drink a glass of Schnapps
without this SS informant's blood-hounds reporting it immediately".
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The "ZER" Section was organized at the local level into activist
grog of from three to six persons, each group being assigned to work
exensively on a single limited target--a specific police station or
dormitory. These groups worked under strict discipline, and on a
clandestine basis, all their members being normally removed from Party
membership on their entrance into this work. It was apparently a rule that
an activist group should be set up for every physical installation normally
used by the police.
Police officials were ordinarily first approached through suitable
intermediaries, persons with whom the officials were known to associate.
Having inconspicuously obtained an introduction to the target official,
the agent then planned his recruitment on the basis of the personality
and political complexion of the official. Sometimes plain talk, sometimes
a slow program of social activity and political discussion, would be hooded
to convert the prospect. Other members of the same activist group could
be brought in to join in the discussions of politics and communist theory,
and appropriate "literature" would be supplied to assist the prospect's
political thinking. At times, an Apparat functionary from the district
level would join the discussion group at the appropriate time and persuade
the police official to draw up a general report on conditions in the police
for his use. Amenable officials were guaranteed Party support if they
should be discharged or encounter any difficulties as a result of their
new activities, but at the same time they were firmly warned of the con-
sequences of betraying their mission to the police. As a further precaution,
such converted police officers were usually required to divulge classified
police information of. some sort in order to tighten the Party's control over
them, and the cultivation of dissipation via drink or prostitutes often pro-
vided the Party with another source of control through threat. of blackmail.
Female comrades often formed members of these activist groups, and
were apparently found most useful in the initiation of contacts with
target officials and in eliciting information from unwitting police
informants.
"ZER" propaganda activity revealed a great deal of ingenuity in the
production and distribution of subversive literature. The normal practices
of clandestine printing were applied, the text usually being set up in
parts in different shops and no one man possessing a complete picture of
the operation except the organizer. The printed material was distributed
in numerous ways--slipped into the daily newspapers before they were de-
livered to the police station, put into match boxes destined for the police,
attached to dogs introduced into the barracks, etc. Leaflets were some-
times camouflaged to look like official publications ("The Police Official,
Newspaper of the Revolutionary Police Officials of Prussia - 2 April 1932"),
and often bore misleading ("To the Mothers, Wives and Fiancees of Police
Officials") or puzzling ("Whether Young or Old, Man or Woman, Pegola Attracts
Them All") headlines.
Some indication that the Party is continuing "ZER" activities today
is provided by the career of Camillo Scariot, an Essen chimzy-builder who
joined the Party in 1928. He attended the M School in the USSR in 1930,f31,
and in 1932 became Orgleiter (Organization Chief) of the Party for the
Ruhr district. Scariot was engaged in work for the "ZER" Section before
the war, and was arrested by the Germans in 1937 for illegal activities,
In the summer of 1945, he arrived in Essen from Berlin and under Party
instructions began a police career with a view to obtaining intelligence
on the police and to increasing Party influence in the police force. Scariot
reported directly to Heinrich Gost, an alleged Apparat official at the
Ruhr-Westphalia district level.
3, Army Section. Originally independent, the Army Section was merged
with the "ZER" Section in 1932. Its methods were naturally similar to those
of the police section and comprised propaganda, subversion, and intelligence
work, and clandestine recruiting.
The Chief of the Army Section from 1929 to 1933 was one Langowski
(Reichsleiter des Ressorts fuer Zersetzung in der Reichswehr) who also
had the responsibility for recruiting and dispatching candidates to the
M School in the USSR, He was arrested by the Germans in December 1933.
crgonrv
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In the same year, the Gestapo uncovered an exceptionally large activist
group in Berlin. Sixty-seven members were arrested, and it was estab-
lished that they had been assigned as a target the regiment garrisoning
Berlin-Moabit. The group had been actively spreading camouflaged and
open propaganda, and had apparently made good use of women in approaching
the soldiers.
4. NSDAP or Nazi Section. The primary; political activity of the
Apparat was naturally directed against the National Socialists, although
the occasional periods of Communist-Nazi cooperation before 1933 probably
had some effect on its single-minded application to this task. The Nazi
Section had the primary task of reporting in detail on activities within
the Nazi Party and its associated organizations. It was further responsible
for spreading false rumors in the Party, stirring up dissatisfaction,
spreading false stories about Party leaders-in short, sabotaging the Nazi
movement in every possible fashion. Its program naturally involved the
planting of agents inside the Nazi ranks, but,the general consensus of
Gestapo and other opinion is that the Apparat-and the Party failed signally
in this latter program.
An "R" (for Rechts "Right") Section is known to have been set up
within the Apparat to combat right-wing parties, but it is not certain
that it was identical with the Nazi Section. Heinz Neumann, the famous
Comintern agent, was reported head of the "Anti-Nazi Division of the Party"
in 1931, but it is not known whether this refers to the Apparat section.
Dr. Alfred Kroth, a leading Munich Communist and a member of the Nazi
Party during the Hitler regime, appears to be one of the few successful
Apparat penetration agents within the Nazi Party who has survived into the
post--war period.
5. The "E' Section. This Section ("F'' for ?) was set up to work
against the Social De.nocrats, the Center Tarty, other democratic parties,
and the trade unions. The phr-se "Z" Section ("Z" for "Zentrun" or
Center Party) has also been applied to the Section, possibly implying
a breakdown within it according to the tt~r-get party.
In the pre-1933 period, the "E" Section carried on subversion
work against non-Nazi parties and groups, but after the Nazi assumption
of power it concentrated on achiev_7ng a common front between the Communists
and the Socialia+;;, for _L ;s o-, _i t:urnoses, Social-Democrat
functi_oh ies as sour; es of i.ntoll~ nc ., p..c triers of safe houses inside
Nazi--Gor.!. y, and distributors of illegal political literature. The "E"
Section made similar efforts after 1933 to exchange items of intelligence
inform