Historians appointed to look into the Nazi roots of the BND, Germany's intelligence agency, find that in 2007, the BND destroyed files of some 250 of its employees who
"held significant positions in the SS,"
and some of whom were even investigated for possible war crimes.
Israel Hayom Staff
Ernst Uhrlau, head of Germany's intelligence agency, Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).
| Photo credit: Reuters
An independent commission of historians in Germany that was appointed to research the widely-known Nazi history of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, has found that the BND deliberately destroyed the official files of some 250 of its personnel in 2007, the German Spiegel Online website reported Wednesday.
The commission was appointed in early 2011 by head of the BND, Ernst Uhrlau after it was long-speculated that around 10 percent of the BND's employees and its predecessor organization once served under SS chief Heinrich Himmler in Nazi Germany.
A week before Uhrlau is set to retire from his position, the commission claimed on Wednesday that the BND's destroyed files include documents on people who were "in significant intelligence positions in the SS, the SD (the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party) or the Gestapo," Speigel Online reported.
Historians added that some of those individuals had even undergone investigation after 1945 for possibly committing war crimes during WW II.
A spokesman for the commission, Klaus-Dietmar Henke, told Spiegel Online he was "somewhat stunned" by the destruction of the files.
The BND itself has confirmed that the files were destroyed.
"The incident inevitably raises suspicions that agency employees have deliberately tried to obstruct Uhrlau's efforts to investigate the organization's history," Spiegel Online said.
This is not the first time BND files have been tampered with. Spiegel Online reported that it recently asked to see BND papers relating to the former SS Captain Alois Brunner, who was once closely associated with Adolf Eichmann. The intelligence agency told the news source that a 581-page file on Brunner had been thrown out in the 1990s - a move that was also apparently taken without the BND's leadership being aware of it.