Under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Reinhard Gehlen, Foreign Armies East directed military espionage against the Soviet Union. It became infamous for blunders and contributed to the ultimate defeat of German invasion and occupation forces in the Soviet Union.

Where the Russians really fooled the Germans was in the lead up to Operation Bagration, which destroyed Army Group Center in June-August 1944. The Germans expected the attack against Army Group South, and had strengthened it at the expense of AG Center. The week before the Russian assault, Col. Gehlen predicted a quiet summer in AG Center’s sector. Somehow, he overlooked the incident in his memoirs.

Beyond doubt the greatest achievement of “Maskirovka” on a larger scale was to leave the German intelligence under Gehlen in ignorance that Stalin had moved 9 armies and 1 tank-corps from STAVKA-reserve to strengthen the central push in Poland. This resulted a superiority of 5-7: 1 (Glantz, 1989, 498).

In January 1945 German Intelligence represented Army Group-A in Poland as facing odds of 1:3, whereas the true proportion by January was an altogether overwhelming 1:5 (Gehlen missed the movement of armies from STAVKA reserve, underestimating the number of Russian formations concentrated in and immediately behind the 3 Vistula bridgeheads by wide margin).

Not that Soviet sources were any more accurate. OKH (Army High Command) strength reports show roughly 2.1 million German soldiers on the Eastern Front on 1 November 1944 plus about 200,000 men in Allied forces. The Soviets claim they were opposed by 3.1 million -men. On January 1945 Soviet sources cite German armor strength at 4,000 tanks and self-propelled guns. German records show about 3,500 tanks and self-propelled guns. The Soviets credit the Germans with 28,500 guns and mortars while German records show a figure of 5,700. Similar discrepancies between Soviet and German data exist throughout the war. But this another motive altogether…