Germans.

This is coolbert:

"I have thought about this and can suggest that perhaps Peiper was working for an intelligence agency of some country, the identity of which will forever be a mystery. It could be one of many intelligence services, even the CIA!! Working in some capacity, doing what, I cannot say."

Upon what do I base this assertion?

Do I have some evidence that Joachim Peiper was an agent of some intelligence service?

NO. Absolutely NOT!

I can make reasonable inferences. It is know that German Gestapo officers, in the aftermath of World War Two [WW2], were employed by American intelligence.

Such a man was Klaus Barbie. Perhaps the best known of all the Gestapo agents that worked for American intelligence from 1945 onwards.

Other Germans and other fascist operatives from that era too were obviously recruited.

Consider from the “Wilderness of Mirrors” by David Martin:

"A major on the Italian Gerneral Staff told one of Angleton's men that all he wanted from life was an assignment to Bulgaria, Rumania, or Turkey . . . 'within six months this particular Major became the military attache' in Istanbul' . . . 'I imagine that a guy like that worked for us the rest of his life'"

"A prominent banker from Milan was suddenly released from an internment camp and thereafter served as a conduit for payments to American secret agents in northern Italy."

"Another Italian was so indebted . . . he allowed himself to be smuggled into Switzerland in the trunk of a car so that a plastic surgeon . . . could give a more Oriental slant to his eyes . . . before he was dispatched to the Far East as a long-range undercover agent."

"the head of German counter-intelligence for all of northern Italy [Sessler] surrendered his entire network . . . gave Sessler a new identity, reunited him with his mistress, established the couple as proprietors of a pension' in the south of France. 'He's long term', an . . . officer said of the eternally grateful Sessler."

[these were persons recruited by James Jesus Angleton. Later to become the long-time serving head of CIA counter-intelligence

Also consider this from "The Mossad" by Eisenberg, Dan & Landau.:

"Isser Harel paid a personal visit to Rheinhardt Gehlen, head of Germany's intelligence service. 'We are using some of them to obtain information vital to the western community', he [Gehlen] maintained."

[this particular discussion between the heads of Israeli and German intelligence dealt with German expatriates [the "some of them"] residing in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, all the while developing "weapons of mass destruction" for their Arab hosts.]

[Gehlen of course is Reinhard Gehlen. German intelligence officer who offered his services and document and personnel to the Americans in 1945 after the surrender of Germany. Has been the subject of another blog entry.]

There WAS a diaspora of Germans all over the world subsequent to German defeat in 1945. Rudel to Argentina. Von Strachwitz to Syria [as a military advisor], Reitsch to Ghana, Peiper to France [after a lengthy imprisonment]. Is it hard to imagine that these persons, while seemingly leading a normal life, were at the same time in contact with and in the pay of Gehlen??!! NO, it is not!!

[When the Berlin Wall fell, the CIA is reputed to have gotten a-hold of the tape from the East German secret police [the Stasi], that had the names of all their informants and spies on it. For those seizing the tape, this would have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that COULD NOT be passed up!! “You, Hans, the Stasi is out of business, but you work for us now!! Understand??!!”]

Is this taking advantage of a situation and profiting from the misery of others??!! You have to decide!!

coolbert.