At the beginning of the Cold War, the gathering of intelligence on the Soviet Union's
current and future military capability seemed a near-impossibility. Soviet high-level
communications were secure against decryption. Agent networks in the USSR were
very difficult to establish and of uncertain reliability. Aerial reconnaissance of warrelated
targets in the Soviet Union was risky and could only be occasional. But
valuable intelligence was gathered in the years 1945-55 on the USSR's frantic arms
build-up, thanks to its policy towards Germans and their country. Its exploitation of
Germans and its Zone of Germany in its war-related research and development and
the reconstruction of its war-related industries gave British Intelligence penetrable
targets in the Soviet Zone and gave great numbers of Germans sought-after
information on the USSR itself. The ease of recruiting age nts in East Germany and
the flight (including enticed defections) of refugees from it allowed research and
development projects and uranium.-mining operations there to be penetrated.
Intelligence of Soviet weapons development and of the quality of Soviet military
technology was obtained. The mass interrogation of prisoners-of-war returned by the
Soviets to the British Occupation Zone in the late 1940s yielded a wealth of valuable
information on war-related construction and the locations of numerous intelligence
targets in the Soviet Union: most importantly, those of atomic and chemical plants,
aircraft and aero-engine factories, airfields, rocket development centres and other
installations. When, in the period 1949-58, some 3,000 deported German scientists ,
engineers and technicians were sent back to their homeland from the USSR,
promising sources among them were enticed West and interrogated for their
knowledge of the Soviets' research and development projects. The cream of the
information they provided was crucial intelligence on the locations of atomic plants
and laboratories and uranium deposits; useful information on structural weaknesses in
the Soviet system of scientific and economic management; expert (if out-of-date)
assessments of the quality of Soviet accomplishments in atomic science, electronics
and other fields; and well-informed indications as to possible lines of development in
guided missile and aircraft design. One Soviet scientific defector in Germany
provided similar information which influenced British perceptions of the Soviet
Union's scientific potential and missile development plans. Refugees entering the
British Zone from East Germany, intercepted letters and monitored
telecommunications, informal contacts and, of course, secret agents all made
significant contributions to the gathering of scientific and technical intelligence in
Germany too. The British passed to the Americans much of the intelligence they
acquired in Germany and the installations identified and located by German sources
were overtlown by spyplanes in the 1950s and particularly by U-2s in the latter half
of-the decade. Priceless information was obtained, which establi shed that the USSR's
war-related scientific research and development and its actual military capability were
both inferior to those of the West. Thus the Germans enabled Soviet security to be
deeply penetrated and helped to stabilize the Cold War. They are the missing link
between Ultra and the U-2