The Society for Military History

Florida State University

G. Kurt Piehler

Military History
Intelligence Studies
Strategic Studies
Second World War
Cold War
World History

“The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend: The U.S. Army’s Partnership with Reinhard Gehlen 1945-1955”

Brandon Bernick is a PhD candidate at Florida State University.  He is a former instructor of international and military history at the United States Military Academy at West Point who received his B.I.S. in Military History from George Mason University and his M.A. in World History from the University of Pennsylvania.  Brandon is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and currently serves in the Army Reserves as an officer in the Military Intelligence Branch.  He specializes in military history with a focus on intelligence and strategic studies.  His past projects include a variety of topics such as the memory of Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers during the Seven Years War, Naval Lieutenant Eugene Clark’s exploits at Inchon during the Korean War, Abwehr Admiral Wilhelm Canaris’s institutional resistance to the Nazi regime during the Second World War, and Adolf Hitler’s former Soviet expert Wehrmacht General Reinhard Gehlen’s post Second World War sponsorship by the U.S. Army, CIA, and West German Government to create the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND).  For his dissertation, Brandon considers the legacy of Second World War Military Intelligence operations and their impacts fueling the Cold War.