ABSTRACT
Intelligence information about preparations in Southern Germany and Austria for a last stand only gave a geographical dimension to a conclusion already reached by U. S. and British intelligence officers about how the Nazi police state would die. The weekly Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force G-2 intelligence summary published only a week later did refer to evidence of unusual activity surrounding the old defense lines in southern Germany. The winter of 1945 brought a flood of information to the intelligence agencies from a variety of different sources that depicted preparations for guerrilla activity in the south. Signals intelligence also outlined measures taken to lay a carpet of agents in soon-to-be-occupied areas that could report from behind enemy lines once the Germans retreated. The intelligence readily available in Washington at the time merely provided a “foreshadowing” of clandestine preparations. The Joint Intelligence Committee admitted that intelligence support for concluding a Nazi resistance plan was problematical.
