1940 |
In England Prime Minister Winston Churchill creates the secret stay-behind army
Special Operations Executive (SOE) to set Europe ablaze by
assisting resistance movements and carrying out subversive
operations in enemy held territory. After the end of World
War Two the stay-behind armies are created on the experiences
and strategies of SOE with the involvement of former SOE officers. |
1944 |
London and Washington agree on the importance of keeping Western Europe free
from Communism. In Greece a large Communist demonstration taking
place in Athens against British interference in the post war
government is dissolved by gunfire of secret soldiers leaving
25 protesters dead and 148 wounded. |
1945 |
In Finland Communist Interior Minister Leino exposes a secret stay-behind which
is being closed down. |
1947 |
In the United States President Harry Truman creates the National Security Council
(NSC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The covert
action branch of the CIA, the Office of Policy Coordination
(OPC) under Frank Wisner sets up stay-behind armies in Western
Europe. |
1947 |
In France Interior Minister Edouard Depreux reveals the existence of a secret
stay-behind army in France codenamed „Plan Bleu“. |
1947 |
In Austria a secret stay-behind is exposed which had been set up by right-wing
extremists Soucek and Rössner. Chancellor Körner pardons the
accused under mysterious circumstances. |
1948 |
In France the "Western Union Clandestine Committee" (WUCC)
is being created to coordinate secret unorthodox warfare. After the creation
of NATO a year later the WUCC is being integrated into the military alliance
under the name “Clandestine Planning Committee” (CPC). |
1949 |
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is founded and the European headquarters
is established in France. |
1951 |
In Sweden CIA agent William Colby based at the CIA station in Stockholm supports
the training of stay-behind armies in neutral Sweden and Finland
and in the NATO members Norway and Denmark. |
1952 |
In Germany former SS officer Hans Otto reveals to the criminal police in the
city of Frankfurt in Hessen the existence of the fascist German
stay-behind army BDJ-TD. The arrested righ-wing extremist are
found non guilty under mysterious circumstances. |
1953 |
In Sweden the police arrests right winger Otto Hallberg and discovers the Swedish
stay-behind army. Hallberg is set free and charges against
him are mysteriously dropped. |
1957 |
In Norway the director of the secret service NIS, Vilhelm Evang, protests strongly
against the domestic subversion of his country through the United States and
NATO and temporarily withdraws the Norwegian stay-behind army from the CPC
meetings. |
1958 |
In France NATO founds the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) to coordinate secret
warfare and the stay-behind armies. When NATO establishes new
European headquarters in Brussels the ACC under the code name
SDRA 11 is hidden within the Belgian military secret service
SGR who has its headquarters next to NATO. |
1960 |
In Turkey the military supported by secret armies stages a coup d’état and kill
Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. |
1961 |
In Algeria members of the French stay-behind and officers from the French War
in Vietnam found the illegal Organisation Armee Secrete (OAS) and with CIA
support stage a coup in Algiers against the French government of de Gaulle
which fails. |
1964 |
In Italy the secret stay-behind army Gladio is involved in a silent coup d’état
when General Giovanni de Lorenzo in Operation Solo forces the Italian Socialist
Ministers to leave the government. |
1965 |
In Austria police forces discover a stay-behind arms cache in an old mine close
to Windisch-Bleiberg and force the British authorities to hand over a list
with the location of 33 other MI6 arms caches in Austria. |
1966 |
In Portugal the CIA sets up Aginter Press which under the direction of Captain
Yves Guerin Serac runs a secret stay-behind army and trains
its members in covert action techniques including hands on
bomb terrorism, silent assassination, subversion techniques,
clandestine communication and infiltration and colonial warfare. |
1966 |
In France President Charles de Gaulle denounces the secret warfare of the Pentagon
and expells the European headquarters of NATO. As the military alliance moves
to Brussels secret NATO protocols are revealed that allegedly protect right-wingers
in anti-communist stay-behind armies. |
1967 |
In Greece the stay-behind army Hellenic Raiding Force takes over control over
the Greek Defence Ministry and starts a military coup d’état installing a right
wing dictatorship. |
1968 |
In Sweden a British MI6 agent closely involved with the stay-behind army betrays
the secret network to the Soviet secret service KGB. |
1969 |
In Mocambique the Portugese stay-behind army Aginter Press assassinates Eduardo
Mondlane, President of the Mocambique liberation party and leader of the
FRELIMO movement (Frente de Liberacao de Mocambique). |
1969 |
In Italy the Piazza Fontana massacre in Milano kills sixteen and injures and
maimes 80 and is blame on the left. Thirty years later during a trial of
right-wing extremists General Giandelio Maletti, former head of Italian counter-intelligence,
claims that the massacre had been carried out by the Italian stay-behind
army and right wing terrorists on the orders of the US secret service Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) in order to discredit the Italian Communists. |
1970 |
In Spain right wing terrorists including Stefano delle Chiaie of the Gladio
stay-behind army are hired by Franco’s secret police. They had fled Italy
following an aborted coup during which right-wing extremist Valerio Borghese
had ordered the secret army to occupy the Interior Ministry in Rome. |
1971 |
In Turkey the military stages a coup d’état and takes over power. The stay-behind
army Counter-Guerrilla engages in domestic terror and kills hundreds. |
1972 |
In Italy a bomb explodes in a car near the village Peteano killing three Carabinieri.
The terror, first blamed on the left, is later traced back to right-wing terrorist
Vincenzo Vinciguerra and the Italian stay-behind code named Gladio. |
1974 |
In Italy a massacre during an anti-fascist demonstration in Brescia kills eight
and injures and maims 102, while a bomb in the Rome to Munich train “Italicus
Express”, kills 12 and injures and maims 48. |
1974 |
In Denmark the secret stay-behind army Absalon tries in vain to prevent a group
of leftist academics from becoming members of the directing body of the Danish
Odense University whereupon the secret army is exposed. |
1974 |
In Italy General Vito Miceli, chief of the military secret service, is arrested
on charges of subversive conspiracy against the state and reveals the NATO
stay-behind secret army during trial. |
1976 |
In Germany in the secret service BND secretary Heidrun Hofer is arrested after
having revealed the secrets of the German stay-behind army to her husband who
was a spy of the Soviet secret service KGB. |
1977 |
In Turkey the stay-behind army Counter-Guerrilla attacks a demonstration of 500'000
in Istambul by opening fire at the speaker's platform leaving thirty-eight
killed and hundreds injured. |
1977 |
In Spain the secret stay-behind army with support of Italian right-wing terrorists
carries out the Atocha massacre in Madrid and in an attack on a lawyer's office
closely linked to the Spanish Communist party kill five people. |
1978 |
In Norway the police discovers a stay-behind arms ache and arrests Hans Otto
Meyer who reveals the Norwegian secret army. |
1978 |
In Italy former Prime Minister and leader of the Christian Democratic Party,
Aldo Moro, is taken hostage in Rome by an armed secret unit and killed 55 days
later because he wanted to include the Italian Communists in the government. |
1980 |
In Italy a bomb explodes in the waiting room of the second class at the Bologna
railway station, killing 85 and seriously injuring and maiming a further 200.
Investigators trace the crime back to right-wing terrorists. |
1980 |
In Turkey the commander of the stay-behind army Counter-Guerrilla, General Kenan
Evren, stages a military coup and seizes power. |
1981 |
In Germany a large stay-behind arsenal is being discovered near the German village
of Uelzen in the Lüneburger Heide. Right wing extremists are alleged to have
used the arsenal in the previous year to carry out a massacre during the Munich
October bear festival killing 13 and wounding 213 |
1983 |
In the Netherlands strollers in the forest discover a large arms cache near the
Dutch village Velp and force the government to confrim that the arms were related
to NATO planning for unorthodox warfare. |
1984 |
In Turkey the stay-behind army Counter-Guerrilla fights against the Curds and
kills and tortures thousands in the following years. |
1984 |
In Italy right-wing terrorist Vincenzo Vinciguerra in court reveals Operation
Gladio and the involvement of NATO’s stay-behind army in acts of terrorism
in Italy designed to discredit the communists. He is sentenced to life and
imprisoned. |
1985 |
In Belgium a secret army attacks and shoots shoppers in supermarkets randomly
in the Brabant county killing twenty-eight and leaving many wounded. Investigations
link the terror to a conspiracy among the Belgian stay-behind SDRA8, the Belgian
Gendarmerie SDRA6, the Belgian right-wing group Westland New Post, and the
Pentagon secret service Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). |
1990 |
In Italy judge Felice Casson discovers documents on Operation Gladio in the archives
of the Italian military secret service in Rome and forces Prime Minister Giulio
Andreotti to confirm the existence of a secret army within the state to parliament.
As Andreotti insists that Italy had not been the only country involved in the
conspiracy the secret anti-communist stay-behind armies are discovered across
Western Europe. |
1990 |
In Switzerland Colonel Herbert Alboth, a former commander of the Swiss secret
stay-behind army P26, in a confidential letter to the Defence Departement declares
that he is willing to reveal „the whole truth“. Thereafter he is found in his
house stabbed with his own military bayonet. The detailed parliamentary report
on the Swiss secret army is being presented to the public on November 17. |
1990 |
In Belgium the NATO linked stay-behind headquarters Allied Clandestine Committee
(ACC) meets on October 23 and 24 under the presidency of Belgian General Van
Calster, director of the Belgian military secret service SGR. |
1990 |
In Belgium on November 5 NATO categorically denies the allegations of Prime Minister
Andreotti concerning NATO's involvement in Operation Gladio and secret unorthdox
warfare in Western Europe. The next day NATO explains that the denial of the
previous day had been false while refusing to answer any further questions. |
1990 |
In Belgium the parliament of the European Union (EU) sharply condemns NATO and
the United States in a resolution for having manipulated European politics
with the stay-behind armies. |
1991 |
In Sweden the media reveals that a secret stay-behind army existed in neutral
Finland with an exile base in Stockholm. Finnish Defence Minister Elisabeth
Rehn calls the revelations "a
fairy tale", adding cautiously "or at least an incredible story, of which I know nothing.” |
1991 |
In the United States the National Security Archive at the George Washington University
in Washington files a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request concerning the
secret stay-behind armies with the CIA in the interest of public information
and scientific research. The CIA rejects the request with the standart reply: "The
CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records
responsive to your request." |
1995 |
In England the London based Imperial War Museum in the permanent exhibition "Secret
Wars" reveals next to a big box full of explosives that the MI6 and SAS had set up
stay-behind armies across Western Europe. |
1995 |
In Italy the Senate commission headed by Senator Giovanni Pellegrino researching
Operation Gladio and the assassination of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro
files a FOIA request with the CIA. The CIA rejects the request
and replies: "The
CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records
responsive to your request." |
1996 |
In Austria stay-behind arms caches
set up by the CIA are discovered. For the Austrian government
Oliver Rathkolb of Vienna University files a FOIA request
concerning the secret stay-behind armies with the CIA. The CIA rejects
the
request and replies: "The
CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records
responsive to your request."
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