thumb|Ärmelabzeichen des ''OSS''
Das '''Office of Strategic Services (OSS)''', deutsch: ''Amt für strategische Dienste'', war ein US Department of War von 1942 bis 1945 und der militärische Vorläufer der zivilen CIA. 

==Auftrag==
Die Aufgabengebiete des ''OSS'' umfasste die operative Beschaffung von Informationen, psychologische Kriegführung, Partisanen-Unterstützung, Asymmetrische Kriegführung, Sabotage und Spionageabwehr.

==Organisation==
Das ''OSS'' unterstand direkt den Vereinigten Stabschefs des Kriegsministeriums und arbeitete ihnen zu. Damit stand es in direkter Konkurrenz zum G2 (Heeresnachrichtendienst) der Army. Obwohl zuständig für die Aufklärung Im Ausland, gab es auch Regionen in denen das OSS nicht aktiv war. So z.B. FBI für die Auslandsspionage verantwortlich zeichnete, gleichzeitig wurden die Aktivitäten vom militärischen Nachrichtendienst G-2 und dem Marinenachrichtendienst argwöhnisch beobachtet und die zuständigen Stellen versuchten eifersüchtig ihre Zuständigkeitbereiche zu verteidigen, da es etliche Überschneidungen und Parallelarbeit gab.

==Rekrutierung und Ausbildung==
Der Leiter des ''OSS'' Major General Donovan war anfangs Mitglied des ''Room'' gewesen, einer monatlich konspirativ tagenden Geheimloge führender US-Industrieller, die diskret Wirtschaftsinformationen aus dem Ausland austauschten. Die Söhne seiner Geschäftsfreunde, die sich vom OSS Ruhm versprachen, wurden bevorzugt rekrutiert. 

Das Personal des OSS empfand sich als elitär und war mehrheitlich rechtskonservativ eingestellt.

==Ausrüstung==
Da eins der Hauptätigkeitsfelder die konspirativen Nachrichtenbeschaffung und die Partisanenunterstützung war, experimentierte Major General Donovan hauptsächlich mit technischen Neuentwicklungen im Bereich getarnter Waffen (Stich- und Schusswaffen sowie Schalldämpfer) und Ausrüstungsgegenstände, deren eigentliche Funktion nicht gleich erkenntlich sein sollte und so den Agenten bei einer Kontrolle hinter feindlichen Linien nicht verrraten würde. Auch Techniken der nachrichtendienstlichen Kommunikation und Informationsweitergabe (Geheimtinte etc.) wurden genutzt und stetig weiterentwickelt.

==Geschichte==
===Gründung=== 
Das 1941 von Präsident britische Auslandsnachrichtendienst MI6 Pate.

Erster Leiter des ''OSS'' war der Kriegsveteran, Spion und „Wild Bill” Donovan (1883–1959), ein Freund des Präsidenten, der bereits den Vorläufer der Behörde geleitet hatte.  Viele Pläne erwiesen sich als praxisuntauglich und man mußte erst einen hohen Blutzoll (einschließlich des einheimischen Widerstandes) leisten, um die notwendige Erfahrung zu sammeln, wie ein Kampf hinter feidlichen Linien optimal zu führen war. 

===Einsätze===
'''Partisanenunterstützungseinsätze'''

Die reine Aufklärungsarbeit war weniger erfolgreich, da die Hauptlast der Informationsgewinnung durch die Luftaufklärung der US Army Air Force (durch Luftbildauswertung) getragen wurde. Dagegen erzielte das ''OSS'' recht gute Ergebnisse mit der Ausbildung,  Ausrüstung und Führung einheimischer Partisanengruppen hinter den feindlichen Linien und führte Operationen in Italien, Griechenland, Jugoslawien, Norwegen und Frankreich durch. 

'''Vorbereitungen für ''D-Day'''''

So sprangen in den Monaten vor der alliierten Landung in der schottischen Ausbildungsort Green Berets Detachments.

'''Pazifik'''

Das ''OSS'' war trotz der Ablehnung durch pazifischen Kriegsschauplatzes, der die Arbeit des G2 bevorzugte, dennoch auch im südostasiatischen und pazifischen Raum  aktiv, in dem es Mao Zedongs Rote Armee Guerillakampf unterstützte.

thumb|General William J. Donovan reviews Operational Group members in [[Bethesda, Maryland, prior to their departure for China in 1945]]
The '''Office of Strategic Services''' ('''OSS''') was a intelligence agency formed during World War&nbsp;II. It was the wartime intelligence agency and was the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency.
==Origin==

Prior to the formation of the OSS (the counterpart of the British Secret Intelligence Service), American intelligence had been conducted on an ad-hoc basis by the various departments of the executive branch, including State, Treasury, Navy and War. They had no overall direction, coordination, or control. The Army and the Navy had separate code-breaking departments (State Department, Secretary of State Henry Stimson because "gentlemen don't read each other's mail".[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrylsti295174.html] President Franklin D. Roosevelt was concerned about American intelligence deficiencies. On the suggestion of Canadian spymaster William Stephenson, the senior representative of British intelligence in the western hemisphere, Roosevelt directed Stephenson's friend William J. Donovan, a World War I veteran, Medal of Honor recipient and New York lawyer, to draft a plan for an intelligence service. Donovan was employed to evaluate the global military position in order to offer suggestions concerning American intelligence requirements because the US did not have a central intelligence agency. After submitting his work, "Memorandum of Establishment of Service of Strategic Information," Gen. Donovan was appointed as the "Co-ordinator of Information" in July, 1941.  

The Office of Strategic Services was established by a presidential military order issued by Roosevelt on June 13, 1942, to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies. During the War, the OSS supplied policy makers with facts and estimates, but the OSS never had jurisdiction over all foreign intelligence activities&mdash;the FBI was responsible for intelligence work in Latin America, and the military guarded their areas of responsibility.

Among other activities, the OSS helped arm, train and supply Red Army in occupied by the Axis powers during the Second World War. The OSS also recruited and ran one of the war's most important spies, the German diplomat Fritz Kolbe. Other functions of the OSS included the use of propaganda, espionage, subversion, and post-war planning. 

The OSS purchased Soviet code and cipher material (or Finnish information on them) from émigré Finnish army officers in late 1944. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr. protested that this violated an agreement President Roosevelt made with the Soviet Union not to interfere with Soviet cipher traffic from the U.S. Donovan might have copied the papers before returning them the following January, but there is no record of Arlington Hall receiving them, and CIA and NSA archives have no surviving copies. This codebook was in fact used as part of the Venona decryption effort, which helped uncover large-scale Soviet espionage in North America.<ref>''The Mitrokhin Archive, Volume 1: The KGB in Europe and the West'', by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, 1999.</ref>

One of the greatest accomplishments of the OSS during World War II was its penetration of Germany by OSS operatives. The OSS was responsible for training German and Austrian individuals for missions inside Germany. Some of these agents included exiled communists and socialist party members, labor activists, anti-Nazi POWs, and German and Jewish refugees. At the height of its influence during World War II, the OSS employed over 12,000 personnel.

==Transformation into the CIA==

A month and a half after the war was won, on September 20, 1945, the OSS was disbanded by President Truman. In the following month the functions of the OSS were split between the Departments of State and War. State received the Research and Analysis Branch of OSS which was renamed the Interim Research and Intelligence Service (IRIS) and headed by Alfred McCormack. The War Department took over the Secret Intelligence (SI) and Counter-espionage (X-2) Branches that were housed in a new office created for just this purpose - The Strategic Services Unit (SSU). The Secretary of War appointed Brigadier General John Magruder (formerly Donovan's Deputy Director for Intelligence in OSS) as director to oversee the liquidation, and more importantly the preservation of the OSS' clandestine intelligence capability. 

Yet in January of 1946, President Truman created the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) which was the direct precursor to the CIA. The assets of the SSU, which now constituted a streamlined "nucleus" of clandestine intelligence was transferred to the CIG in mid-1946 and reconstituted as the Office of Special Operations (OSO). In 1947 the National Security Act established America's first permanent peacetime intelligence agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, which took up the functions of the OSS.

==Branches==
* Secret Intelligence
* Research and Analysis
* Special Operations
* X-2 (counterespionage)
* Research & Development
* Morale Operations
* Maritime Units
* Operational Groups
* Communications
* Medical Services

==Facilities==

Bethesda, MD was the primary OSS training facility.

The Facilities of Catalina Island Marine Institute at Toyon Bay on Santa Catalina Island are composed (in part) of a former OSS survival training camp.

==US Army units seconded to the OSS==
*2671st Special Reconnaissance Battalion
*2677th Office of Strategic Services Regiment

== In popular culture ==
*Author Honor Bound" and "Men At War" series revolves around fictional OSS operations during World War II. 