You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (August 2013) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 2,022 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Nachrichtenstelle für den Orient]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Nachrichtenstelle für den Orient}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

The Intelligence Bureau for the East (German: Nachrichtenstelle für den Orient) was a German intelligence organisation established on the eve of World War I dedicated to promoting and sustaining subversive and nationalist agitations in the British Indian Empire and the Persian and Egyptian satellite states. Attached to the German Foreign Office, it was headed by archaeologist Baron Max von Oppenheim and, during the war, worked intricately with the deposed Khedive Abbas II of Egypt, and Indian revolutionary organisations including the Berlin Committee, Jugantar, the Ghadar Party, as well as with prominent Muslim socialists including Maulavi Barkatullah. Aside from Oppenheim himself, recruits to the Bureau included Franz von Papen, later briefly the Chancellor of the Weimar Republic, Wilhelm Wassmuss (sometimes referred to as the German Lawrence), Gunther von Wesendonck, Ernst Sekunna and others. Oppenheim was replaced in 1915 by Schabinger von Schowingen, and later in 1916 by Eugen Mittwoch, internationally the most respected and prestigious German orientalist (and also a respected Orthodox Jewish scholar), who recruited more liberal and cosmopolitan people for the Nachrichtenstelle such as Friedrich Schrader, his Swiss associate Max Rudolf Kaufmann or the young Nahum Goldmann (later President of the World Jewish Congress).

In its initial period, the bureau was intricately involved in almost all the events that ultimately came to be called the Hindu–German Conspiracy, including the Annie Larsen plot, Ghadar Conspiracy, Siam–Burma plan, attempts in Bengal as well as other lesser known plots in the Near east including of the western borders of British India and in Afghanistan.

In addition to its subversive campaigns against British possessions in India, it also attempted to instigate instability in British possessions in the Muslims in India as well as around the world in the Middle east and in Egypt. It was involved in early Turkish plans for war and the Caliph's decision to declare Jihad. The bureau was involved in intelligence and subversive missions to Persia and to Afghanistan, and also attempted, along with the Berlin Committee, to recruit Indian soldiers in Mesopotamia. Its Persia operations were led by Wilhelm Wassmuss,^[1] the 1915 Afghanistan Mission by Werner Otto von Hentig^[2]

Under the leadership of the also internationally highly respected Mittwoch (who founded the semitic department at Hebrew University in 1924, and worked for British Intelligence in World War II, after he had to flee to London from Nazi persecution), the Nachrichtenstelle, which had to deal with the failure of the initial subversive campaigns, pursued a more rational, scientific approach, e.g. by publishing the respected quality journal "Der Neue Orient".

• Halbmondlager
• Mosque of the Bois de Vincennes

• Popplewell, Richard J (1995), Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the Indian Empire 1904-1924., Routledge, ISBN 0-7146-4580-X, archived from the original on 2009-03-26, retrieved 2008-01-26.

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