Major General Harry Armstrong wrote to the director of intelligence of the air force regarding Major General Dr. Schreiber. “I have been advised by the Commandant, USAF School of Aviation Medicine, Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, that they recently forwarded to your office a request for a new contract [for] Doctor Walter Schreiber until June 1952,” Armstrong wrote. “Recent information indicated that Doctor Schreiber may have been implicated in the medical war crimes in Germany during World War II, and his presence in this country has aroused a considerable amount of criticism. As a consequence of this, it is the firm opinion of this office that the Air Force Medical Service cannot associate itself with Doctor Schreiber beyond the six months’ contract under which he is now employed.” Further, said Armstrong, “it may be advisable to terminate this contract even prior to its expiration.” Armstrong promised that the commandant of the School of Aviation Medicine, Major General Otis Benson, “concurs with this recommendation.” General Benson had equal reason to want the Schreiber scandal to quietly disappear. After the war, Benson had served as technical supervisor of the German scientists working at the Army Air Forces Aero Medical Center in Heidelberg.
Two weeks after the scandal broke, Dr. Schreiber was informed that his contract would not be renewed. General Benson delivered the news in person. According to Schreiber, Benson also proposed a secret, alternative plan involving Schreiber’s future career in America. In an affidavit, Schreiber swore that General Benson “stated that he felt sure my services could be utilized in other branches of the government or in medical schools, and offered his assistance in soliciting for a position for me.”
In Boston, the matter continued to generate press. The Janina Iwanska story was news people were interested in reading about. Despite what had been done to her during the war, Janina Iwanska was a vibrant, beautiful, credible young woman; it was almost impossible not to marvel at her resilience. After being liberated from Ravensbrück, she had moved to Paris, where she had been working as a journalist for Radio Free Europe. She also worked as the Paris-based correspondent for several Polish newspapers in Western Europe.
When Iwanska was experimented on at Ravensbrück she was only seventeen years old. While imprisoned there, she and several other female prisoners had taken remarkable steps to get word outside the camp about what was being done by Nazi doctors at Ravensbrück. With the goal of getting their message to the Vatican, the BBC, and the International Red Cross, Iwanska and four other women sent secret messages to their relatives outside the camp. Remarkably, a French prisoner named Germaine Tillion took photographs of the women’s wounds, then smuggled a roll of film out of the camp. The story was printed in the Polish underground press during the war, notifying the world about the Ravensbrück medical experiments. The story was eventually picked up by the BBC, as the women had hoped.
Now, with the Schreiber story gaining momentum, in January 1951, FBI agents arranged to interview Janina Iwanska in Boston. Under oath and from a photograph, she identified Dr. Schreiber as a high-ranking doctor who had overseen the medical experiments at Ravensbrück.
“How do you know that the Dr. Schreiber, whom you saw in the Concentration Camp in Germany in 1942 and 1943, is the same Dr. Walter Schreiber who is now in San Antonio?” an FBI agent asked her.
“Three weeks ago, the journalist was coming from the Boston Post [sic] and they showed me about fifty (50) pictures and they asked me if I know [which one] is Dr. Schreiber,” Iwanska said. She described how she had no trouble picking Schreiber’s photograph out of fifty presented to her. “I saw this face in the doctors’ group in Ravensbrück,” she said. “After, they asked me if I knew Schreiber’s name. I told them, ‘I know Schreiber’s name.’ ”
Dr. Schreiber, in a separate interview, claimed that he had had nothing to do with the Ravensbrück experiments, that he had never even visited a concentration camp, and that he had never met Janina Iwanska, who was accusing him of outrageous acts. In response, Janina Iwanska had this to say: “I had an operation done on my legs by Dr. Gebhart [sic].… During the first dressing after the operations I spoke to him. I asked Dr. Gebhart why they did the operation and they gave the answer, ‘We can do the experiment because you are condemned to die.’ The number [tattooed on] my legs are T. K. M. III. If Dr. Schreiber cannot remember my name, I am sure perhaps he can remember the experiment [number].”
Janina Iwanska said she was sure that Dr. Schreiber was at the concentration camp; she had seen him with her own eyes. After operations were performed on seventy-four women, she explained, there was a doctors’ conference at the concentration camp.
“Were you present at the Doctors’ Conference?” the FBI agent asked.
“Yes, because every woman who had the experiment was taken in the [conference] room and Gebhart explained to the other doctors what he did.”
“Do you remember the date of this conference by Dr. Gebhart and Dr. Schreiber about your experiment?”
“I think it was about three weeks after the [operation of] 15th of August 1942,” Janina Iwanska said.
“Did any of the people who were experimented on die as a result of the experiments?”
“Yes. Five died 48 hours after the operation, and six were shot after the operation,” Iwanska said.
“Do you know the names of those who died as a result of the operation?”
“I have the list at my house. I sent the names to the United Nations. They have all the documents. It was seventy-four who had the experiment.”
“Do you have any knowledge as to whether Dr. Schreiber ordered these experiments done?”
“I don’t know if he gave the orders. Only I know he was very interested in it,” she said.
Back in Texas, Dr. Schreiber began plotting his escape to Argentina. He wrote to his married daughter, Elisabeth van der Fecht, who was living in San Isidro, in Buenos Aires. He asked her to get information about how he could get a visa fast. The FBI intercepted Schreiber’s mail.
“I will be able to get a visa for you all within fourteen days,” promised Schreiber’s daughter. “To be honest, we always have feared something similar to come.… Everything started so well and seemed to be wonderful. Your nice house, your new furniture.…” She assured her father that she could help get the paperwork necessary to enter Argentina. “If, father, you wish us to take steps, send us the necessary documents,” Elisabeth wrote. “Anyhow the risk would be much less than if you must go to Germany. For Heaven’s sake do not go back.”
By mid-January, the JIOA weighed in. The Joint Chiefs decided that it was necessary to repatriate Dr. Schreiber. “Reason for Requesting Repatriation: Dr. Schreiber is basically not a research scientist, and as such his usefulness is very limited to the School of Aviation Medicine,” a memo read. “Recent criticism and adverse publicity [have] been directed against the School of Aviation Medicine in that it has been charged that Dr. Schreiber, as a high ranking Nazi Medical Officer, was connected with brutal experiments on concentration camp victims. The School of Aviation Medicine and the Surgeon General do not wish to assume responsibility for Schreiber… in view of the above criticism.”
Army headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany, disagreed. On February 5, 1952, the army cabled a message marked “Secret” to JIOA, written in shorthand. “Recommend take act[ion] to retain Schreiber in US. Subj has invaluable info of intelligence nature regarding Russia and is outstanding [in] his professional field.”
The Office of the U.S. High Commissioner weighed in: “All reparations of paper clip personnel unless voluntary have some adverse effect [on] JIOA programs,” a memo stated. “Request coordinate with G2 Army prior to final decision on repatriation.” At air force headquarters, another idea was gaining support. Why not help Dr. Schreiber “move” to Argentina? To this end, a major named D. A. Roe, from Army Intelligence, G-2, contacted Argentinean General Aristobulo Fidel Reyes to discuss “the utilization of the services of Dr. Walter Paul Schreiber, M.D.” Major Roe queried if “in any way possible… his
talents could be used in Argentina.” The army had originally intended to allow the talented Dr. Schreiber to immigrate to the United States, Major Roe explained, but, unfortunately, that had changed. “His admissibility, under current law, as an immigrate [sic] of the U.S. is questionable because of this close affiliation with the Nazi Army,” Major Roe clarified. Argentina did not have the same kinds of immigration laws prohibiting entry of former high-ranking Nazis. It would be great if they could help.
Faced with pushback from High Commissioner John J. McCloy, JIOA retooled its repatriation position and instead made a case for extending Dr. Schreiber’s stay. “Schreiber family may be subjected to reprisals due to his previously reported escape from Russian control,” JIOA wrote. “If repatriation is inadvisable believe Schreiber may be retained here by issuance of visa. Above is additional reason for desirability of entry with immigration visa.” But then a new document emerged, marked JIOA eyes only, and to be kept in Schreiber’s classified dossier. Schreiber’s wife of forty years, Olga, was also an old-time Nazi. According to official NSDAP paperwork, she had joined the Nazi Party on October 1, 1931, years before Hitler came to power.
Each week that passed brought more focus to the subject. The public was growing increasingly outraged with the notion that an ex-Nazi general and alleged war criminal was still living in the United States, and that his employment by the United States Air Force was still up in the air.
The Physicians Forum, a group of doctors representing thirty-six states, wrote to the Senate. “Had Dr. Schreiber been found and apprehended at the time of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal,” the doctors wrote, “it is virtually certain that he would have been brought to trial along with his associates many of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment or hanged for their crimes. Instead this individual is now in the United States working for our Air Force.” The physicians unanimously recommended “[i]mmediate expulsion of Dr. Schreiber from the United States [and] a thorough investigation of the circumstances leading to Dr. Schreiber’s entry into this country and his assignment to the Air Force.”
The final demand was far more threatening to the air force than the Physicians Forum doctors could have known. Were the Senate to hold hearings to investigate “similar appointments of German physicians formerly in important positions in the German armed forces during World War II,” the whole Paperclip program could be revealed. Heads would roll. Schreiber’s story could travel all the way up to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the scandal all the way to the president of the United States.
With an astonishing degree of hubris, Dr. Schreiber gave one media interview after the next, professing innocence and calling all the charges against him “lies.”
“I am not fighting for a renewal of my contract,” Schreiber told the Washington Post, “I am fighting for justice, and I will continue to do so as long as I live.” He issued an egregiously false statement, declaring, “I never was a member of the staff of the supreme command of the Wehrmacht.” In another interview, he said, “I never worked in a concentration camp.” Later in the interview he clarified that he had actually “visited” a camp once, in eastern Pomerania, without knowing it was a concentration camp. His very brief job there was to inspect “a report for the delousing treatment,” for a group of girls whose “linen was disinfected with DDT,” Schreiber said. “After I arrived there, four days later, the girls were found clean and free of lice,” Schreiber said.
Dr. Schreiber had the air force and the Joint Chiefs of Staff over a barrel, and he likely knew it. If any one of these high-ranking U.S. government officials was forced to admit what was really known about Schreiber—what had been known all along—it would be a scandal of the first degree. Instead, the lie was allowed to expand. “Until we come up with some basic facts,” JIOA director Colonel Benjamin W. Heckemeyer told Time magazine, in an exclusive sit-down interview with a reporter named Miss Moran, “a man should be given the all-American treatment here and not be given the bum’s rush.”
Behind the scenes, Harry Armstrong, surgeon general of the air force, had been spearheading Schreiber’s removal. But in statements to the press, he maintained a façade of support. There is “no evidence he’s guilty other than serving his country during war same as I did mine,” General Armstrong told the Associated Press. Legendary newspaper columnist Drew Pearson did not see things in the same light. He pulled transcripts from the Nuremberg doctors’ trial and quoted from them in “Washington Merry-Go-Round.” “Here are the facts regarding the Nazi doctor who escaped the Nuremberg war crimes trials and is now working for the Air Force at Randolph Field, Texas,” Pearson wrote, “kicking, screaming young Polish girls were held down by SS troops and forcibly operated on.… Nuremberg document No. 619 also shows that Schreiber was second on a list of prominent medical officers detached to the SS for two days.… Human victims were also used in typhus experiments at Buchenwald and Natzweiler concentration camps. Deadly virus was transferred from men to mice and back in an attempt to produce live vaccine.” Schreiber responded by saying, “The Nuremberg Military Tribunal has prosecuted and held those responsible for the crimes.”
That statement further incensed Dr. Leo Alexander and Boston attorney Alexander Hardy, the former chief prosecutor at the doctors’ trial. The two men drafted a ten-page letter to President Truman. “He was not a defendant [but] beyond a doubt he is responsible for medical crimes,” Hardy and Alexander explained. “He certainly had full knowledge that concentration camp inmates were being systematically experimented on by doctors of the Medical Service in which he was a General.… Schreiber’s subordinates performed experiments encouraged by Schreiber,” who in turn made “materials and funds available [and] the holding of conferences.”
Hardy and Alexander cited testimony from five of Schreiber’s physician-colleagues who testified at the Nuremberg doctors’ trial that Schreiber had overseen a host of “hygiene”-related Reich medical programs in which countless humans were sacrificed in the name of research. Included were details of yellow fever experiments, epidemic jaundice experiments, sulfanilamide experiments, euthanasia by phenol experiments and the notorious typhus vaccine program “with its 90% death rate.” Alexander Hardy and Dr. Alexander’s letter to President Truman portrayed Major General Dr. Walter Schreiber not only as a war criminal of the worst order but as a sadist and a liar. Parts of the letter were made public. “Truman Is Urged to Expel Physician,” read a headline in the New York Times. Harry Armstrong wrote to the Physicians Forum assuring them that Schreiber would be returned to Germany at once.
JIOA director Colonel Heckemeyer was asked by Time magazine what the air force was going to do if, after completing its investigation, it found Dr. Schreiber guilty of war crimes. “That I will have to get guidance from the Office of the Secretary of Defense on,” Heckemeyer said. Could Schreiber be prosecuted, the Time reporter asked?
“We are not going to make a Nuernberg [sic] trial three years after the trials are closed,” Heckemeyer said. Finally, the secretary of the air force, Thomas Finletter, made a public announcement stating that Dr. Schreiber would be dropped from his contract and put under military custody. He would leave the United States at once.
But Dr. Schreiber refused to leave the United States. Instead, he packed up his family, left Texas, and drove to San Francisco. There, the Schreibers moved in with Dorothea, the couple’s married daughter, and her husband, William Fry, in their home at 35 Ridge Road, in San Anselmo. Just as Dorothea had worked at Camp King when her father was post surgeon there, her new husband, William Fry, had served at Camp King, as an army intelligence investigator. Having moved to America in July 1951, the two had lived in California since.
More than a month passed. The Physicians Forum received new information about Schreiber, which they submitted to President Truman on April 24, 1952, along with a telegram marked “Urgent.” They attached a document that showed that Brigadier General Otis Benson, commanding general at Randolph Field School of Aviation Medicine, “sought conti
nued employment for Dr. Schreiber in the United States, preferably a ‘University Appointment,’ ” after the air force had already promised that Schreiber would soon be leaving the United States.
The outrageous part, said the physicians, was that the U.S. Air Force was colluding to keep Schreiber in the United States. In their letter to President Truman, they quoted General Benson from a letter he’d written to the dean of the Minnesota School of Public Health, seeking a new job for Schreiber in the private sector. “I like and respect the man [but] he is too hot for me to keep here using public funds,” General Benson said of Schreiber. He said that the bad press had been little more than “an organized medical movement against him emanating from Boston by medical men of Jewish ancestry.” The Physicians Forum’s board of directors demanded that President Truman order the attorney general to open an investigation into the case.
A few days later, a lieutenant colonel named G. A. Little, representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew to California to visit with Dr. Schreiber at his daughter’s house, “for the purpose of attempting to persuade Dr. Schreiber to go to Buenos Aires at once, regardless of job opportunities which might or might not be developed through [our] office.” According to Little, the visit went well.
Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America Page 38