“Strughold was not always quite honest”: Weindling, 78–80.
military intelligence objected: Ibid., 82.
handpicked fifty-eight: Benford, “Report from Heidelberg,” 1–3. Benford specifies who started when, circa October–November 1945, but indicates that deals were made in the summer/fall before.
Chapter Eight: Black, White, and Gray
debate over the Nazi scientist program: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 9030; Bower, chapter 7.
To “open our arms”: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 9028.
Patterson sent a memorandum: McGovern, 192–93.
chairman of SWNCC: Bird, 192.
helping to develop the war crimes program: Taylor, Nuremberg Trials, 22, 36.
backbone of a healthy economy: Bird, 229–30.
In McCloy’s eye: This presentation is informed by Bird’s biography of McCloy. It is also interesting to note that McGovern, who authored the book on the V-2 in the 1960s and interviewed many of the U.S. Army players, went on to work for McCloy in the high commissioner’s office.
wished to see action overseas: Correspondence with John Dolibois, 2012–2013.
“the war was very real”: Ibid.; Dolibois, 64–65.
“We had reports”: Dolibois, 71.
He recalled Mondorf’s “beautiful park”: Correspondence with John Dolibois, 2012–2013.
the Palace Hotel: Ziemke, chapter 5, gives an overview of the interrogation centers.
five stories tall: Correspondence with John Dolibois, 2012–2013.
“solution to the Jewish question”: USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia, SS and the Holocaust.
“At once I understood”: Correspondence with John Dolibois, 2012–2013; Dolibois, 85.
“He had been told”: Dolibois, 85.
fingernails had been varnished: Andrus, 29.
“Yes,” he said: Dolibois, 86; at Ashcan, Dolibois used the cover name Lieutenant John Gillen.
noted Ashcan’s commandant: Andrus, 27.
committed suicide: Henkel and Taubrich, 40–47.
“In a second circle”: These are the descriptions of these men that Dolibois uses in his book.
masturbating in the bathtub: Dolibois, 128.
“Often, I was taken”: Correspondence with John Dolibois, 2012–2013; Dolibois, 89.
Chapter Nine: Hitler’s Chemists
analyzing its properties: Tucker, 90.
“by air under highest priority”: Ibid.
using chemicals to kill people: FDR speech, June 9, 1943; Harris and Paxman, chapter 5.
“In 1945, in the aftermath”: Tucker, 103.
tons of tabun: Hilmas, chapter 2; the British had inherited the facility but willingly shared its spoils, which included three thousand bombs and five thousand artillery shells.
“We should do everything”: Bower, 121.
He told his former colleagues: Goudsmit, 81.
“ ‘Siegheil’ like a true Nazi”: Ibid.
The Allies were also reorganizing: Gimbel, 60. Some of FIAT’s officers saw the name of their agency as alluding to fiat voluntas tua, Latin for “thy will be done”; Ziemke, 272.
Dustbin was self-contained: Author tour of Schloss Kransberg estate, August 1, 2012.
Speer took walks: Interview with Jens Hermann, August 1, 2012.
Dr. Schrader had been working: BIOS Report No. 542, “Interrogation of Certain German Personalities Connected with Chemical Warfare”; Harris and Paxman, 55.
IG Farben wanted to develop: “Elimination of German Resources for War,” 1156–58.
discoveries with potential military application: Ibid., 1276–78.
“Everyone was astounded”: BIOS Report No. 542, “Interrogation of Certain German Personalities Connected with Chemical Warfare,” 24–35.
English word “taboo”: Tilley interview with Karl Krauch; “Elimination of German Resources for War,” 1278–80.
Dr. Schrader was told: BIOS Secret, Final Report 714, “The Development of New Insecticides and Chemical Warfare Agents,” by Gerhard Schrader, 22–23; CIOS Report 31,“Chemical Warfare Installations.”
report to Göring: Tucker, 35.
“psychological havoc on civilian populations”: Tucker, 36.
most of what Ambros did: “Elimination of German Resources for War,” 1256, 1278, 1409.
“Who is Mr. Ambros?”: Ibid., 1261.
Tilley learned quite a bit more: Ibid., 1280–95.
“Judging from conversations”: Ibid., 1278.
“plain chemist”: Dubois, 5.
“Case #21877. Dr. Otto Ambros”: RG 238 Otto Ambros: FIAT EP, June 14, 1946.
impossible to comprehend: Ibid.
American interrogation center: Kleber and Birdsell, 40, 45, 73, 454.
sniffing at the air: DuBois, 5.
Few men were as important to IG Farben: Stasi records, Dr. Otto Ambros file, BStU MfS HA IX/11 PA 5.380, “Report on the IG Farben Ludwigshafen and leading persons of IG Farben.”
butadiene: Dwork, 199. Synthetic rubber was called Buna after its components butadiene and sodium.
masterminding this undertaking: Otto Ambros, affidavit, April 29, 1947, NI-9542. Archive of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, Case VI, PDB 75 (e), 1–18.
“Greetings from Auschwitz”: Dwork, 17.
production of synthetic rubber required: Ibid., 197.
“settle the question regarding”: DuBois 168–75; Dwork, 201.
official company report: DuBois, 172.
“It is therefore necessary”: Otto Ambros, Letter to Ter Meer and Struss, April 12, 1941, NI-11118. Archive of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, Case VI.
SS officers hosted a dinner party: Ibid.
Farben would pay: Drummer and Zwilling, 80.
“Our new friendship with the SS”: DuBois, 172; the Farben plant would be called Buna-Werke, Auschwitz 3. Prisoners selected for work at Buna-Werke would be awakened for roll call at 4:00 a.m., marched four miles to the rubber plant to work for ten to twelve hours, and then marched home. As for the workers who died during a shift, it was up to the laborers to carry the bodies back to the main concentration camp for cremation; Jeffreys, 302–4.
“You said yesterday”: “Elimination of German Resources for War,” 1262.
“known to all the IG directors in Auschwitz”: Ibid.
“30 or 40 drawings”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, File CML-SP-la, February 9, 1949.
trusted Ambros: Ibid.
concentration camp workers: RG 319 Otto Ambros, Case 21877, Microfilm Project MP-B-102; FIAT EP 254-82, June 14, 1946; File XE021877, April 14, 1958.
“The CIC personnel”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, File CML-SP-la, February 9, 1949.
“network of spies”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, FIAT E 254-82, September 13, 1945.
guesthouse that IG Farben maintained: Ibid.
found him residing: Ibid.
something was amiss: Tucker, 95.
given a job as plant manager: RG 319 Otto Ambros, FIAT E 254-82, September 18, 1945.
Wilson saw the situation in much darker terms: RG 319 Otto Ambros, P. M. Wilson letter, September 4, 1945.
“I would look forward”: Tucker, 95–96. For the Hirschkind quote to Ambros, Tucker cites a letter written by Hirschkind dated July 21, 1967, and located at the Carroll County, Maryland, library.
“It is believed”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, FIAT E 254-82, September 13, 1945.
initial interview at Dustbin: RG 330 Kurt Blome, Alsos report, July 30, 1945 (23 pages).
Blome had been observed: Ibid.
“Kliewe claims”: RG 330 Kurt Blome, Alsos report, 2, 14, 16; RG 65 Heinrich Kliewe, No. 655815-1, July 12, 1945.
what he told them: RG 330 Kurt Blome, Alsos report, 1–23. Alsos agents interviewed Blome first in Dustbin, then in Heidelberg, then back in Dustbin. On October 1, 1945, he was moved to Oberursel, per letter from FIAT director of intelligence.
specific plans: Ibid.,
4.
Himmler ordered him: Ibid., 6, 17.
“History gives us examples”: Ibid., 17–18.
they settled on Nesselstedt: Ibid., 6.
“infected rats on to U-boats”: Ibid., 11. Blome says the original idea came from a Dr. Strassburger, assistant to Dr. Kisskalt, of the Hygiene Institute.
Himmler assigned: Ibid.; see also Erhard Geissler et al., Conversion of Former Btw Facilities (Berlin, Germany: Kluwer/Spring Verlag, 1998), 60.
He told his interrogators: RG 330 Kurt Blome, Alsos report, 6.
There, Dr. Traub acquired: Ibid., 13.
alarmed interrogators: Ibid., 18.
The Russians had the laboratory: Ibid., 18.
Chapter Ten: Hired or Hanged
“Our task was to prepare”: Taylor, 49.
“guilt for war atrocities”: Andrus, 57.
“atrocity films taken at Buchenwald”: Ibid., 54.
Funk started to cry: Andrus, 55–56.
“They could sit out in the garden”: Ibid., 57.
fifty-two Ashcan internees were going: Correspondence with John Dolibois, 2012–2013; Dolibois, 133.
His prisoner list included: Dolibois, 133.
chatter among the Nazis in his backseat: Ibid.
Hanns Scharff, kept a diary: Telephone interview with Hanns-Claudius Scharff, September 27, 2012, in California; Toliver, 16–18.
“What is that horrible smell?”: Correspondence with John Dolibois, 2012–2013; Dolibois, 134.
airport at Luxembourg City: Correspondence with John Dolibois, 2012–2013; Dolibois, 135.
even Heinrich Himmler was frightened: Last Days of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, September 22, 1993.
middle-aged man: Dolibois, 137.
approved—on paper—a Nazi scientist program: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 0938–0942.
“formulate general policies”: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 0941.
Operation Backfire: McGovern, 200–204.
“lustily singing, Wir Fahren gegen England”: Franklin, 99–100.
“The British pulled a sneaky on us”: McGovern, 202.
“interrogated for a week”: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 0994.
issued a brown jumpsuit: McGovern, 203.
“the most hated man”: correspondence with Brett Exton, October 14, 2012. The source was a guard at Island Farm, Sergeant Ron Williams. More at: http://www.islandfarm.fsnet.co.uk.
five midlevel: They were Erich Neubert, Theodore Poppel, August Schulze, William Jungert, and Walter Schwidetzky. These men signed several of the first contracts for Project Paperclip’s precursor, Operation Overcast.
crass anti-American jokes: Neufeld, Von Braun, 212.
Sipser overheard von Braun: Ibid., 502n.
von Braun later told New Yorker magazine writer Daniel Lang: Lang, “A Romantic Urge,” 89–90.
handpicked by Colonel Putt: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 1016.
the Germans boarded a C-54 military transport: Samuel, 185.
“Quickly the plane moved”: Ibid., 374.
“They were all seasick as can be”: David Boeri, “Looking Out: Nazis on the Harbor,” NPR, August 19, 2010.
ideal place for a secret military program: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 0997–0998.
an insidious unease: Ibid; intelligence officer Henry Kolm had been working with many of these prisoners already—he was part of a Top Secret German prisoner of war interrogation program at Fort Hunt, Virginia, code-named P.O. Box 1142.
Operation Overcast hotel: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 0997–0998.
the “capitalists’ game”: Samuel, 380.
Major Hamill was required: McGovern, 207–8.
“Well it turned out”: Neufeld, Von Braun, 215. Cites a speech given by Hamill on October 19, 1961.
Major Hamill later recalled: Ibid.; McGovern, 208.
“He is known to have spoken to Hitler”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, FIAT file, November 7, 1945; FIAT EP 254-82, June 14, 1946.
“he is the key man”: Ibid.
“Ambros claimed to be unable”: Ibid.
“Saw Ambros at LU [Ludwigshafen]”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, Report by Captain Edelsten, August 28, 1945.
Whenever the U.S. Army showed up: Ibid.
“private intelligence center”: Ibid.
“Sorry that I could not”: RG 238 Otto Ambros, 201 File, letter from Ambros dated August 27, 1945.
a sizable Dustbin dossier: RG 330 Jürgen von Klenck, D-64032, July 25, 1952.
Horn confirmed: RG 330 Jürgen von Klenck, summary report by Walter Spike, April 23, 1952.
Otto Ambros’s right-hand man: RG 330 Jürgen von Klenck, summary report by Lawrence R. Feindt, July 25, 1952.
“buried at the lonely farm”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, FIAT file, November 7, 1945.
of nerve agent contracts: RG 319 Otto Ambros, IG Farbenindustrie AG Ludwigshafen, September 28, 1944, signed “Ambros.”
“full details”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, FIAT file, November 7, 1945.
“I (SPEER)”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, SHAEF report, Microfilm MP-B-102; RG 319 Otto Ambros, FIAT file, November 7, 1945.
“CW plant at AUSCHWITZ”: RG 319 Otto Ambros, FIAT file, November 7, 1945.
Tilley’s intelligence report: Ibid.
discovered in a Gendorf safe: Ibid.; RG 330 Jürgen von Klenck, summary report by Lawrence R. Feindt, July 25, 1952.
an alternative theory: Ibid.
issued a warrant: RG 319 Otto Ambros, FIAT file, November 7, 1945.
Chapter Eleven: The Ticking Clock
removed from the Military Intelligence Division: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 1032; Lasby, 107, 128; telephone interview with Clarence Lasby, March 23, 2013.
“The JIC structure”: Telephone interview with Larry Valero, May 24, 2013.
“The most important JIC estimates”: Ibid.; Valero, 1.
would postpone “open conflict”: Valero, 4–5.
most likely been captured by the Soviets: Ibid., 5-6.
On its governing body: RG 330 Defense Secretary, Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency. http://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-330-defense-secretary/.
Klaus had hands-on experience: NARA, Holocaust-Era Assets, Overview. Klaus is an unsung hero in this story; most of the State Department files in his name remain classified. Of note, in 1946, a Foreign Economic Administration historian wrote: “There is, so far as this writer knows, no record which names one man as the originator of the Safe Haven project idea. Internal evidence from the records, however, supports the testimony of many participants in the project’s work that Samuel Klaus must be credited with formulating the concepts upon which the program was based.” Klaus was also credited with helping to set up the Berlin Document Center, a central repository for Reich documents, many of which would be used during the Nuremberg trials. The center was used by G-2 intelligence to source German scientists’ past history with the NSDAP, as 90 percent of its member documents survived the war.
Klaus’s sentiments were shared: Hunt 121–23; telephone interview with Clarence Lasby, March 23, 2013; Bower, 164–65. “The military had been won over by phony propaganda that the Germans were the greatest scientists,” the State Department’s Herbert Cummings told journalist Tom Bower decades after the war.
unabashedly vocal: Telephone interview with Clarence Lasby, March 23, 2013.
“less than a dozen”: Bower, 188.
Green came up with an idea: Truman Library, Howland H. Sargeant Papers, 1940–1943; Technical Industrial Intelligence Committee—General, 1944–1950.
different kind of restitution: Library of Congress, Technical Reports and Standards, PB Historical Collection, http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/trs/trspb.html. The Publication Board soon changed its name to the equally bland Office of Technical Services, which continued running a public relations campai
gn.
sixty million jobs: Marlow, “60 Million Jobs. Late Henry Wallace’s Dream Comes True,” Associated Press, April 6, 1966.
Subject headings included: Office of Technical Services, “Classified List of OTS Printed Reports,” John C. Green, Director, Library of Congress, October 1947.
The man in charge of both lists: Lasby, 129–31.
“Specialized knowledge”: Ibid.
first group of six: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 0990; Lasby, 119–21. Note that there is some discrepancy as to who the six were, and the lists (made later) differ in both primary and secondary sources. Luftwaffe test pilot Karl Bauer had already come to the United States and been repatriated, which adds to the confusion.
they began compiling: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 1705. Also contains a map of Wright Field and surrounding area.
original scientists at Wright Field: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 0986, 0988.
the Germans did not pay U.S. taxes: Ibid., 1720.
At the Hilltop: Ibid., 0962.
introductory pamphlet: Ibid., 0992, 0988; Lasby, 120.
“The mere mention”: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 1055.
having handpicked: Samuel, 383.
A War Department memo: War Department General Staff Memo, MIL 920, September 26, 1946 (FOIA).
specialists were offended: Lasby, 123.
like “caged animals”: History of AAF Participation in Project Paperclip, 0989.
“Intangibles of a scientist’s daily life”: Ibid., 0989–0990.
hideous monster Medusa: Author tour of Courtroom 600, Palace of Justice, Nuremberg; Museen der Stadt Nürnberg audio guide; Henkel and Täubrich, 30.
twenty-one present: Three defendants were missing: leader of the German Labor Front Robert Ley had committed suicide in his Nuremberg jail cell; arms magnate Gustav Krupp was eighty-five years old and deemed too frail to stand trial; Martin Bormann had disappeared while attempting to flee from Berlin and was believed dead.
news about Nuremberg: Taylor, 279. Two hundred fifty journalists from twenty countries crowded into the upper balcony area of Courtroom 600; eighty of them were from America. The only nation that seemed relatively uninterested in the trial of the major war criminals was Germany. “Considering the shock, the horror and the destruction Germany was confronted with, getting them interested proved to be very difficult,” said prosecutor Telford Taylor after the trial.
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