Betrayed: Secrecy, Lies, and Consequences

by Frederic Martini

  The press conference at Wright-Patterson, and similar briefings at Fort Bliss, followed what would become the official “party line.” The Paperclip Germans were introduced as apolitical scientists who had spent the war in academic pursuits at an advanced research facility at Peenemünde. The American public was assured that these men had been exhaustively screened, and that they were “ivory tower” scientists who were not involved with any nefarious Nazi activities. Much was made of the congenial working relations between the Germans and their American counterparts, despite the fact that those relations were often difficult and contentious. Staged PR photos were provided, and the resulting articles were carefully vetted by military censors.

  With the leaks addressed and publicity managed, it was time to try to sort out the security clearances. On 26 October, the JIOA requested security reports from OMGUS for people on the Paperclip “shopping list” who were living in and around Camp Overcast. On 3 March 1947, a memo was sent from the JIOA to OMGUS requesting that von Braun’s security report be revised, as it would never get past a State Department review panel. The same was true for many of the security reports prepared for members of the rocket team who were already at Fort Bliss. In many cases, the recommendations and conclusions reached by the investigators had been completely ignored since at the time, there was no need for outside review. But negative comments in a security report submitted as part of a visa application would cause major problems. For example, the conclusions of the Rudolph report included “100% Nazi. . . . suggest internment,” and von Braun’s report called him an ardent Nazi who was likely to constitute a security threat.

  The request for another security report for Wernher came at a bad time. Since his surrender in 1945, Wernher had been asked repeatedly about missing or hidden V-2 documents, and he’d consistently denied having any information about them. The JIOA already knew that this was a lie, as Major Staver had recovered the 14 tons of paperwork hidden by Huzel and Tessmann at von Braun’s orders. Since they already had the paperwork, LtC. Toftoy had no reason to confront von Braun about the discrepancy. But Wernher’s web of lies started to unravel in January 1947 when he sent a letter through the US mail to Walter Dornberger’s wife in Germany (Dornberger was still out of reach in a POW facility in Bridgend, Wales). With his letter, Wernher included a map, showing the location of a cache of documents buried in a forest near Oberjoch. He asked Dornberger’s wife to get the documents and give them to one of the Germans who would be heading to the US under the Paperclip program.

  The letter was intercepted by Army censors at Landshut, and alarm bells began ringing. LtC. Edward Tilley, in the Special Investigations section of the Army’s Field Intelligence Agency, Technical (FIAT), was put in charge of the investigation. The resulting furor involved both Army security and British Intelligence, culminating in an investigation code named Project Abstract.

  Five days later, LtC. Tilley and Dr. John Marchant arrived at Fort Bliss to interrogate von Braun. They wanted it to be a thorough interrogation, but LtC. Toftoy and Major Hamill refused to allow it. They considered von Braun to be irreplaceable, and they explicitly ruled out aggressive tactics.

  Instead, Wernher was invited to a lengthy, sometimes rambling, low-key interview. Wernher was uncertain as to the intent of the interview, but the atmosphere was relaxed and congenial. The conversation covered a lot of ground, and Tilley felt it significant that von Braun’s descriptions of his responsibilities and activities in Bleicherode were subtly different from those of the other Germans interrogated. When asked about the period before leaving Peenemünde, he spoke freely, but when questioned about the period after his departure from Peenemünde, he was evasive.

  At several points, and in many different ways, Tilley and Marchant sought information about documents buried in or around Oberammergau, Objerjoch, Bad Sachsa, or Upper Bavaria in general. Wernher calmly and consistently maintained that he knew nothing whatever about any caches of hidden documents. This drove Tilley wild. Toftoy’s ground rules prevented Tilley from confronting Wenher with the evidence of his own letter, nor could he mention the 14 tons of documents Huzel and Tessman had buried on Wernher’s orders. Tilley did ask about labor status reports from the Mittelwerk. Those reports, including death rates, had been forwarded to Wernher’s office and recovered from that cache. Wernher said he had never seen any such reports. The question may have unsettled him — Why would they ask about labor reports? — because he lost track of what he had or hadn’t said in prior interviews. For example, in 1945 he had claimed that he was in Peenemünde until his car accident, whereas in his 1947 interview, he said that he had gone to Bleicherode to arrange housing for his staff. Tilley knew both statements were incorrect, given the files and correspondence already recovered. Asked to draw an organizational chart for the V-2 program, Wernher failed to include Albin Sawatski, the head of production at the Mittelwerk and his co-chair on the A-4 Production Committee. The omission contrasted with similar charts drawn by other members of the German rocket team, which gave both Sawatski and von Braun considerable prominence. Wernher was clearly avoiding any questions regarding his relationship with Sawatski and the Mittelwerk, neither mentioning that facility nor acknowledging his position and responsibilities in the CCDC-Mittelbau.

  Tilley also discovered that von Braun had been withholding information about several advanced German research programs that he had previously “forgotten” to mention, including plans for an atomic rocket. In short, the interview was superficially cordial but intensely frustrating for the interrogators. In the aftermath, Tilley was so infuriated with the dissembling, inconsistencies, and runaround he had gotten from von Braun that he advocated shipping Wernher to a military prison in Germany for more aggressive interrogation. The suggestion fell on deaf ears. If Wernher were treated roughly, Toftoy and Hamill were sure that they would lose the cooperation of the entire German team. Whether or not that was the case, Wernher had done a superb job convincing them that he was irreplaceable, which gave him both protection and leverage.

  Over this same period, British and American investigators assigned to the project interrogated Walter Dornberger, several of Dornberger’s staff officers, Dornberger’s wife, personnel who had worked with von Braun, von Braun’s parents, and Wernher’s older brother Sigismund. Their statements independently confirmed that von Braun was lying outrageously. When the British asked Dornberger about hidden documents, he admitted that he, von Braun, and Axster had been together when they stashed documents at various locations. Dornberger was then taken to Germany to assist in locating the missing documents.

  But when Dornberger took the investigators to the spot where the three men had buried a small tin containing a map indicating the locations of the caches, they found nothing. Dornberger thought it likely that von Braun had moved the tin, for reasons of his own. The project wasn’t a total bust, however. When interviewed, Dornberger and Axster admitted that they had each hidden other documents, without telling other team members. With their assistance, Project Abstract recovered those documents for the British and American guided missile programs. However, due to the constraints imposed by LtC. Toftoy, the investigators were never able to determine what Wernher intended to do with the documents he was trying to reclaim.

  FIAT was not the only agency concerned about the security of the rocket program at Fort Bliss. FBI agents in the area flagged many strange and suspicious activities involving the imported Germans over this period. For example, Magnus von Braun, Wernher’s younger brother, walked into an El Paso jewelry store and sold the proprietor a bar of pure platinum for a small fortune. Nobody could figure out where he got it. Other members of the rocket team received wire transfers of cash from unknown persons in South America, or were found traveling off base carrying highly classified material, which violated multiple security protocols. The FBI was worried that the Texas Germans might be selling classified materials to make easy money, but the Army told the FBI to stand down. There was too great a risk of adve
rse publicity that would harm the program. The standing orders now appear to be: (1) don’t upset von Braun, (2) keep the program on track, (3) avoid adverse publicity, and (4) maintain tight security, as long as it doesn’t interfere with orders 1 or 2.

  Wernher was totally oblivious to the wrangling that was going on between the Army, FIAT, and the FBI, and shortly after the visit by Tilley and Marchant, he asked to be allowed to return to Germany under military escort to marry his first cousin, Maria von Quistorp. She had just turned 18, whereas Wernher was 35. He later said that he’d fallen in love and decided to marry her when he held her as a newborn in his arms. A trip to Germany would violate the terms of his employment, which specifically prohibited him from returning to Germany while the contract was in effect, but LtC. Toftoy approved the trip by liberal interpretation of an emergency clause. Perhaps in his view, it was an emergency — under the circumstances, getting Wernher safely out of the way of investigators not under Toftoy’s control seemed like an excellent idea. The wedding took place in Landshut, Germany, in early March.

  In April, Toftoy received a report from a counterintelligence team not involved with security clearances for Wernher and his team. It included:

  In Peenemünde there was the V-2 research group under the command of the German Army and a research department of the German Air Force which worked on the development of an anti-aircraft rocket with remote control facilities. The scientific work in this department was under the direction of Dr. Netzer.

  Since the present interest to the United States and other nations in this work has developed, the leaders of the Peenemünde research group have been consistent in their opposition to the group under Dr. Netzer. Particularly has this been true in the case of Dir. Steinhoff and Dr. von Braun who have done what they could to misrepresent and discredit the work of Dr. Netzer’s research group. von Braun and Steinhoff are in the United States.

  In connection with the promotion of his own personal interests and those of his particular research group, Dr. Von Braun has two members of his group who are not scientists or technicians. These men are Dr. Axster, a lawyer in civilian life and a major in the German Army during World War II, and Director Steinhoff, a merchant in civilian life and an official from the German high command who served at Peenemünde under orders from Berlin.

  It appears that Dr. von Braun may attempt to portray the background of his two associates, Dr. Axster and director Steinhoff, as eminently scientific.

  The agents had written because they feared that Wernher’s discrediting of Dr. Netzer could impede proper exploitation of Dr. Netzer’s work. Although they flagged the misrepresentation of personnel in his group, they made no further recommendations, saying only that they provided the information to support “such action as is deemed appropriate.”

  LtC. Toftoy must have decided that there was little to be gained by challenging Wernher at this stage, and the report was filed away. Similarly, no action was taken in response to negative reports about other members of the rocket team. OMGUS reported that Axster’s wife was said to be a committed Nazi who physically abused prisoners assigned to her as servants, but that too was ignored.

  A revised security report on von Braun arrived from OMGUS investigators in May, but an objective reviewer would have characterized it as lukewarm at best. The same point was made multiple times in the document (italics added):

  A search of the files of 7708 War Crimes Group fails to disclose any record of war crimes and subject. No civil crimes records were checked because subject formerly resided in the Russian zone. Since subject formerly resided in the Russian zone his employment status could not be determined.

  Based on available records, subject is not a war criminal. He was an SS officer but no information is available to indicate that he was an ardent Nazi. Subject is regarded as a potential security threat by the Military Governor, OMGUS. A complete background investigation could not be obtained because subject was evacuated from the Russian zone of Germany.

  Based on available records subject has not participated in any party affiliations, fraternal, political, military, or other public or private organizations during or since the Hitler regime.

  Based on available records, subject has no criminal record or charges of suspicion of being a war criminal.

  In other words, the investigators in occupied Germany had no real way to evaluate von Braun. They had no information in their files regarding his activities during the war, and thus no way to decide whether or not he would be a security risk nor whether or not he was a potential war criminal. The only way to answer those questions would be to access records lying within the Russian zone, which was impossible.

  A June 1947 memo from the Judge Advocate General’s office concerning von Braun was equally circumspect, saying, “There is no positive information linking subject with War Crimes cases which this Group has developed.” Use of the term positive information rather than information suggests that there may have been unsubstantiated reports, but as no clarification was requested, there is no way to be certain.

  The Army staff in Germany were not thrilled about being pressed to revise security reports. In reviewing the reports, one lieutenant colonel wrote. “Your attention is invited to paragraph 2(a)(5) of SWNCC 257/24 which indicates that active Nazis are not qualified for exploitation under the Paperclip Program.” The wishy-washy response to their whitewashing requests raised hackles inside the JIOA. Captain Bosquet Wev, the Committee Chair, complained that the fuss about a Paperclip candidate’s past history was tantamount to “beating a dead Nazi horse.”

  The ongoing denazification program in Germany added to Project Paperclip’s headaches. General Lucius Clay was in charge of the program managed by OMGUS. Under the regulations in force, all Germans over age 18 had to undergo a review of their record and affiliations to determine their level of involvement with the Nazi regime and their support of Nazi principles. Clay simply had too few G-2 investigators to deal with the demands of the JIOA, plus handle thousands of pending denazification reviews. So he took the lazy way out, deciding that from that time onward, Germans already in the US would be exempt from German denazification procedures, and that their security clearances would be the responsibility of US agencies. If they wanted these Germans so badly, they could write their own security reviews. He would, however, provide them with plenty of blank denazification forms.

  Meanwhile, on 1 July 1947, Wernher signed his third six-month contract at a salary of $831.25/mo ($10,975/mo today). Three consecutive six-month contracts were difficult to justify under a six-month-then-home policy, so on 14 July, Army Ordnance recommended that Wernher be approved for immigration. The other good news Wernher received that month was that Walter Dornberger was en route to the US under Project Paperclip. He was soon working on guided missile development at Wright-Patterson air base in Ohio. The decision to release Dornberger to the Americans, rather than returning him to Britain for trial as a war criminal, was an indirect result of his cooperation with the Project Abstract investigation.

  From April to August 1947, the Buchenwald War Crimes Trial was held at Dachau. One of the offenses charged was the detention and death of Allied POWs. It would be reasonable to assume that camp records about the Buchenwald airmen, depositions documenting the treatment of the 168 Allied airmen, and the deaths of Philip Hemmens and Levitt Beck would have been featured by the prosecution. However, when challenged for specifics by the defense team, the prosecution was unable to provide the name of a single Allied POW who had been held at Buchenwald, nor could they identify any airmen who had died there. Neither was there any mention, at any point in the trial, of the transfer of thousands of prisoners to Dora and the Mittelwerk for the V-2 program.

  Thus in the long run, it didn’t matter that Fred and most of the other sergeants hadn’t given formal war crimes depositions. Through the summer of 1945, war crimes documents relating to the Buchenwald airmen had been assembled and classified Secret by the Judge Advocate General, for use in s
ubsequent prosecution. But all of that documentation was subsequently collected and buried. The collection process was remarkably thorough. Eugen Kogon, a prisoner who worked in Block 46 at Buchenwald, prepared a comprehensive Buchenwald Report in April 1945. The report, written in German, had a section specifically addressing the detention of Allied airmen at Buchenwald. The completed report subsequently disappeared, although a few individual sections were made available to prosecutors at the Buchenwald War Crimes trial.151 The Buchenwald file cards and records of the airmen were withheld. Even the relevant pages of the train manifest listing the prisoners transported from Paris to Buchenwald were excised.152 By the time the Buchenwald trial got underway, there was no evidence to indicate that what Fred and the other airmen might claim to have experienced was anything more than a flight of fancy.

  Orders for the collection of files related to the Buchenwald airmen have not been found, but such comprehensive record suppression was no accident. Moreover, the British, who expected to receive the rocket team’s research data, also collected and suppressed the files of their Buchenwald airmen, withholding the names and depositions from war crimes prosecutors. It is hardly credible that two allied governments would collect and classify the records so efficiently and then simultaneously lose track of them. Nor was this the only case where national security concerns were placed ahead of justice for American POWs. Over the same period that the airmen’s records and depositions were sequestered (1946-1947), the war crimes depositions from American POWs subjected to chemical and biological warfare experimentation in Japan were collected and suppressed, the related war crimes trials were cancelled, and the war criminals were pardoned. In return, the Japanese war criminals agreed to cooperate with the US government and share their experimental data.153 The suppression orders were issued on behalf of the JIOA by Army Intelligence (G-2), which was responsible for security of both the Japanese programs and Project Paperclip, and it is undeniable that publicity about the Buchenwald airmen would have led to questions that would have threatened the security of the Paperclip program.154