KEY PERSONNEL, WWII:
ALLIED FORCES
William “Wild Bill” Donovan: Director of the Office of Strategic Services in WWII
Dwight D. Eisenhower: Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, WW II, became President of the United States 1953-1961.
Charles “Rojo” Goodrich: Army Colonel who was the Senior American Officer (SAO) in South Camp of Stalag Luft III.
Walter Jessel: Army intelligence officer (G-2) who conducted the first security evaluation of Wernher von Braun in June 1945.
Philip J. Lamason: Squadron Leader, Royal NZ Air Force, who was the leader and ranking officer among the Buchenwald airmen.
Holger Toftoy: US Army officer (LtC. initially) placed in charge of the portion of Operation Overcast/Paperclip involving the V-2 rocket team; head of the ABMA.
Major James Hamill and Major Robert Staver: deputies to LtC. Toftoy; Hamill took care of packing up materials at the Mittelwerk and shipping them to Fort Bliss while Staver sought German personnel and documents. Maj Hamill became the program officer at Ft Bliss.
Bosquet Wev: Chairman of the JIOA; a US Navy captain
NAZI GERMANY
Walter Dornberger: Army Ordnance officer in charge of Peenemünde from 1937-1944; thereafter in charge of related special projects including mobile V-2 launch systems; spent two years in British POW camp, then moved to the US with Project Paperclip. After a career that took him from the US Air Force to a VP role at Bell Aircraft Corporation, he retired to Germany, where he died in 1980.
Joseph Göbbels: Propaganda minister for the Nazi government; on 1 May 1945, he committed suicide with his wife after killing his children in Hitler’s underground bunker.
Herman Göring: Head of the Luftwaffe and Hitler’s second-in-command; committed suicide in prison after sentencing at Nuremberg trials in 1946.
Henrich Himmler: Head of the Nazi Party, its paramilitary forces, and civilian and secret police forces; committed suicide after capture in May 1945.
Hans Kammler: SS-general, in charge of major construction projects including Auschwitz, the Mittelwerk, and various industrial facilities; disappeared in April 1945.
Georg Rickhey: General Director of the Mittelwerk in 1944-1945. Brought to US under Project Paperclip but returned to Germany in 1947 as a defendant in the Dora war crimes trial. Acquitted but was not brought back to the US afterward. He died in 1966.
Arthur Rudolph: Responsible for A-4 production at Peenemünde, reporting to von Braun; became head of assembly and production at the Mittelwerk, reporting to Sawatski. Moved to US under Project Paperclip to work for von Braun; was placed in charge of the Saturn-V program. Renounced US citizenship and fled to Germany in 1984 to avoid prosecution for war crimes. He died there in 1996.
Albin Sawatski: Head of production planning for the Mittelwerk, co-chair with von Braun on CCDC Committee; presumed to have died in US custody in May/June 1945.
Albert Speer: Minister of Armaments and War Production, exercising financial and resource allocation for the Nazi government; served 20 year sentence for war crimes and died in 1981.
Magnus von Braun: Responsible for servomotor assemblies at the Mittelwerk 1944-1945. Brought to the US under Project Paperclip. Worked at Fort Bliss with his brother, then went to work in the UK for Chrysler; retired to Arizona and died in 2003.
Wernher von Braun: Technical Director at Peenemünde 1937-1944, Vice President and Technical Director of Elektromechanischewerk, GmbH 1944-1945, Technical Director of CCDC-Mittelbau 1945. Brought to the US under Project Paperclip to lead rocket team from 1945-1972. Retired to private industry and died in 1977.
Equivalent Ranks in the SS, German Army, and US Army
APPENDIX 2: THE FRENCH RESISTANCE VERSUS THE NAZI SECRET POLICE NETWORK
THE SS WAS CREATED IN 1929 from volunteers who provided security for Nazi meetings and demonstrations. After Hitler’s rise, the number of members grew exponentially. By 1940, it was a paramilitary organization with three major divisions (Waffen-SS, Allgemeine-SS, and Totenkompfverbände), sharing a common fanatical mindset.
There were 38 Waffen-SS divisions, and in 1944, the Waffen-SS had roughly 1 million men under arms. Membership in the SS was not limited to German nationals; more than half of the Waffen-SS divisions were staffed by enthusiastic French, Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, and Russian volunteers. Waffen-SS units operated in the field alongside the much more numerous Army units. The Army, organized and staffed with traditional military personnel, was comparable to the British or American Armies. In 1944 the German Army consisted of roughly 12 million soldiers. Relations between the Waffen-SS and the Army were somewhat strained, as the senior officers of the regular army tended to consider SS men to be fanatical soldier-wannabes.
Heinrich Himmler, as head of the Nazi Party (Reichsführer), had control over the civilian police force and all divisions of the SS. The Totenkompfverbände, or Death’s Head unit, was responsible for the administration of concentration camps. The Waffen-SS was originally the combat arm of the SS operating outside of Germany. The Allgemeine-SS originally formed as a “home guard” for the Führer but soon operated throughout Germany, and additional units staffed by local volunteers operated in the Occupied Territories. This division of the SS included the various security forces of the Nazi Party. The operatives of the Gestapo, or Geheime Staatspolizei, were primarily members of the civilian police, but they were awarded Allgemeine-SS ranks. The 150,000 Gestapo agents investigated treason, sabotage, espionage, and other domestic crimes that challenged Nazi authority. The SS had its own secret police known as the SD, or Sicherheitsdienst, which focused on counterintelligence operations such as arresting foreign spies and evading military personnel, as well as neutralizing the resistance networks involved. Although they held SS paramilitary ranks, they often operated in plainclothes like the Gestapo, rather than wearing uniforms. SD agents also accompanied the Army troops, acting as Nazi political officers responsible for ensuring compliance with party attitudes and directives. An especially fanatical division of the SD called the Einsatzgruppen was responsible for atrocities, killing any individual or groups seen as opposing the Nazi regime. This included implementing the Final Solution in the Occupied Territories.
The Gestapo and the SD both reported to Waffen-SS Oberuppenführer (Lieutenant General) Ernst Kaltenbrunner of the Reich Main Security Office, or Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA). Both agencies relied on a network of paid and unpaid informers and sympathizers, as did other agencies of the civilian police that were given shorthand names that included KriPo (criminal police) and the OrPo (order police).
The SD was also assisted by the Vichy government’s security police, the Milice, a paramilitary organization modeled after the SD and tasked with the suppression of the FFI. An embarrassing number of French civilians were willing to provide information to one of the above groups, in exchange for special privileges and cash payments. The Army also had a security police known as the Abwehr, which was primarily responsible for military intelligence, and the Luftwaffe, which ran the POW camps for allied airmen, had special interrogators who focused on gathering intelligence relevant to air operations.
The responsibilities of these various agencies often overlapped or competed. Early in the war, the Abwehr dealt with captured military personnel, the Luftwaffe with captured airmen, the Gestapo watched for treasonous activities, and the SD pursued resistance networks with the help of the Milice. But as the military situation deteriorated and Germany shifted from offense to defense, the Abwehr in France lost personnel and authority, and the Luftwaffe’s influence waned as their air operations lost effectiveness. The power vacuum was filled by the Gestapo and the SD, and by early 1944, both agencies were heavily involved in the detection, capture, and interrogation of downed air crews.
Unfortunately, because most of the FFI members were amateurs and civilians with good intentions but zero background and training in covert activities and security, the German intelligence agencies found it very easy to cor
rupt and infiltrate the resistance networks in occupied France. By 1944, virtually all of the resistance networks in France involved in sheltering Allied airmen had been compromised. When it became clear that they would soon be leaving, the Germans made it a high priority to wipe out all remnants of the resistance networks before their departure.
The Germans had many methods of penetrating resistance groups. Many members of the SD had at one time lived in the US or the UK and were fluent in English. These agents would present themselves to the French as downed airmen or British special operations agents who had parachuted in to help Allied airmen escape. In addition, under threat of imminent death, a small number of resistance members decided to change sides. The Germans also had a small number of dedicated volunteers who believed strongly in the fascist cause and were all too happy to assist the Nazis.
Seventy years after the fact, it is difficult to obtain complete details about the betrayal and capture of all 169 of the airmen evacuated from Fresnes Prison on 15 August 1944. Many of the accounts written following their liberation have been lost, most of the airmen have died, and the Germans were very effective in destroying Gestapo records in Paris prior to their retreat. Yet the accounts that have survived share common features that indicate the existence of a carefully contrived, well orchestrated entrapment program in operation from June-August 1944.
Jacques Desoubrie, a young Belgian, played a pivotal role in dozens of betrayals. In 1944, Desoubrie was 22 years of age, a classic sociopath, and a savvy opportunist. He was quick witted, ruthless, and a superb actor. He volunteered his services to the Gestapo in early 1941. At the time, he was a member of an extreme right-wing group and sympathetic to the Nazi cause. With a command of French, German, and English, and his abilities as a chameleon, he was pre-adapted for the life of a spy – a life he seemed to relish.
In mid-1941, claiming to be an escapee from a German prison, he became involved with a French resistance group called “True Liberty” that was moving evaders (downed airmen) into southern France, which was administered by the puppet Vichy government rather than the Germans. In late November 1941, 75 members of this resistance group were arrested, and 12 of them subsequently executed. After this success, under the name of “Jean Masson,” he started carrying false papers along the Paris-Brussels corridor for the Comet Line, a resistance network that was smuggling downed airmen to Allied forces by moving them across southern France and into Spain. In June 1943, the Paris chiefs of the Comet organization were seized and shot, more than 100 members of the network in France and Brussels were arrested, and a group of British and American airmen were captured and imprisoned as POWs.
Desoubrie then shifted to Paris as the main Gestapo agent in the area. In early 1944, he had rented an apartment as “Pierre Poulain,” and was also called “Pierre du Nord,” but after giving the Gestapo information about a resistance group in southern France, rumors began to circulate that Poulain was a traitor. So Pierre Poulain disappeared, and “Jean Jacques,” a quiet fellow living with his wife and two children, magically appeared. (Although his “wife,” Marie Verger, was married to someone else, the two children were his.) For an introduction to the remnants of the Comet Line (which he had largely demolished), he relied on Maurice Grapin.
Resistance members seldom used their real names, even when dealing with other resistance agents; Maurice called himself “Henri Grampon.” Henri was a minor player in the local resistance network who had been arrested in early 1944 and decided it was time to change sides. His return with a story about a narrow escape was unquestioned, and he was welcomed back into the fold.
As an agent of SS-Colonel Hans Kieffer, deputy head of the Paris Gestapo, Grapin’s role was to serve as the intermediary between Jacques Desoubrie (or whatever name he was currently using) and the German security police. To establish “Jean Jacques” as bona fide, Henri introduced him to Collette Marie Orsini, a young woman whose parents had sheltered airmen who later escaped through Spain. Mme. Orsini then introduced Jean Jacques to Louis Picourt, the head of the Eure FFI who was based in Chartres. Max Raulin reported to Picourt. With the Comet Line in disarray, Picourt had airmen hiding in multiple locations but had no secure way to get them out of the country. Jean Jacques claimed to have the solution to this, and offered to assist in getting the papers and connections organized to move the airmen to safety. He even had his own car and papers that would allow him free movement. Collette was, to use a then-popular phrase, “a looker,” young, red-haired, and free-spirited. Although married, she and her new friend Jean Jacques were soon a couple.
Despite the obvious questions that might have arisen, Jean Jacques was so convincing and smooth that in short order, Picourt took him on a tour to meet the chiefs of resistance units in other parts of occupied France. Captain Max Raulin’s base was one of their first stops because his far-flung network was hiding so many airmen; in mid-July 1944 he had at least 12 airmen, eight from the USAAF and four from the RAF. Jean Jacques was of course delighted to hear this. Each airman delivered to the Gestapo was worth a 10,000 franc “bonus,” and with the Allies advancing rapidly, he needed to wrap things up and leave the country. He was on a roll – from late June to late July, he had spearheaded the collection and delivery of at least 38 airmen to the Gestapo in Paris. Yet no one in the FFI had as yet suspected that he was a double agent; for his efforts, he had been appointed the FFI chief for Aisne, a district near the Belgian border.
Jean Jacques was widely known as a trusted FFI transporter who, with Collette by his side, would pick up airmen in small groups from rural locations and deliver them to Paris (they first tried using the train, but the car was simpler and more direct). Jean Jacques usually delivered airmen directly to a hotel, but he occasionally used Collette’s residence at 7 rue des Batignolles, Paris, as a way-station. The hotels were in a rather seedy, red-light district of Paris where few questions would be asked. One of the favorite destinations was the Piccadilly Hotel at 61 rue Pigalle, where rooms could be rented by the hour. Louis Gianoni, another SD agent, worked there and managed an adjacent bar/lounge, Le Prélude, at 59 rue Pigalle. If the airmen had already been questioned in some detail, they were left at the hotel until transport could be arranged — whereupon they were delivered to the Germans. If the airmen had neither been questioned nor given one of the bogus Red Cross cards used to collect information, they were sometimes kept there for days, awaiting the arrival of a British agent who, they were told, was the head of the local resistance network.
Desoubrie was primarily responsible for collecting airmen sheltered in Normandy, which included the Eure district where Fred was hidden. The “Comet Line” was the name of the resistance network that was attempting to repatriate the airmen, and Desoubrie had infiltrated the network very effectively. He was kept very busy because so many aircraft transited the area to hit targets in France and Germany. Other SD agents focused on other districts and escape lines, although all of their networks intersected in Paris.
A lot of confusion was caused by the names “Captain Jack,” “Captain Jacques,” and “Jacques” (as in Jean Jacques or Jacques Desoubrie). In practice, these names were used for convenience by several different traitors and SD agents operating in Paris and outlying areas. The man most often adopting the cover “Captain Jacques” was Guy Marcharet. Marcharet was tall – almost 6’ – with brown hair and blue eyes. He was about 35 years old, and he spoke fluent English. He often claimed to be a British or Canadian Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent.
Marcharet often delivered betrayed airmen to 20 Boulevard de Sebastapol, a house where George Prevost lived with his sister Genevieve Rocher and her husband Jean. George was short, middle aged, heavyset (or fat), and balding, with thick glasses. He also had a prominent gold filling in his front teeth. His sister, older and matronly, did the cooking and cleaning. The Prevost clan was an established member of a resistance network; they had aided 28 airmen in the past, but at this point their cover was completely blown and they were bein
g used, no doubt with great glee, by the SD. Here again, arriving airmen were told to await the arrival of a resistance chief.
The identity of the “head of the network” was a largely a matter of convenience. For airmen delivered to staging areas by either Desoubrie or Marcharet, the resistance chief who showed up was one of the senior SD officers in Paris, Hauptmann (Captain) Christian Schnell. Schnell had relatives in Chicago and had spent considerable time there before the war. When operating undercover, Schnell was usually introduced as “Captain Jack,” an American from Chicago (or occasionally Maine). However, if Schnell was unavailable, Marcharet might show up to interrogate airmen brought by Desoubrie, and Desoubrie could be introduced as “Captain Jacques” to airmen brought to the Prevost house.
As a result of this identity swapping, when the captured airmen were liberated and asked who had betrayed them, they all tended to say “Captain Jacques” or “Captain Jack” or “Jacques.” It was initially thought that Desoubrie had been everywhere and done everything; had he survived (he was caught and executed — with Guy Marcharet —in late 1949), he probably would have been flattered by the padding of his resume. His record hardly needed padding — he was responsible for the capture of half of the Buchenwald airmen (84), almost twice the number of airmen attributed to Marcharet (43).
A third senior SD agent was known as Draga; his real name was Niodrz Yevremovitch. Draga was in his mid-30s, about 5’10” tall, with short dark hair, grey eyes, and a pale complexion. Schnell had recruited him from the Marseilles jail early in the occupation. Draga usually introduced himself as “Dr. Maurice,” a Spanish doctor working for the resistance; airmen were sometimes delivered to his Paris home at 2 Square Aliscamps. At other times he, rather than Marcheret, visited airmen at the Hotel Piccadilly as the “resistance chief.” In short, Desoubrie, Marcheret, Schnell, and Draga were busily disassembling escape networks, their paths in Paris intersected frequently in the hectic period of June-August 1944.
Betrayed: Secrecy, Lies, and Consequences Page 41
