18-11-2008, 02:18 PM
[quote=Peter Lemkin]This article dates from some years back, but I can confirm the situation has changed not at all.....as I have been trying to get some files and have been twarted at every try.... Wonder if things will be different under Obama....
URL: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/05/03/nazi
Our Nazi allies
A German amateur investigator finds information on the U.S. government's friendly dealings with war criminals. Meanwhile, the FBI and CIA guard their records.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Ken Silverstein
Dieter Maier, an amateur investigator working from his home on the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, has uncanny luck finding out about U.S. ties to the Nazis.
For the past 20 years, Maier has been filing a steady stream of requests for information to a variety of U.S. government agencies, largely for the existential pleasure of historical inquiry, and also out of a fear of a rebirth of Nazism, fascism and racism in Germany. The more he knows about the past, he says, the better prepared he is to deal with the future and present.
What is most startling about Maier's success, however, is that he appears to have had an easier time finding information on U.S. collaboration with Nazis after World War II than a committee appointed by Congress to extract the same controversial data. ....................
Maier's research offers other hints at information still hidden in agencies' files. Consider what he discovered about SS officer Otto "Scarface" Skorzeny, one of Hitler's most rabid followers and a man whose files should certainly be released under the NWCDA. In 1943, Skorzeny led a commando raid that rescued Benito Mussolini from an Allied prison. The following year, he kidnapped Hungarian Regent Mikl�s Horthy, who was planning to sign a peace agreement with the Russians. Such exploits led the Allied press to dub Skorzeny "the most dangerous man in Europe."
In 1948, Skorzeny escaped from an American POW camp. He moved to Spain and became intimately involved in postwar neo-Nazi movements, and is suspected of involvement in the disposition of looted assets. According to several published accounts, including one by former U.S. intelligence agent Miles Copeland, Skorzeny, who died in 1975, helped the CIA train the Egyptian security services in the 1950s.
Other than a few bland pages from the Treasury Department, government agencies have turned over nothing on Skorzeny under the NWCDA. Meanwhile, Maier has uncovered a 1951 Air Force memo that details a meeting in Spain that year between Skorzeny and an unnamed American intelligence agent. The meeting occurred while Skorzeny was a fugitive on a U.S. arrest warrant, and hunted by German authorities for possible prosecution on war crimes charges.
The U.S. agent was clearly on good terms with Skorzeny -- "Customary greeting is not unlike being welcomed by a huge bear or engulfed by a Saint Bernard dog," reads his account. The agent seems to have been no fan, though, of Scarface's wife, Countess Ilsa von Finkelstein. During the conversation, Skorzeny complained that the U.S. Treasury had frozen the profits from the sale of his war memoirs. Reads the memo: "Commenting on this particular point, his wife displayed her rare appearing sense of humor: 'Good God, do you realize that by our money going to the U.S. Treasury, Rolf [Skorzeny's alias] is actually paying for re-arming the French!'"
The memo contains repeated references to Skorzeny's desire to aid America in the fight against communism (though he feared "a loss of face in his [Nazi] followers" should he openly collaborate with the U.S.). "His primary interest appears to be to find some kind of position for himself relative to the only trade he knows -- soldiering," the agent reported. "He champions the cause of those nationals of other countries who fought with the German allies against the Russians and who are now held in prison, and plunks for the creation of the nucleus of a German Commando Cadre in Spain about which could be formed a new German army to combat the Russians."
Skorzeny apparently had knowledge of a number of wanted war criminals, including Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Hitler's most decorated airman. Skorzeny indicated to the American agent that he had met with Rudel -- who at the time had found refuge in dictator Juan Peron's Argentina -- on a recent trip to Lisbon, Portugal. Rudel, Skorzeny said, was bitter toward his former enemies "inasmuch as he was tried as a war criminal and convicted, [and] he cannot legally return to Germany." However, Skorzeny reported that Rudel had returned several times to Germany "in the black" and was "anxious to be on the side of the United States if given the opportunity."
The memo closed by saying that the reporting officer "sees Skorzeny frequently and has succeeded in winning his confidence completely, but it is felt that this source has scarcely been scratched when one considers the wealth of information he possesses. Skorzeny will continue to be watched and pertinent information forwarded when available."
The primary disclosures under the NWCDA so far are found in thousands of pages released by the Army concerning the little known Field Intelligence Agency Technical. That agency's goal was to ensure that the Allies received ample payment from Germany for war damages. Since Germany was devastated by war's end, it was clear that such reparations would need to take the form of "ideas, formulae, processes, and know-how� concerning German scientific and industrial technology," as one Army memo put it.
Hence, FIAT investigators scoured Germany looking for anything that might be suitable war compensation.
German scientists themselves were primary targets of FIAT investigators, whose job included finding suitable candidates for a top-secret program called "Overcast." As Simpson reported in "Blowback," the Joint Chiefs of Staff initiated that program in July 1945 to, according to a military memo, "exploit chosen rare minds whose continuing intellectual productivity we wish to use." Overcast evolved into Operation Paperclip, through which the U.S. secretly brought over hundreds of Nazi scientists to work in American military and industrial labs.
All of this was done in the strictest secrecy. A March 1947 military memo I discovered in the documents reads: "Every effort will be made to prevent this operation from being publicized. All communications concerning the movement will refer to the [scientists] as 'German civilians.' No interrogation or interviews by the press or other persons not directly concerned with the movement will be permitted."
Nor did the Army want word of such programs to leak out in Germany. A 1946 memo written by U.S. Brig. Gen. G.K. Gailey said his office "appreciates fully the technical value of Overcast and similar projects. It also appreciates that these scientists can execute the maximum of creative and recreative work when they know that their dependents are comfortable, and their property safeguarded." Nonetheless, Gailey felt it prudent to keep such programs unknown to the general German populace, who might resent perks offered to scientists, such as extra rations and fuel. "The moral effect on the other citizens and the lessening of respect for Military Government and the local German government, as organizations of special privileges, will do much to lessen the value of the instruction of true democracy which we are endeavoring to fost[er]," he wrote.
FIAT investigators screened German scientists, supposedly to ensure that no war criminals were brought to the United States. Instead, Nazi Party members and collaborators had their records cleaned up in order to justify their immigration to America. Paperclip's most famous beneficiary was Wernher von Braun, an SS officer who helped develop the V-2 rockets for Hitler and later went to work for NASA, ultimately rising to the post of deputy assistant director of planning. (Harvard mathematics professor and musician Tom Lehrer satirized von Braun in a song named after him: "Don't say that he's hypocritical," Lehrer sang, "say rather that he's apolitical. 'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun.")
The case of Paperclip recruit Wilhelm Eitel is discussed in great detail in the FIAT files. Eitel joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and during the war worked at the strategically important Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. FIAT had a wealth of negative material on Eitel, including numerous sworn statements from people who said he had "embraced the cause of Nazism even before the [Nazis] assumed governmental power in Germany."
________________________
Peter (And anyonbe out there in the MA area):
In the 80s and 90's Carl Oglesby sued the US government over and over to obtain two sets of records: his own and those of the Gahlen Org, with a particular interest in writing about Skorzeny. He was eventually successful. But by the time he received all the boxes- they literally filled a room- he was out of steam, still working on his SDS memoir- where his personal FBI files did assist his memory
It is my understanding that all of these boxes have been donated to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA. Hopefully some enterprising researcher will make good use of these materials. It was Oglesby and Mae Brussell (separately) who first broke the Gahlen story. Carl in his masterfull " The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate", (1976).
John Simkin had begun scanning that book at EF in 06, got about 5 chapters up then ...stopped. Perhaps someone here who still posts there can ask him to finish this project for the sake of education. The book has been out of print for decades now.
Dawn
URL: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/05/03/nazi
Our Nazi allies
A German amateur investigator finds information on the U.S. government's friendly dealings with war criminals. Meanwhile, the FBI and CIA guard their records.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Ken Silverstein
Dieter Maier, an amateur investigator working from his home on the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, has uncanny luck finding out about U.S. ties to the Nazis.
For the past 20 years, Maier has been filing a steady stream of requests for information to a variety of U.S. government agencies, largely for the existential pleasure of historical inquiry, and also out of a fear of a rebirth of Nazism, fascism and racism in Germany. The more he knows about the past, he says, the better prepared he is to deal with the future and present.
What is most startling about Maier's success, however, is that he appears to have had an easier time finding information on U.S. collaboration with Nazis after World War II than a committee appointed by Congress to extract the same controversial data. ....................
Maier's research offers other hints at information still hidden in agencies' files. Consider what he discovered about SS officer Otto "Scarface" Skorzeny, one of Hitler's most rabid followers and a man whose files should certainly be released under the NWCDA. In 1943, Skorzeny led a commando raid that rescued Benito Mussolini from an Allied prison. The following year, he kidnapped Hungarian Regent Mikl�s Horthy, who was planning to sign a peace agreement with the Russians. Such exploits led the Allied press to dub Skorzeny "the most dangerous man in Europe."
In 1948, Skorzeny escaped from an American POW camp. He moved to Spain and became intimately involved in postwar neo-Nazi movements, and is suspected of involvement in the disposition of looted assets. According to several published accounts, including one by former U.S. intelligence agent Miles Copeland, Skorzeny, who died in 1975, helped the CIA train the Egyptian security services in the 1950s.
Other than a few bland pages from the Treasury Department, government agencies have turned over nothing on Skorzeny under the NWCDA. Meanwhile, Maier has uncovered a 1951 Air Force memo that details a meeting in Spain that year between Skorzeny and an unnamed American intelligence agent. The meeting occurred while Skorzeny was a fugitive on a U.S. arrest warrant, and hunted by German authorities for possible prosecution on war crimes charges.
The U.S. agent was clearly on good terms with Skorzeny -- "Customary greeting is not unlike being welcomed by a huge bear or engulfed by a Saint Bernard dog," reads his account. The agent seems to have been no fan, though, of Scarface's wife, Countess Ilsa von Finkelstein. During the conversation, Skorzeny complained that the U.S. Treasury had frozen the profits from the sale of his war memoirs. Reads the memo: "Commenting on this particular point, his wife displayed her rare appearing sense of humor: 'Good God, do you realize that by our money going to the U.S. Treasury, Rolf [Skorzeny's alias] is actually paying for re-arming the French!'"
The memo contains repeated references to Skorzeny's desire to aid America in the fight against communism (though he feared "a loss of face in his [Nazi] followers" should he openly collaborate with the U.S.). "His primary interest appears to be to find some kind of position for himself relative to the only trade he knows -- soldiering," the agent reported. "He champions the cause of those nationals of other countries who fought with the German allies against the Russians and who are now held in prison, and plunks for the creation of the nucleus of a German Commando Cadre in Spain about which could be formed a new German army to combat the Russians."
Skorzeny apparently had knowledge of a number of wanted war criminals, including Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Hitler's most decorated airman. Skorzeny indicated to the American agent that he had met with Rudel -- who at the time had found refuge in dictator Juan Peron's Argentina -- on a recent trip to Lisbon, Portugal. Rudel, Skorzeny said, was bitter toward his former enemies "inasmuch as he was tried as a war criminal and convicted, [and] he cannot legally return to Germany." However, Skorzeny reported that Rudel had returned several times to Germany "in the black" and was "anxious to be on the side of the United States if given the opportunity."
The memo closed by saying that the reporting officer "sees Skorzeny frequently and has succeeded in winning his confidence completely, but it is felt that this source has scarcely been scratched when one considers the wealth of information he possesses. Skorzeny will continue to be watched and pertinent information forwarded when available."
The primary disclosures under the NWCDA so far are found in thousands of pages released by the Army concerning the little known Field Intelligence Agency Technical. That agency's goal was to ensure that the Allies received ample payment from Germany for war damages. Since Germany was devastated by war's end, it was clear that such reparations would need to take the form of "ideas, formulae, processes, and know-how� concerning German scientific and industrial technology," as one Army memo put it.
Hence, FIAT investigators scoured Germany looking for anything that might be suitable war compensation.
German scientists themselves were primary targets of FIAT investigators, whose job included finding suitable candidates for a top-secret program called "Overcast." As Simpson reported in "Blowback," the Joint Chiefs of Staff initiated that program in July 1945 to, according to a military memo, "exploit chosen rare minds whose continuing intellectual productivity we wish to use." Overcast evolved into Operation Paperclip, through which the U.S. secretly brought over hundreds of Nazi scientists to work in American military and industrial labs.
All of this was done in the strictest secrecy. A March 1947 military memo I discovered in the documents reads: "Every effort will be made to prevent this operation from being publicized. All communications concerning the movement will refer to the [scientists] as 'German civilians.' No interrogation or interviews by the press or other persons not directly concerned with the movement will be permitted."
Nor did the Army want word of such programs to leak out in Germany. A 1946 memo written by U.S. Brig. Gen. G.K. Gailey said his office "appreciates fully the technical value of Overcast and similar projects. It also appreciates that these scientists can execute the maximum of creative and recreative work when they know that their dependents are comfortable, and their property safeguarded." Nonetheless, Gailey felt it prudent to keep such programs unknown to the general German populace, who might resent perks offered to scientists, such as extra rations and fuel. "The moral effect on the other citizens and the lessening of respect for Military Government and the local German government, as organizations of special privileges, will do much to lessen the value of the instruction of true democracy which we are endeavoring to fost[er]," he wrote.
FIAT investigators screened German scientists, supposedly to ensure that no war criminals were brought to the United States. Instead, Nazi Party members and collaborators had their records cleaned up in order to justify their immigration to America. Paperclip's most famous beneficiary was Wernher von Braun, an SS officer who helped develop the V-2 rockets for Hitler and later went to work for NASA, ultimately rising to the post of deputy assistant director of planning. (Harvard mathematics professor and musician Tom Lehrer satirized von Braun in a song named after him: "Don't say that he's hypocritical," Lehrer sang, "say rather that he's apolitical. 'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun.")
The case of Paperclip recruit Wilhelm Eitel is discussed in great detail in the FIAT files. Eitel joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and during the war worked at the strategically important Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. FIAT had a wealth of negative material on Eitel, including numerous sworn statements from people who said he had "embraced the cause of Nazism even before the [Nazis] assumed governmental power in Germany."
________________________
Peter (And anyonbe out there in the MA area):
In the 80s and 90's Carl Oglesby sued the US government over and over to obtain two sets of records: his own and those of the Gahlen Org, with a particular interest in writing about Skorzeny. He was eventually successful. But by the time he received all the boxes- they literally filled a room- he was out of steam, still working on his SDS memoir- where his personal FBI files did assist his memory
It is my understanding that all of these boxes have been donated to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA. Hopefully some enterprising researcher will make good use of these materials. It was Oglesby and Mae Brussell (separately) who first broke the Gahlen story. Carl in his masterfull " The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate", (1976).
John Simkin had begun scanning that book at EF in 06, got about 5 chapters up then ...stopped. Perhaps someone here who still posts there can ask him to finish this project for the sake of education. The book has been out of print for decades now.
Dawn