See also, "The ALSOS Mission and Heisenberg"
Aarons, Mark, and John
Loftus. Unholy Trinity: How the Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western
Intelligence to the Soviets. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. [pb]
1993. Ratlines: How the Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence
to the Soviets. London: Heinemann, 1991. London: Mandarin, 1991. [pb]
According to Surveillant 1.6, the authors claim not just that there was an effort by the Vatican to smuggle Nazis out of Europe but that the effort was infiltrated by the KGB.
NameBase says that the authors present "the most comprehensive account yet" of "the role of the Vatican 'Ratlines' in Nazi smuggling, and the involvement of Soviet intelligence in manipulating these events. Pope Pius XII and Giovanni Montini (later Pope Paul VI) were involved in a massive obstruction of justice, sheltered by U.S. intelligence officers who had plans to use ex-Nazis in the war against Communism."
McGinnis, Cryptolog 14.1, notes that the authors present a "largely revisionist view of history." Cain, I&NS 7.4, seems to buy into the authors' thesis that some of these Nazi survivors were "incorporat[ed] into US intelligence." Surveillant 2.2 notes that the "authors, somehow, tie Nixon and Bush in with the rescuing of fascist fugitives and war criminals."
Bar-Zohar, Michel. The Hunt for German Scientists. London: Arthur Barker, 1967.
Beasley, Norman. "The
Capture of the German Rocket Secrets." American Legion Magazine,
Oct. 1963. [Petersen]
Bower,
Tom. The Paperclip Conspiracy: The Battle for the Spoils and Secrets of Nazi Germany. London: Michael Joseph, 1987.
Breitman, Richard, Norman J.W. Goda, Timothy Naftali, and Robert Wolfe. U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 2004.
According to Peake, Studies 49.2 (2005), this work contains 15 articles written by six historians. The contributors use "an impressive mix of secondary and newly released primary sources," and "expand our knowledge on espionage and the holocaust." They deal "with collaborators, and the use of war criminals like Wilhelm Hottl by the Army’s Counterintelligence Corps (CIC)." Their documentation supports the conclusion that "some use of Nazis for intelligence purposes did occur." However, "their contemporary perspective ignores the circumstances of the time," leaving readers "wondering about the historical context and priorities that led the politicians and intelligence officers directly involved to make the choices they did."
Friedman, I&NS 20.2 (Jun. 2005), notes that this "collection is not intended for beginners, nor to provide an overview of the issues. These chapters are designed to advance the knowledge of specialists already familiar with the historiography."
For Pendas, H-German, H-Net Reviews, Jun. 2006 [http://www.h-net.org], this "volume is characterized even more than most multi-authored books by the lack of a central narrative or argument.... [It] is driven more by its source material than by any overarching theoretical or historiographical concerns." It "is a book that most readers will likely want to consult for specific questions, rather than for any general conclusions. The fact that, unlike many multi-authored volumes, this one contains an extensive and thorough index is particularly useful in this regard."
Critchfield, James H. Partners at the Creation: The Men Behind Postwar Germany's Defense and Intelligence Establishments. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2003.
Fitzpatrick, CIRA Newsletter 28.4, designates Partners at the Creation as "an easily read and important work of history." It is "important because it delineates the thinking and the actions taken by U.S. officials." The author's memoir refutes allegations that the CIA used Nazi war criminals after the war, and "shows both the benefits and drawbacks of working with the Gehlen Group to create a modern new Germany capable of becoming a strong ally of the United States." This "is not a cloak and dagger spy book. Rather, it is filled with the intellectual and diplomatic minutiae which is the real life of intelligence officers."
For Bath, NIPQ 20.1, the author "adds significantly to our knowledge" in the areas of the formation of the postwar German intelligence service and the rebirth of the German army. "These are interesting stories, well told."
Goulden, Washington Times, 29 Feb. 2004, and Intelligencer 14.1, notes that "Critchfield carried out another mission perhaps even more important than caring for Gehlen -- the shaping of the intelligence and military structure of a democratic Federal Republic that took its place in NATO." The author "tells a good intelligence story and gives insight into how 'diplomacy' functioned during the Cold War."
To Peake, Studies 48.3 (2004), this book "is an important contribution from a member of the 'Greatest Generation.'" Critchfield emphasizes "the political, operational, and organizational problems he encountered [in Germany] and in Washington."
Hutchinson, IJI&C 17.4 (Winter 2004-2005), says that the author "adds significantly to the public knowledge of postwar Germany." He tells his story "without excessive detail" and "provides valuable details about the general development of a democratic Germany, along with more specific insights to the defense and intelligence establishments."
In a Review Essay, Timothy Naftali, "Berlin to Baghdad: The Pitfalls of Hiring Enemy Intelligence," Foreign Affairs 83, no. 4 (Jul.-Aug. 2004), asserts that the cost of working with Gehlen and similar individuals is too high. In Foreign Affairs 83.6 (Nov.-Dec. 2004), former BND President (1985-1990) Hans-Georg Wieck (pp. 138-139) and Critchfield deputy (see below) Clarence W. Schmitz (pp. 139-140) take issue with that argument; Naftali replies at pp. 140-141.
See Clarence W. Schmitz, "Comments on the Book, Partners at the Creation by James H Critchfield and on Other Related Subjects," CIRA Newsletter 29, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 35-38. Schmitz was on Critchfield's staff at Pullach from 1949 to 1954 and was his deputy for operations from 1952 to 1954. From 1954 to 1957, he was in charge of the Headquarters component that supported the Gehlen operation. And from 1957 to 1964, Schmitz was in Bonn in charge of liaison with the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (BfV). He believes that "[a] book dealing with this particular subject could have been written only by Critchfield."
Paehler, H-German, H-Net Reviews, Nov. 2005 [http://www.h-net.org], finds that this work "derives much of its originality from the author's prominent place in the development and inside information and knowledge available to him.... [It] is a worthwhile read for historians and those interested in intelligence history alike." However, "Critchfield's memoirs suffer from a few problems, some of which afflict the genre in general and some of which are rather unique to this particular defense of CIA policies some fifty-five years ago and, to some extent, the defining years of Critchfield's own life. Thus, the account has to be approached with some caution."
Dabringhaus, Erhard. Klaus Barbie: The Shocking Story of How the U.S. Used This Nazi War Criminal as an Intelligence Agent. Washington, DC: Acropolis Books, 1984.
According to Ruffner, "CIC Records...," CSI Bulletin 11 (Summer 2000), "[t]he news of [former German SS officer Klaus] Barbie's arrest [in Bolivia in 1983] and his image on American television led to his recognition by one of his former CIC handlers.... Dabringhaus contacted NBC News and reported that he had worked with Barbie while serving as a CIC officer in Germany in 1948." Dabringhaus later wrote about his role in the affair in Klaus Barbie: The Shocking Story.... Dabringhaus [was] recall[ing] his CIC role years afterwards, colored by the knowledge that his actions had affected history for better or worse."
De Graaff, Bob. "What
Happened to the Central Personality Index?" Intelligence and National
Security 7, no. 3 (Jul. 1992): 317-326.
Much of the credibility of this unfootnoted article is undermined by the author's closing speculation where he links up Guy Liddell, "ever more seen as a Russian mole in MI5," as "one of the godfathers" of the CPI. The central point made in the article is that the CPI preceded and formed the backbone of the later Central Register of War Criminals and Security Suspects (CROWCASS), which is given attention in Christopher Simpson's Blowback (1988).
Douglas, Gregory. Gestapo
Chief: The 1948 Interrogation of Heinrich Müller. 3 vols. San Jose,
CA: R. James Bender, 1995, 1997, 1998.
Clark comment: It is probably safe to assume that this work is at heart a fabrication, although how much of it comes from the whole cloth and how much from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act is difficult to determine.
It is, thus, easy to be surprised that M.R.D. Foot, I&NS 12.2, gives Douglas' work sufficient credibility to state: "If [this book is] true, it upsets many received ideas [including that Müller was killed in Berlin in April 1945]; if false, it helps to poison the wells of historical truth." Douglas seems to play loosely (Foot writes of "carelessness") with easily knowable facts. This habit "does not encourage belief" when the author provides what purports to be a transcript of a telephone conversation in which Churchill tells Roosevelt that a Japanese fleet is moving across the Pacific.
In a review of the second volume, Foot, I&NS 13.2, seems more willing to go beyond being merely skeptical. He states that the book "seems to have been written with internal American politics almost as much on its editor's mind as the European atrocities it recounts -- its tone is as passionately anti-Roosevelt as the previous volume's was anti-Churchill; its bias denies it credence."
Similar to Foot in his review of the first volume, Kruh, Cryptologia 21.4, seems overly solicitous to only advise that readers "proceed with caution because hard evidence is not available to verify every revelation." Problem areas include the purported Churchill-Roosevelt telephone conversation, the claim that Hitler escaped from Berlin to Barcelona, and assertions that the deaths at Auschwitz numbered no more than 100,000 and were primarily due to typhus and other diseases. Kruh, Cryptologia 23.1, reviews volume three, again with only a brief notation that "hard evidence is not available to support many of Muller's controversial assertions."
Peake, Studies 48.1/102/fn13, comments that "[t]he documentary evidence he [Douglas] purports to have remains his secret. Th[e] facsimile documents he includes in his books are said by experts to be of his own making and cannot be found in the National Archives."
[Dulles, Allen W.] "The Present Situation in Germany: Digest of a Meeting with Allen W. Dulles at the Council on Foreign Relations, December 3, 1945." Foreign Affairs 82, no. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 2003): 4-8.
This piece from the archives of the Council on Foreign Relations is not intelligence related, but is an interesting artifact from this time period.
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