News

USIS Washington File

27 June 2000

Text: Intelligence Records on Nazi War Crimes Declassified

(Allied knowledge of the Holocaust, U.S. intelligence operations)
(1130)

Approximately 400,000 pages of previously classified documents
covering U.S. intelligence operations during World War II, including
Allied knowledge of the Holocaust, were made available to researchers
June 26, according to a National Archives press release.

The material comes from the records of the Office of Strategic
Services (OSS, 1942-45) and the Strategic Services Unit (SSU,
1945-46), both forerunners of the CIA, and is being made available by
the Nazi War Criminals Interagency Working Group (IWG), according to
the release.

Some of the newly declassified documents contain messages from the
Nazi SS that were intercepted by Allied intelligence and "provide
historical insight into what the Allied governments knew about the
Holocaust, when they learned it, and what might have been done with
the information they possessed," the release said.

The documents also include materials on the following:

-- Reports on the U.S. Safehaven program to identify and block from
flight German financial assets and other war spoils

-- Reports on OSS clandestine missions into France and Norway

-- Records of the OSS insurance intelligence unit (IIU) 

-- Prisoner of war interrogation reports

-- Information related to looted art

The IWG was established by Executive Order in January 1999 to
coordinate the large-scale effort of federal agencies to expedite the
release of U.S. records relating to the Nazis and their allies.

Following is the text of the press release:

(begin text)

National Archives and Records Administration
College Park, Maryland
June 26, 2000 

News Release  

NEWLY DECLASSIFIED OSS RECORDS SHED NEW LIGHT ON WORLD WAR II

College Park, MD -- On June 26 the Nazi War Criminals Interagency
Working Group (IWG) is making available to researchers approximately
400,000 pages of previously classified documents from the records of
the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, 1942-45) and of the Strategic
Services Unit (SSU, 1945-46), forerunners of the CIA. The release is a
major opening by the IWG, the group established by President Clinton
in 1999 to expedite the declassification of records related to war
crimes of the Nazi government and its allies. The OSS documents
contain historically valuable material that would not have been
declassified without the passage of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act
and the efforts of the National Archives and the Central Intelligence
Agency under that act.

The documents come from a larger OSS collection, much of which was
declassified by the CIA in the 1980s. The IWG release consists of
documents previously withheld by the CIA because of the sensitive
information they contained on sources and methods. They cover diverse
topics and activities relating to intelligence operations during the
War and, because they were withdrawn from other files, are not
organized by topic or activity.

The National Archives has an inventory of this eclectic collection.
The documents contain general information about OSS activities
worldwide, about Nazi Germany and its allies. Researchers who review
the many thousands of pages will find information that is valuable to
investigations in a broad range of subjects.

Among the materials researchers will find:

-- New information on the Nazi roundup of Roman Jews 
-- 1,200 reports based on information supplied to Allen Dulles, the
head of the OSS in Switzerland by the anti-Nazi German Foreign Office
official Fritz Kolbe
-- Reports on the U.S. Safehaven program to identify and block from
flight German financial assets and other war spoils
-- Reports on OSS clandestine missions into France and Norway  
-- Records of the OSS insurance intelligence unit (IIU) 
-- Prisoner of war interrogation reports 
-- Refugee and emigre debriefings, including interviews with civilian
internees returning from the Far East
-- Information related to looted art 
-- Reports on Japanese balloon warfare over the U.S. Pacific Northwest

A portion of the records includes messages of the SS Security Service
(SD) sent from Rome to Berlin during August, September, and October,
1943, that were intercepted and decoded by British intelligence and
shared with U.S. intelligence. The messages provide historical insight
into what the Allied governments knew about the Holocaust, when they
learned it, and what might have been done with the information they
possessed. The decodes are also valuable in adding to what is known
about Nazi intervention in Italy, providing detail about the early
German decision to deport Italian Jews to Auschwitz. The existing
scholarly literature lacks a clear consensus on exactly who ordered
the deportation and murder of Italian Jews and when it occurred.

The documents also contain lengthy verbatim excerpts from "private"
conversations among German POWs secretly recorded by the British and
later given to American intelligence officials. In these
conversations, German army, navy, and SS officers unwittingly gave
British intelligence analysts commentaries on past and current actions
by top Nazi officials. In some cases, these POWs also described their
own attitudes toward Nazi mass killings and atrocities. Some captives
continued to support the fatherland to the end, but others tried to
distance themselves, focusing blame on Heinrich Himmler and the SS.
These documents will provide researchers a better picture of the
relationship between the German army and the SS, additional details
about Nazi concentration and extermination camp operations, an
assessment of German morale toward the end of the war, among many
other topics.

Within the OSS collection there are previously unreleased documents
concerning the OSS penetration of the German Foreign Office using the
anti-Nazi German informant Fritz Kolbe. Codenamed George Wood, Kolbe
maintained contact with Allen Dulles--then head of the OSS in
Switzerland--and is widely considered by intelligence historians one
of the best informants for the OSS. This opening contains the first
complete set of Kolbe documents and shows who within the U.S.
Government had access to his information.

The IWG was established by Executive Order in January 1999 to
coordinate the large-scale effort of federal agencies to expedite the
release of U. S. records relating to the Nazis and their allies. The
President named the group's members from the major agencies holding
classified records and appointed three members to represent the
public. The group's purpose is to locate, inventory, recommend for
declassification, and make available all classified Nazi war criminal
records. The Act defines Nazi War criminal records as records
pertaining to individuals in the Nazi government, or in governments
allied with the Nazis, who participated in racial, religious, or
political persecution or to theft of the assets of persecuted people.

For press information, contact Giuliana Bullard, 703-532-1477, or
Susan Cooper at the National Archives and Records Administration at
301-713-6000. Additional information is available at
http://www.nara.gov/iwg.

National Archives and Records Administration home page URL:
http://www.nara.gov /nara/pressrelease/nr00-85.html webmaster@nara.gov
Last updated June 26, 2000

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