Holocaust-Era Assets

Home > Research Our Records > Holocaust-Related Records at the National Archives > Finding Aid > Holocaust-Era Assets - Military Agency Records > Military Agency Records

Military Agency Records

1. Researchers may find useful Henry Stimson, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper, 1948); William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time (New York: Whittlesley House, 1950); Ernest J. King, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record (New York: W. W. Norton, 1952); Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory (New York: Viking Press, 1973). [Back to text]

2. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) [in French the "BRI " Banque de Reglements Internationaux, and in German the "BIZ " Bank fur Internationalen Zahlungesausgleich] was established as an international financial institution, enjoying special immunities, pursuant to the Hague Agreements of January 20, 1930. The founder shareholding members were the central banks of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Within two years of its founding, nineteen other European central banks had subscribed to the Bank's capital. The Bank opened its doors in Basel, Switzerland on May 17, 1930. Its main objectives were to act as trustee or agent in regard to international financial settlements, particularly in regard to German reparations under the so-called Young Plan adopted at the 1930 Hague Conference; to promote central bank cooperation; and, to provide additional facilities for international financial operations. During the 1930s the BIS developed its activities along these lines. Before long, however, the Bank's functions in regard to German reparations were interrupted. The international financial crisis of 1931, coming on top of the world depression, led first to a partial and soon to a complete suspension of German reparation payments (Luasanne Agreement, 1932). During World War II the president of the bank was an American Thomas H. McKittrick. The general manager was a Frenchman, Roger Auboin; and the assistant general manager was Paul Hechler, a German and Nazi Party member. Among its board of directors were Hermann Schmitz, head of I.G. Farben; Baron Kurt von Schroder, head of the J. H. Stein Bank of Cologne (and leading officer and financier of the Gestapo); Walter Funk, the Reichsbank president; and, Emil Puhl, Reichsbank vice-president. At the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 the Allies called, in Resolution V, for the elimination of the BIS, in part because it was seen as a money-laundering entity for the Germans. In 1948 the BIS handed over $4 million in looted gold to the Allies. The BIS still exists, located in Basel, Switzerland. For a brief introduction to the BIS's wartime activities see Charles Higham, Trading With the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949 (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1995), pp. 1-19, and Arthur L. Smith, Hitler's Gold: The Story of the Nazi War Loot (Washington, D.C., Berg, 1996), pp. 52-62 and passim. Researchers may find useful Roger Aubion, The Bank for International Settlements, 1930-1955 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955) and Henry H. Schloss., The Bank for International Settlements (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1958). [Back to text]

3. Perhaps the best brief introduction to economic warfare during World War II is contained in I.C.B. Dear, gen. ed. and M.R.D. Foot, consultant editor, The Oxford Companion to World War II (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 318-321. Researchrs may also want to consult David L. Gordon and Royden Dangerfield, The Hidden Weapon: The Story of Economic Warfare (New York: Harper & Bros., 1947); W. N. Medlicott, The Economic Blockade 2 vols. (Lodnon: His Majesty's Stationery Office and Longmans, Green, and Co. 1952, 1959); Alan S. Milward, War, Economy, and Society, 1939-1945 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977). [Back to text]

4. For information about the organizational structure and records of The Ministry of Economic Warfare (MEW) please see John D. Cantwell, The Second World War: A Guide to Documents in the Public Record Office (London: HMSO, 1993) pp. 70-73. Useful for understanding the British economic warfare role and activities is W. N. Medlicott, The Economic Blockade (London: HMSO and Longmans, Green, and Co. 2 vols. 1952, 1959). [Back to text]

5. Throughout NARA's holdings (identified in this finding aid) are many series of records relating to the looting, attempted recovery, recovery, and retsitution of monetary gold taken by Nazis from the Central banks of countries they occupied, as well as non-monetary gold taken from victims of Nazi persecution. The Harry S. Truman Library at Independence, Missouri contains one box of personal papers (Nazi Gold File, 1945-1988) of Bernard Bernstein relating to the discovery, recovery, and disposition of the gold found at Merkers. Researchers may find useful Arthur L. Smith, Jr., Hitler's Gold: The Story of the Nazi War Loot (Oxford and Washington, DC: Berg, 1996); Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting. Nazi Gold (New York: Congdon and Weed, 1984); U.S. Department of State, U.S. and Allied Effots To Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany During World War II: Preliminary Study, coordinated by Stuart E. Eizenstat and prepared by William Z. Slany (May 1997); U.S. Department of State, U.S. and Allied Wartime and Postwar Relations and Negotiations with Argentina, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey on Looted Gold and German External Assets and U.S. Concerns About the Fate of the Wartime Ustasha Treasury: Supplemtn to Preliminary Study of U.S. and Allied Efforts to, Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany During World War II, coordinated by Stuart E. Eizenstat and prepared by William Slany (June 1998); Foreign & Commonwealth Office, General Services Command, History Notes, Nazi Gold: Information from the British Archives, No. 11 (September 1996); Foreign & Commonwealth Office, General Services Command, History Notes, Nazi Gold: Information from the British Archives, Second Edition, No. 11 (January 1997); Foreign & Commonwealth Office, General Services Command, History Notes, Nazi Gold: Information from the British Archives, Part II: Monetary gold, non-monetary gold and the Tripartite Gold Commission, No. 12 (May 1997); Sidney Zabludoff, Movements of Nazi Gold: Uncovering the Trail, Institute of the World Jewish Congress Policy Study No. 10 (1997). For additional information regarding the discovery and recovery of the Nazi looted gold at Merkers mine in Germany, please see Greg Bradsher, "Nazi Gold: The Merkers Mine Treasure, " Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration (forthcoming, Spring issue 1999). [Back to text]

6.For information about the wartime activities and records of the Foreign Office see John D. Cantwell, The Second World War: A Guide to Documents in the Public Record Office (London: HMSO, 1993), pp. 82-92. [Back to text]

7. Researchers may find useful Anthony Cave Brown, The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan (New York: Vintage Books, 1984); Corey Ford, Donovan of OSS (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970); Richard Dunlop, Donovan: America's Master Spy (Chicago: Rand McNally. 1982); Thomas F. Troy, Donovan and the CIA (Frederick, Maryland: University Press of America, 1981). [Back to text]

8. Researchers may find useful: History Project, Strategic Services Unit, Office of the Assistant Secretary of War, War Department, Washington, D.C., War Report of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) with a new introduction by Kermit Roosevelt (New York: Walker and Company, 1976, 2 vols.); Bradley F. Smith, The Shadow Warriors: O.S.S. and the Origins of the C.I.A. (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1983); Richard Harris Smith, The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 1972); and, George C. Chalou, ed., The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992); David K. E. Bruce, OSS Against the Reich: The World War II Diaries of Colonel David K. E. Bruce, ed., Nelson Lankford (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991); H. Montgomery Hyde, Secret Intelligence Agent: British Espionage in America and the Creation of the OSS (New York: St. Martin's Press 1982); William Casey, The Secret War against Hitler (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, Gateway, 1988);Joseph E. Persico, Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II (New York: Viking Press, 1979); John H. Waller, The Unseen War in Europe: Espionage and Conspiracy in the Second World War (New York: Random House, 1996); Neal H. Petersen, ed. and commentary, From Hitler's Doorstep. The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles, 1942-1945 (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996); Nicholas Dawidoff, The Catcher was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994); Barry M. Katz, Foreign Intelligence: Research and Analysis in the Office of Strategic Services 1942-1945 (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1989); Allen W. Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence (New York: Harper & Row, 1963); Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (New York: Scribners, 1992); Edward Hymoff, The OSS in World War II (New York: Richardson & Steirman, 1986); Thomas F. Troy, ed., Wartime Washington: The Secret OSS Journal of James Grafton Rogers, 1942-1943 (Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, 1987). [Back to text]

9. Many records relating to the Safehaven program are available in three volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States [a publication of the State Department that serves as a key finding aid to the records because the documents selected for printing include the source file designation.]. These three volumes are: FRUS, 1944, Vol. II, pp. 213-251. "Concern of the United States over Enemy Attempts to Secrete Funds or Other Assets in Neutral Countries; Inception of the Safehaven Program; " FRUS, 1945, Vol. II, pp. 852-932. "Concern of the United States over Enemy Attempts to Secrete Funds or Other Assets in Neutral Countries; Implementation of the Safehaven Program; " and, FRUS, 1946, Vol. V, pp. 202-220. "Implementation of the Safehaven Program; Negotiation of Accords with Switzerland and Sweden on Liquidation of German External Assets in their Countries. " [Back to text]

10. Margaret Clarke, a Federal Economic Administration historian, in 1946 wrote a 193-page history of the Safehaven Program, " entitled "Safehaven Study. " This study was never published. A copy of it is contained in the Records of the Federal Economic Administration (RG 169). It is a useful tool for understanding the organization, administration, and activities of the Safehaven Program. Early in her study she states "the Safe haven Program, or project, was organized as one of the chief instruments by which the United States Government meant to defeat Germany's aim to rebuild its strength outside of Germany. The fundamental purpose was to frustrate Germany's attempt to penetrate foreign economies, to transfer internal assets beyond reach of the Allies, to evade payment of reparations by having no apparent resources, and to avoid any share in the rehabilitation of Europe. The term safe haven, originally designed as a code phrase to explain the activities of the first American representatives sent to Europe to explore the nature and extent of the German plan, lost its virtue as a secret designation so soon that the term became descriptive of the counter-plan of this government (One of the early uses of the term Safehaven was on September 28, 1944, when the Secretary of State sent a circular airgram to certain diplomatic and consular officers, instructing them to "preserve all intelligence of this general nature [he was referring earlier to German assets abroad] which comes into your possession since information on looted and flight capital will tend to merge with information relating to German assets generally. In order to expedite prompt distribution, all cables, airgrams, and despatches on this subject should contain the code word 'SAFEHAVEN' " Foreign Relations of the United States, 1944, Vol. II pp. 234-235) To those concerned with preventing resurgence of German industrial and military strength, Safe Haven became a name of the activity they were engaged in, although later on, the term External Security was used as more descriptive of the program. "(Clarke, "Safehaven Study, " p. 21). "There were, " she continues, "specific ends toward which the Safe Haven project worked: To restrict and prevent German economic and cultural penetration outside of Germany; to block Germany from transferring internal assets to neutral countries; to insure that German wealth would be administered by the Allies so German payment of war reparations would be assured; to make certain that Germany's resources would be available for use in the rehabilitation of Europe; to make possible the return to legal owners of properties looted from countries once occupied by the Germans; and to prevent the escape of strategic German personnel to neutral havens. The all-over purpose was, of course, to implement plans for lasting peace, by helping to make it impossible for Germany to start another war. "(Clarke, "Safehaven Study, " p. 22). In her study Clarke critiqued the Safehaven Program. She observed that the program "was not organized by the highest levels of administrative authority. " Further, "the Treasury Department showed no interest at first... " but... "later on the Foreign Funds Control of Treasury became very much interested and tried in fact to take over the direction and conduct of the entire matter. " "The State Department, " she stated, "in general was cooperative although...there was sometimes failure of sympathy on the part of the State representation at the neutral capitals. Indeed, at one point, suggestions and attempts were made to secure a decision from the President which would settle once and for all the jurisdictional disputes and clarify the correct roles of the various interested agencies. This was never accomplished. " "Within FEA itself, " she added, "there was intra-agency conflict.... The conflict is not surprising in light of the fact that no one actually knew where authority lay. " Further, "by the time Safe Haven got under way certain features of the economic warfare program were diminishing or disappearing. Safe Haven offered an opportunity to continue a challenging and absorbing game. Everyone wanted to participate in it. Everyone did, in a manner of speaking; and thus confusion, jealousies, misunderstandings and waste resulted. Had the project been clearly defined by the FEA Administration, and had authority for it been placed definitely and absolutely in the hands of a single director, many of the difficulties which did arise would have been overcome before they manifested themselves. " "Likewise, " she continues, " it can be speculated that had such an integration been managed at first, State, Treasury and FEA would have acted always as a unit, and not as sometimes happened, as a tri-dimensional agency whose three sides pulled against each other. "(Clarke, "Safehaven Study, " pp. 189-190). The various spellings of the Safehaven Program (e.g., Safehaven project, Safe Haven reports) in this finding aid reflects the diverse number of Government agencies participating in it and the fact that there was no ultimate authority for the program. Researchers should be aware that the Departments of State and Treasury (primarily the Foreign Funds Control unit) and the Foreign Economic Administration all believed, to one degree or another, that they were the key agency. Similarly, many agencies, including the Military and Naval Establishment, the Office of Strategic Services, all supplied the Safehaven intelligence to the Departments of State and Treasury and the Foreign Economic Administration. And those three agencies also gathered their own intelligence. Thus researchers will find Safehaven-related records identified throughout this finding aid. [Back to text]

11. Margaret Clarke, "Safehaven Study, " n.d. [1946] 193 pp. Contained in Material on the "Safe Haven " Project 1943-1945 (entry 170) in the Records of the Foreign Economic Administration (RG 169) pp. 104-105; hereafter cited as Clarke, "Safehaven Study. ". Needless to say, the Records of the Office of the Military Governor, United States (OMGUS) (RG 260) are full of intelligence based on seized German records. [Back to text]

12. OSS Evaluation of Evidence, Entry 147, Box 7 (Office Procedure), Folder 103, RG 226. [Back to text]

13. At the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire Resolution No. VI was adopted. It not only made recommendations regarding steps to be taken to guard United Nations interest in German external assets, but referred specifically to the broader aims of the Safehaven Program. The preamble to the resolution accused Axis leaders, enemy nationals and their collaborators of transferring assets through and to neutral countries for the purpose of concealing them, and of thus maintaining Axis power, influence, and ability "to plan future aggrandizement and world domination... " The preamble names loot, transfers of assets of occupied and neutral nations accomplished by threat, transfers of Axis property by use of blinds and cloaks, as the kinds of wealth Germany found it useful and easy to conceal. It also marked the guilt of puppet governments and of Nazi sympathizers for future reference. The preamble concludes "Whereas, the United Nations have declared their intention to do their utmost to defeat the methods of dispossession practiced by the enemy, have reserved their right to declare invalid any transfers of property belonging to persons with occupied territory, and have taken measures to protect and safeguard property, within their respective jurisdictions, owned by occupied countries and their nationals, as well as to prevent the disposal of looted property in United Nations markets; therefore the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference 1) takes note of and fully supports steps taken by the United Nations for the purpose of: (a) uncovering, segregating, controlling, and making appropriate disposition of enemy assets; (b) preventing the liquidation of property looted by the enemy, locating and tracing ownership and control of such looted property, and taking appropriate measures with a view to restoration to its lawful owners. " The resolution further recommends that the governments represented at the Conference call on the governments of neutral countries: "(a) to take immediate measures to prevent any disposition or transfer within territories subject to their jurisdiction of any (1) assets belonging to the Government or any individuals of institutions within those United Nations occupied by the enemy; and (2) looted gold, currency, art objects, securities, other evidences of ownership in financial or business enterprises, and of other assets looted by the enemy; as well as to uncover, segregate and hold at the disposition of the post-liberation authorities in the appropriate country any such assets within territory subject to their jurisdiction; (b) to take immediate measures to prevent the concealment by fraudulent means or otherwise within countries subject to their jurisdiction of any (1) assets belonging to, or alleged to belong to, the Government of and individuals or institutions within enemy countries; (2) assets belonging to, or alleged to belong to, enemy leaders, their associates and collaborators; and to facilitate their ultimate delivery to the post-armistice authorities. " United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, July 1 to July 22, 1944, Final Act and Related Documents (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944). Researchers may find useful Proceedings and Documents of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, July 1-22, 1944 (Washington, DC: United States General Printing Office, 1948). [Back to text]

14. This was the Senate Military Affairs Subcommittee on War Mobilization (the so-called Kilgore Committee). The subcommittee, headed by Senator Harley M. Kilgore, held several hearings throughout the second half of 1945 that focused on German economic penetration of neutral countries, elimination of German resources for war, German's resources for a third world war, and related matters. Throughout this finding aid researchers will note that there are numerous references to the Kilgore Committee. For access to the complete files of the hearings please contact NARA's Center for Legislative Archives in the Archives I building in Washington, DC. Their telephone number is 202-501-5350. [Back to text]

15. From 1943 to 1945 he was an unpaid personal adviser to James Byrnes, Director of Economic Stabilization and later Director of War Mobilization. Baruch also headed a special fact-finding commission for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. [Back to text]

16. Boxes 1-537 of this series are field station files and are descibed later in this finding aid. [Back to text]

17. Abwehr was short for Amt Austlandsmachrichten und Abwehr, the German Secret Intelligence and Military Counter-Intelligence Department of the High Command (OKW) headed by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. Its independent role ended with the dismissal of Canaris in February 1944 and its subordination to the the SS. Researchers may find useful Lauran Paine, The Abwehr: German Military Intelligence in World War II (London: Robert Hale, 1988). [Back to text]

18. The Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party-the full title of the Nazi Party headed by Adolf Hitler. Often referred to as NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeitperpartei). [Back to text]

19. For accounts of art looting during the war by the Nazis, Americans, Soviets and others see Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), Hector Feliciano, The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art (New York: Basic Books, 1997), and Elizabeth Simpson, ed., The Spoils of War: World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1997); Jonathon Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third Reich (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Charles De Jaeger, The Linz File: Hitler's Plunder of Europe's Art (Exeter: Webb & Bower, 1981); David Roxan and Ken Wanstall, The Jackdaw of Linz: The Story of Hitler's Art Thefts (London: Cassell, 1964); Thomas Carr Howe, Salt Mines and Castels: The Discovery and Restitution of Looted European Art (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1946); George Mihan, Looted Treasure: Germany's Raid on Art (London: Alliance Press, 1944); United States American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas, Report of the United States American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1946); Henry Adams La Farge, Lost Treasures of Europe (New York: Pantheon Books, 1946); Konstantin Akinsha and Grigorii Kozlov, Stolen Treasure: The Hunt for the World's Lost Masterpieces (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995); Michael J. Kurtz, Nazi Contraband: American policy on the Return of European Cultural Treasures, 1945-1955 (New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc., 1985);.Kenneth D. Alford, The Spoils of World War II: The Ameican Military's Role in the Stealing of Europe's Treasures (New York: A Birch Lane Press Book, 1994); William H. Honan, Treasure Hunt, A New York Times reporter Tracks the Quedlingburg Hoard (New York: Fromm International Publishing Coporation, 1997); Also useful are two United States Government reports, copies of which reside in the records of several government agencies. They are External Economic Security Staff, Enemy Branch, Foreign Economic Administration, "Looted Art in Occupied Territories, Neutral Countries and Latin America, Preliminary Report, " May 5, 1945, 40 pp., and Art Looting Investigative Unit, Strategic Services Unit, Office of the Assistant Secretary of War, War Department, "Art Looting Investigation Unit Final Report, " May 1, 1946, 170 pp. Researchers in the Washington D.C. area doing research on the art issues may find useful the holdings of the Archives of American Art and the National Gallery of Art. The latter has produced a useful guide to its World War II-era related holdings: Kate Moore, compiler, World War II Records at the National Gallery of Art Washington, D.C.: Collections in the Gallery Archives, Gallery Library, Photographic Archives (June 1996). [Back to text]

20. Executive Director of the Board of Economic Warfare and the Office of Economic Warfare. [Back to text]

21. Concentration camp located southeast of Hamburg. It was established in 1940 to supply labor for the armaments factories. Of the 90,000 people sent there, nearly half died from disease, starvation, and some were executed. [Back to text]

22. JIC referes to the Joint Intelligence Committee, that was a continuation and enlargement of the Joint Board committee of the same name, which had been authorized in 1941. It received no charter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff until May 1943, but it was given a directive and was reorganized early in March 1942. Even before this, on February 11, 1942, a Combined Chiefs of Staff paper had defined the duties and membership of the JIC. Its primary functions throughout the war period were to furnish intelligence in various forms to other agencies of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to represent it on the Combined Intelligence Committee. As originally constituted, the JIC, was composed of the directors of the intelligence services of the Army and Navy and representatives of the State Department, the Board of Economic Warfare (later the Foreign Economic Administration), and the Coordinator of Information (later the Director of Strategic Services). The charter of May 1943 added the director of the Intelligence Staff of the Army Air Forces. The membership remained unchanged throughout the remainder of the war. [Back to text]

23. The Emperor of Abyssinia who was exiled in 1936 after the Italian occupation of his country. He returned in May 1941. [Back to text]

24. Shortened form of Interessen Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft (Community of Interests of Dye industries, incorporated), often referred to American records as IG Farbenindustrie, A.G. This was the largest and most powerful German cartel, with some 2,000 cartel agreements distributed throughout the world (including Standard Oil of New Jersey, the Aluminum Company of America, Dow Chemical Company, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.). During the war it controlled 900 chemical factories inside Germany and in the occupied territories and controlled some 500 firms in ninety-two countries. After the war the IG Farben directors were charged with the enslavement and mass murder of foreign workers as well as with "the plunder and spoilation of public and private properties in invaded countries. " Researchers may find useful Richard Sasuly, I.G. Farben (New York: Boni & Gaer, 1947); Joseph Borkin, The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben (New Yor: Barnes & Noble Books, 1978). [Back to text]

25. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's organizational element in Latin America. [Back to text]

26. Walter Funk was the German Minister of Economic Affairs from 1937 to 1945 and president of the Reichsbank and Plenipotentiary of the War Economy beginning in 1939. In his dual capacity Funk was responsible for the economic and financial leadership of Germany. In 1942, he came to a secret agreement with Heinrich Himmler that "gold, jewels, and other valuables taken from murdered Jews were to be deposited in the so-called 'Max Heileger' account of his bank and credited to the SS. " [Back to text]

27. Italian neo-Fascist minister of war of Mussolini's Fascist Republic. [Back to text]

28. Nazi propagandists proclaimed and some of the Allied leaders believed that the Nazis would establish military bases of guerilla operations, "redoubts, " in soutern Bavaria and western Austria and continue waging war even after Germany was defeated. Researchers may find useful Rodney G. Minott, The Fortress That Never War: The Myth of Hitler's Bavarian Stronghold (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1964). [Back to text]

29. Marcel Pilet-Golaz was a member of the Swiss Federal Council (1929-1944), head of the Ministry of the Interior in 1929, head of the Federal Postal and Railways Department, 1930-1940, and head of the Political Darprtment, 1940-1944. [Back to text]

30. John Edgar Hoover was Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation 1924-1972. [Back to text]

31. Hermann Wilhelm Goering was Commander in Chief of the German Air Force, Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, and Chairman of the Reich Council for National Defense.. His Four Year Plan Office was formally in control of economic policy in the occupied lands. On August 31, 1939 Hitler named Goering his successor in the event of his death. Researchers may find useful Charles Bewley, Hermann Goering and the Third Reich (New York: Devin-Adair, 1962); Willi Frischauer, The Rise and Fall of Hermann Goering (New York: Ballantine, 1951); David Irving, Goering (New York: Avon Books, 1989); Leonard Mosley, The Reich Marshal (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1974). [Back to text]

32. This extermination referes to the Holocaust, a term generally used to describe Hitler's attempt to exterminate all European Jews. Die Endlosung (The Final Solution) was the cover name used by the Nazis to describe their extermination plan and operations. Researchrs may find useful Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution (New York: Perpetua, 1961); David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews (New York: Pantheon, 1984); Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Nazism 1919-1945. Vol. 3, Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination. A Documentary Reader (Exeter, United Kingdom: University of Exeter, 1988); Lucy S. Davidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945 (New York, Toronto, London: Bantam Books, 1976); Raul Hilberg, ed., The Destruction of the European Jews. 3 vols. (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984); Israel Gutman, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1989); Martin Gilbert, Atlas of the Holocaust (New York: Macmillan, 1982); Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1986); Saul S. Friedman, ed. Holocaust Literature: A Handbook of Critical, Historical, and Literary Writings (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1993); Harry James Cargas, ed., The Holocaust: An Annotated Bibliography (Chicago: American Library Association, 1985); Abraham Edelheit and Herschel Edelheit, eds. Bibliography on Holocaust Literature (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1986); Henry Friedlander and Sybil Milton, eds., Archives of the Holocaust. 23 vols. (Hamden, Connecticut: Garland, 1989); Rhoda Lewin, ed., Witness to the Holocaust: An Oral History (Boston: Twayne, 1989); John Mendelsohn, The Holocaust: Selected Documents (New York: Garland, 1982); Monty Noam Penkower, The Jews Were Expendable (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983); Walter Laqueur, The Terrible Secret (Boston, Little, Brown, 1980); Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation (Hanover, New Hampshire: Brandeis University Press, 1989); Yehuda Baurer, A History of the Holocaust (New York: Franklin Watts, 1982);ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, Volker Riess, eds., trans. Deborah Burnstone, "The Good Old Days ": The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bysanders (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1991); Rhoda G. Lewin, ed., Witness to the Holocaust: An Oral History (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990); Michael Berenbaum, Witness to the Holocaust (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1997); Richard Plant, The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals (New York: H. Holt, 1988). [Back to text]

33. Name for the area of the Ukraine between the Dniester and Bug rivers, over which Marshal Antonescu, the Romanian leader, proclaimed sovereignty in August 1941, and which was forced to abandon in April 1944. It was designated a resettlement area for Jews and gypsies deported from Bucovina and Bessarabia. By December 1941 over 100,000 Jews had been resettled there. Resettlement stopped early in 1942. It is estimated that well over 70,000 Jews and Gypsies from Romania, together an unknown number of Soviet Jews perished in Transnistria. [Back to text]

34. Wise served as president of the American Jewish Congress, the World Jewish Congress, and the Jewish Institute of Religion, chairman of the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs, vice-president of the Zionist Organization of America, and co-chairman of the the American Jewish Conference. He edited also edited Opinion magazine and served as rabbi of the large Free Synagogue of New York City. [Back to text]

35. Born, Eugenio Pacelli, Piux II was elected Pope in March 1939, having previously served as papal nuncio in Germany from 1917 to 1930 and as Vatican secretary of state from 1930. Researchers may find useful Saul Friedlander, Pius XII and the Third Reich (New York: Octagon, 1986); Carlo Falconi, The Silence of Pius XII (London: Faber & Faber, 1970); Saul Friedlander, Pius XII and the Third Reich (London: Chatto & Windus, 1966); Nazareno Padallaro, Portrait of Pius XII (London: J. M. Dent, 1956); Alexander Ramati, While the Pope Kept Silent (London: Allen & Unwin, 1978); John Pollard, The Vatican and Italian Facism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Mark Aarons and John Loftus, Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, The Nazis, and Soviet Intelligence (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991); Mark Aarons and John Loftus, Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, The Nazis, and Swiss Banks. New and rev. ed. (New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1998). [Back to text]

36. Emil Puhl served as Vice President of the Reichsbank, beginning in 1939, and as one of the directors of the Bank for International Settlements. [Back to text]

37. SKF was founded in Gothernburg in 1907 by Sven Wingquist. SKF, with its subsidiaries, was the world's largest manufacturer of bearings. It controlled 80 percent of blast furnances and factories and plants in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. The largest share of its production until late in World War II was allocated to Germany; 60 percent of the world-wide production of SKF was dedicated to the Germans. Charles Higham, Tradeing With the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949 (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1995), p. 117. For background information on SKF see Gerard Aalders and Cees Wiebes, The Art of Cloaking: The Case of Sweden Ownership: The Secret Collaboration and Protection of the German War Indusstry by the Neutrals (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996), especially pp. 71-91. [Back to text]

38. Almost from the beginning of the war the Germans began using foreign workers and forced-labor for work in Germany. By the summer of 1944, nearly 8 million foreign workers, three-quarters of them (mostly Soviets and Poles) forced-labor, were in Germany, representing almost a quarter of the work force. Researchers may find useful Edward L. Homze, Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1967); Ulrich Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor in Germany 1880-1980. Seasonal Workers, Forced Laborers, Guest Workers (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990). [Back to text]

39. United States Ambassador to Spain, 1942-1945. Researchers may find useful Carlton J. H. Hayes, Wartime Mission in Spain 1942-1945 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1945). [Back to text]

40. United Kingdom's Ambassador to Spain during World War II. [Back to text]

41. Spain's Fascist Party. [Back to text]

42. Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production from 1942 to 1945, succeeding Fritz Todt who had been killed in a plane accident. He also oversaw the Todt Organization. Researchers may find useful Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York: Macmillan, 1970); Albert Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries (New York: Macmillan, 1976); Matthias Schmidt, Albert Speer, the End of a Myth (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985); Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995); Edward R. Zilbert, Albert Speer and the Nazi Ministry of Arms: Economic Institutions and Industrial Production in the German War Economy (London: Associated University Presses, 1981). [Back to text]

43. KAPPA indicates messages containing information and documents obtained from the German Foreign Ministry by Fritz Kolbe (alias "George Wood ") who worked in the Foreign Ministry as an assistant to Karl ritter, who was responsible for liaison between the Foreign Ministry and the military. The information he supplied Allen Dulles, OSS station chief in Bern, Switzerland, which was then sent to OSS headquarters, can be found in the "Boston Series " of records described later in the OSS section of the finding aid. [Back to text]

44. Glavin was with the OSS. [Back to text]

45. Allen Welsh Dulles from October 1942 until the end of the war served as Chief of the OSS in Switzerland, with his office on the Herrengasse in Bern. He was assisted by Gerd von Gavernitz, a German-American living in Switzerland. Dulles, late in 1945, would lead the OSS mission to Germany. Researchers may find useful Robert Edwards, A Study of a Master Spy, Allen Dulles (London: Housmans, 1961); Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: TheLife of Allen Dulles (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994); Neal H. Petersen, From Hitler's Doorstep: The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles, 1942-1945 (university Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996). [Back to text]

46. Nazi death camp 45 miles from Warsaw, Poland, that opened in July 1942. By the time the camp closed in November 1943, at least 900,000 Jews were exterminated. Researchers may find useful Alexander Donat, ed., The Death Camp Treblinka (New York: Holocaust Library, 1979); Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). [Back to text]

47. United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was established in November 9, 1943 by delegates from 44 countries meeting in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was initially set up to provide help for the peoples of liberated countries. In the immediate post-war period it looked after displaced persons. It began work in North Africa in the winter of 1943-1944, followed the Allied armies into Europe and was at its most active in 1945-1946. It assisted over 1 billion people, and destributed 24 million tons of goods, including 9 million tons of food and 11 million tons of industrial equipment (of which Italy received half). Its refugee camps provided food and shelter for several million "displaced persons. " It was financed mainly by the United States, with substantial British and Canadian help, and at its height employed a staff of 25,000. Before it was phased out on June 30, 1947, it turned over its work to various United Nations agencies. [Back to text]

48. From 1934 to 1938 served as Germany's Ambassador to Austria and as the German ambassador to Turkey between September 1939 and August 1944. Researchers may find useful Franz von Papen, Memoirs (London: A. Deutsch, 1952). [Back to text]

49. Franco y Bahamonde, General Francisco. Fascist Caudillo (leader) of Spain, who refused to join the Axis and would not permit the passage of German troops through Spain to attack Gibraltar. His principal fighting contributions to the Axis cause was to allow army and air units to fight on the Easter Front (Blue Division and Spanish Legion). [Back to text]

50. Indicator for a series of reports from a supposedly spurious source in the Vatican. [Back to text]

51. Served as the President's personal representative to Pope Pius XII. [Back to text]

52. Marshal Henri Philippe Petain served as head of the Vichy state from July 1940 to August 1944. Researchers may find useful Richard Griffiths, Marshal Petain (London: Constahble & Co., 1970). [Back to text]

53. German Counsel General in Turkey 1943-1944. [Back to text]

54. The War Refugee Board (WRB) was established within the Executive Office of the President by Executive Order 9417 of January 22, 1944, "to effectuate with all possible speed the rescue and relief of victims of enemy oppression who are in imminent danger of death, and otherwise to afford such victims all possible relief and assistance consistent with the successful prosecution of the war. " The WRB developed, in cooperation with other Federal agencies, plans and programs and initiated measures for the rescue, transportation, maintenance, and relief of victims of Axis oppression, and established havens of temporary refuge for such victims. The Board worked with foreign governments to gain their participation in the Board's plans and programs. The membership of the board included the Secretaries of State, War, and the Treasury. The Board was terminated by Executive Order 9614 of September 14, 1945. [Back to text]

55. Financial attache at the U.S. Embassy, Lisbon, Portugal during the war. [Back to text]

56. Code name for War Refugee Board. [Back to text]

57. Background information about the Research and Analysis Branch may be found in Barry M. Katz, Foreign Intelligence: Research and Analysis in the Office of Strategic Services 1942-1945 (Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1989); Stanley P. Lovell [former head of the R&A Branch], Of Spies and Stratagems (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Printice-Hall, 1963). [Back to text]

58. In The Records of the Army Staff (RG 319) described later in this guide are numerous copies of these R & A reports. They can be found within the records contained in the Reports and Messages 1918-1951 (Entry 82A) of the Records of the Document Library of the Records of the Records of the Collecting and Dissemination Division. There are also eight boxes of the R & A reports produced during 1944 and 1945 in the records of Records of the Office of Military Government, Bavaria-Records of the Intelligence Division-Records of Predecessor Intelligence Offices, within the Records of the Office of the Military Governor, U.S. (OMGUS) (RG 260), described later in this finding aid. In addition, there are a relatively complete set of the R & A reports, with an index, in Entries 448 and 449, of the Records of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research within the General Records of the Department of State (RG 59), described later in this finding aid.[Back to text]

59. Contains index cards on General (Bank for International Settlements), Axis, Axis Countries, Belgian Congo, Belgian, Europe, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey, among others). [Back to text]

60. The British Statutory List was very similar to the American Proclaimed List, in that it published the names of persons and firms in areas outside of enemy control who had in some way rendered significant aid to the enemy war machine, and that those listed were proscribed from trading with the British Empire. For records relating to the Statutory List see the listing for the Records of the Division of World Trade Intelligence and its Successor, Division of Economic Security Controls, Records of Interdepartment and Intradepartmental Committees (State Department) (RG 235). [Back to text]

61. British Missions in December 1939, began issuing navicerts, i.e., a certificate of destination for specified cargoes through contraband control. Initially, the Missions issued the navicert either on their own responsibility or after reference to the Ministry of Economic Warfare (MEW). Where all the cargo in a ship was covered by navicerts the ship could be given a navicert of its own. After the fall of France when the rigor of the blockade was greatly increased the navicert procedure was made compulsory and all un-navicerted cargo was liable to be regarded as destined for the enemy. All applications had to be referred to the MEW. At the same time the ship warrant scheme was introduced in conjunction with the Ministry of Shipping, whereby only those neutral shipowners who had given satisfactory evidence as to the employment of their vessels would be given access to British insurance, stores, repairs, and other facilities. [Back to text]

62. Heinrich Himmler was Reichsfuhrer-SS, head of the Gestapo (acronym for the Gerheime Staats Polizei, the German secret state police) and the Waffen-SS, and Minister of the Interior from 1943 to the end of the war. In October 1939 Hitler made him Reich Commissar for the Consolidation of German Nationhood. In this position Himmler devised methods of mass extermination of "racial degenerates, " such as Jews, Poles, Russians, Czechs, and gypsies among others. Researchers may find useful Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Heinrich Himmler and the Final Solution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991); Roger Manvell and H. Fraenkel, Himmler (New York: Paperback Library, 1968); Peter Padfield, Himmler: Reichsfuhrer SS (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1990); Willi Frischauer, Himmler (London: Odhams Press, Ltd., 1953). [Back to text]

63. A conference of the American Republics held in Rio de Janeiro in late January 1942. A conference compromise resolution "recommended " the Latin American states break relations with the Axis nations. The United States desired stronger wording. Argentina opposed any resolution. [Back to text]

64. November 1936 agreement initially between Germany and Japan to exchange information on the activities of Soviet-backed international communist parties. Pact later signed by Italy, Hungary, Manchukuo, Spain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Romania, Slovakia, and Wang Ching-wei's government in Nanking. [Back to text]

65. Goebbels recorded in his diary on January 22, 1942, that "The Swedes and Swiss are playing with fire. Let us hope they will burn their fingers before this war is over. " The Goebbels Diaries 1942-1943, ed., trans., and intro. By Louis P. Lochner (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1948), p. 38. Goebbels served as Nazi Minister of Propaganda from 1933 until he committed suicide on May 1, 1945. [Back to text]

66. Almost ten miles in length the St. Gotthard tunnel connected central and southern Switzerland. [Back to text]

67. A Spanish unit of some 20,000 volunteers and five air squadrons, which served with the Germany Army on the Eastern Front from late 1941 to April 1944. It was disbanded at the latter date, as a result of Allied pressure, but a clandestine "Blue Legion " continued to serve until January 1945. Researchers may find useful Gerald R. Kleinfeld and Lewis A. Tambs, Hitler's Spanish Legion: The Blue Division in Russia (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979); John Scurr, Germany's Spanish Volunteers 1941-1945: The Blue Division in Russia (London: Osprey Publishing, 1980) [Back to text]

68. Laval from June to December 1940, served as the minister of state and vice-premier in France's Petain government. He was recalled by Petain to service in April 1942 to head the Vichy government, including heading the ministries of foreign affairs, interior, and information. He was the main agent of German power in France. He raised a French army for Hitler, allowed Frenchmen to be deported to Germany for forced labor, and made no objections to Nazi plundering in France. In September 1944 he fled to Germany. Researchers may find useful Geoffrey Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. 1968). [Back to text]

69. Henri Guisan, a gentleman-farmer from Canton Vaud, was elected on August 30, 1939, by the Swiss Combined Federal Assembly, to be the Commanding General of the Swiss Army. [Back to text]

70. Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia) was occupied by the German Army on March 15, 1939, and Hitler established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia with Baron von Neurath as the Reichsprotektor. [Back to text]

71. In 1939 Hitler made Sauckel a Reich defense commissioner with a special post as Plenipotentiary for Labor Allocation. In March 1942 Hitler appointed Fritz Sauckel plenipotentiary for the mobilization of labor which made him responsible for Germany's entire workforce including foreigners (including slave laborers) and prisoners of war. [Back to text]

72. Acronmyn derived from Geheime Staatspolizei (State Secret Police), which replaced the Prussian political police in 1933. In 1936 it became a branch of Reinhard Heydrich's security police, which remained within the Ministry of the Interior, but in September 1939, when the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshaumptampt) was formed as a main office of the SS, it became its department Amt IV, headed by Heinrich Muller. Researchers may find useful Edward Crankshaw, The Gestapo (London: Putnam & Co., Ltd., 1956). [Back to text]

73. The SS (Schutztaffel), protection squads formed in 1925, became the personal bodyguard of Adolf Hitler and grew into the most powerful organization within the Nazi Party and the Nazi State under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler. The SS served as a political police and was later assigned the duty of administering concentration camps and extermination camps. Researchers may find useful SS Gerald Reitlinger, The SS. Alibi of a Nation 1922-1945 (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1981); G. S. Graber, The History of the SS (New York: David McKay, 1978). [Back to text]

74. See the descriptions of the various lists in the description of the records of Records of the Division of World Trade Intelligence and Its Successor, Division of Economic Security Controls within the Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees (State Department)(RG 353). [Back to text]

75. Served as Reichsbank president from December 1923 till 1930. In March 1933, Hitler reappointed him to that position and appointed him Minister of Economics, in which position he served from 1934 to 1937. He was appointed Plenipotentiary-General for the War Economy in May 1935, and proceeded to direct the economic preparations for war. He was dismissed as Reichsbank President on January 20, 1939. He served as Minister without Portfolio until January 1943. Researchers may find useful Hjalmar Schacht, Account Settled (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1949); Hjalmar Schacht, Confessions of "the Old Wizard " (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company); John Weitz, Hitler's Banker: Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht (Boston, New York, Toronto, London: Little, Brown and Company, 1997); Edward N. Peterson, Hjalmar Schacht: For and Against Hitler (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1954); Amos E. Simpson, Hjalmar Schacht in Perspective (New York: Humanities Press, 1969). [Back to text]

76. Josef Goebbels, served as Nazi minister of propaganda from 1933 until he committed suicide on May 1, 1945. In 1944 Hitler made him general Plenipotentiary for the Mobilization of Total War. Researchers may find useful Joseph Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries, 1939-1941. Ed. and trans. Fred Taylor (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1983); Joseph Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943. Ed. And trans. Louis Lochner (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1948); Joseph Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries: The Last Days. Ed. Hugh Trevor-Roper; trans. Richard Barry (London: Book Club Associates, 1978); Ralf Georg. Reuth, Goebbels (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1990); Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, Doctor Goebbels: His Life and Death (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960). [Back to text]

77. Researchers may find useful information about corporations among the Records of the Securities and Exchange Commission (Record Group 266). Finding aids for these records are located in the consultation area of Room 2600. [Back to text]

78. Name for the Irish Free State after 1937. When the war began its prime minister Eamon de Valera declared the country neutral--the only member of the British Empire to remain outside the conflict. Researchers may find useful John P. Duggan, Neutral Ireland and the Third Reich (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1985); Robert Fisk, In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster, and the Price of Neutrality 1939-1945 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983); Keven T. Nowlan and T. Desmond Williams, Ireland in the War Years and After 1939-1951 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1989); Bernard Share, The Emergency: Neutral Ireland, 1939-1945 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1978); Carolle J. Carter, The Shamrock and the Swastika: German Espionage in Ireland in World War II (Palo Alto: Pacific Books, 1977); T. Ryle Dwyer, Neutral Ireland and the U.S.A. 1937-1947 (Dublin: Rowman & Littlefield, 1977); Dermont Keogh, Ireland & Europe 1919-1989: A Diplomatic History (Cork and Dublin: Hibernian University Press, 1990); Jerrold M. Packard, Neither Friend Nor Foe: The European Neutrals in World War II (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992). [Back to text]

79. The founder of the Norwegian Fascist National Union Party, proclaimed himself Norway's prime minister after the German invasion of Norway in April 1940, and in February 1942, Hitler made him the country's minister-president and began the Nazification of his country. Researchers may find useful Ralph Hewins, Quisling: Prophet without Honor (London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1965). [Back to text]

80. A military Reich Commissariat established under Alfred Rosenberg as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. It consisted of the Baltic States, part of Byelorussia, and part of eastern Poland. [Back to text]

81. Most likely Marshal Baron Carl Gustaf von Mannerheim; Commander of the Finnish Army who fought against the Russians and who became Finland's president in August 1944. [Back to text]

82. King of Bulgaria who wanted to extract Bulgaria from the war. After a stormy meeting with Hitler he returned to Bulgaria and died on August 28, 1943, possibly poisoned. [Back to text]

83. Ante Pavelic was the leader of the Croatian Utasha movement and in April 1941 became the head of the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska or NDH), which included Bosnia and Herzegovina. [Back to text]

84. Leader of the opposition to the Axis in Serbia and Minister of Defense of the Yugoslavian Government-in-Exile. [Back to text]

85. Almost 13-mile long tunnel that crossed the frontier between Switzerland and Italy. [Back to text]

86. Site, near Smolensk, of the death of 15,000 Polish officers and other Poles presumably at the hands of the Russians during the spring of 1940. The site was discovered by the Germans in April 1943. Researchers may find useful Janusz, Zawodney, Death in the Forest: The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1964); Foreign & Commonwealth Office, General Services Command, History Notes, The Katyn Massacre: an SOE Perspective, No. 10 (February 1996). [Back to text]

87. Identified in various files as either a socialist or communist political leader. [Back to text]

88. Researchers may find useful Neil Gregor, Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998). [Back to text]

89. The foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Russia, and the United States met in Moscow in October 1943, where, among other things they agreed to a declaration against those responsible for Nazi atrocities in occupied countries, to establish an European Advisory Commission, and that Austria would become an independent state after the war. They also signed the Four Power Declaration (known as the Moscow Declaration). [Back to text]

90. Marshal Pietro Badoglio became head of the Italian Government after Mussolini was deposed in July 1943, and signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943. He was forced to resign during the summer of 1944. [Back to text]

91. Shipping firm of international reputation, with branches in the principal European countries. The most important German firm utilized for the packing and removal of looted art and art purchased by the Germans in occupied countries. [Back to text]

92. Salazar became prime minister and virtual dictator of Portugal in 1932. Inclined towards Fascism, but detested the Nazis. Maintained strictly neutral stance until October 1943 when he allowed the Allies an air base on the Azores.[Back to text]

93. At 10:40 am on April 1, 1944, thirty-eight heavy bombers of the United States 8th Air Force, apparently believing they were over the Germany city of Tuttlingen, bombed Schauffhausen. Destroyed were a group of small factories producing anti-aircraft shells, ball-bearings, and Me-109 parts for Germany. In all sixty-six buildings were consumed by fire and more than 500 damaged; 450 people were left homeless, 271 injured, and 40 killed. Besides offering immediate apologizes the United States Government placed $1 million at the disposal of the Swiss Government to disburse to the victims. Full financial settlement, $3.1 million, was made in 1949, for not only the Schauffhausen incident but also for other damage inflicted by American bombers. [Back to text]

94. Auschwitz, in southern Poland, 160 miles southwest of Warsaw, was the location of three concentration camps and 36 sub-camps, which were built during the 1940-1942 period. Auschwitz I, under the command of Rudolf Hoess, was built in May-June 1940 for Polish political prisoners; Auschwitz II, or Birkenau (which became an extermination camp), opened in October 1941 with a capacity for 100,000 inmates, and Auschwitz III, at nearby Monowitz, supplied forced labor for the nearby I.G. Farben synthetic rubber and oil plant. It is estimate that at least 1.2 to 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz I, of whom about 800,000 were Jews, and that perhaps as many as 2 million died at the other two camps, either being exterminated or being starved to death. Researchers may find useful: Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies (London: M. Joseph and Rainbird, 1981); Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (New York: Collier, 1958); Albert Menasche, Birkenau (New York: Saltiel, 1947); Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess (London: Pan, 1974); Rudolf Hoess, Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz, ed. Steven Paskul; trans. Andrew Pollinger (New York: Da Capo, 1996); Israel Gutman, et al., eds. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994). [Back to text]

95. Lwow, a major city in southeast Poland and during German occupation (1941- July, 1944) became the site of a major ghetto and the infamous Janowska Street concentration camp. The killing of the city's 150,000 Jews was completed by November 1943. [Back to text]

96. The site of the first Nazi Party concentration camp located 12 miles north of Munich. It opened in March 1933, under the command of Theodor Eicke. During the war the number of inmates grew to about 17,000, including Socialists, Communists, Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals. In all some 225,000 people were held at Dachau, of which somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 perished. Researchers may find useful Marcus J. Smith, The Harrowing of Hell: Dachau (Albuquerque, The University of New Mexico Press, 1972). [Back to text]

97. Chairman of the Federal Department of Economics, that is, minister of economic affairs, from 1940 to 1947. [Back to text]

98. For various accounts of the treatment of American airmen by the Swiss see Donald Arthur Waters, Hitler's Secret Ally, Switzerland (La Mesa, California: Pertinent Publications, 1992). [Back to text]

99. On July 17, 1941, President Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation 2497, which instructed the Secretary of State to prepare an appropriate list of persons working with or for the Axis and persons to whom exports from the United States were deemed to be detrimental to the interests of national defense. The resulting Division of World Trade Intelligence and its successor, the Division of Economic Security Controls, prepared the original "Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals " and maintained its various supplements and revisions from 1941 to 1946. The lists named persons and companies, resident in areas outside of enemy control, who directly or indirectly rendered substantial aid to the enemy war machine. Those listed were denied the privilege of trading with the United States. For detailed information on "The Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals " see the World Trade Intelligence records in Records of Interdepartmental and Intradepartmental Committees (State Department) RG 353. [Back to text]

100. The Todt Organization, formed by Fritz Todt (in February 1940 appointed Minister for Weapons and Munitions), was responsible for construction projects (e.g., strategic highways and military installations) for the Third Reich. More than 1.4 million men served in the organization, about 80% non-Germans, including forced laborers and prisoners of war. In February 1942, Todt was killed in a mysterious air accident. His successor, Albert Speer, increased the size and activities of the organization, which was renamed Front-Todt in the fall of 1944. [Back to text]

101. For various accounts of American planes being shot down by the Swiss see Donald Arthur Waters, Hitler's Secret Ally, Switzerland (La Mesa, California: Pertinent Publications, 1992). [Back to text]

102. Situated near Weimar, Germany, opened in July 1937. It supplied forced labor to local armament manufacturers, which operated 24 hours a day, using two 12-hour shifts of prisoners. It is estimated that of the some 240,000 people imprisoned there, over 56,000 died. It was liberated on April 10, 1945. [Back to text]

103. The SD (Sicherheitsdienst) was the Security Service of the SS founded in 1932 and directed by Reinhard Heydrich, which became the sole intelligence of the Nazi Party. It was also one of the chief executive organs of the annihilation of the Jews, gypsies, Communists, and "Asiatic inferiors. " SD men arrested 67,000 "enemies of the state " in Vienna during the occupation of Austria in 1938. During the war SD personnel were responsible for reporting on the morale of the civilian population; active against partisans in the occupied countries; executed thousands of prisoners; and, along with the SS, helped to clear the ghettoes in the east. [Back to text]

104. At the extermination camp at Lublin, Poland, some 370,000 Poles, Russians, Jews and people of 17 other nationalities were murdered between 1941 and 1944. [Back to text]

105. Reinhard Heydrich in 1932 established the intelligence department (Sicherheitsdienst, or SD) of the SS and in 1934 became an SS lieutenant general and took command of the Prussian Gestapo in Berlin. In 1936 he was appointed head of the security police (Sicherheitspolizei, or Sipro), within the Ministry of the Interior, giving him nationwide control of the Gestapo and the criminal police (Kriminalpolizei, or Kripo). Thus, as head of the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshaumptamt, or Reich Security Main Office), which was established in 1939, to oversee all police activity, he was Heinrich Himmler's deputy. On September 27, 1941, Hitler appointed him Deputy Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia. At the Wannsee Conference held on January 20, 1942, he was chosen to administer the "Final Solution. " His brutal actions in Czechoslovakia resulted in him being assassinated by members of the Czech resistance in May 1942. Researchers may find useful Charles Wighton, Heydrich: Hitler's Most Evil Henchman (London: Odhams Press, Ltd., 1962); Edouard Calic, Reinhard Heydrich, trans. Lowell Blair (New York: Morrow, 1982).[Back to text]

106. Ernst vom Rath, a third secretary in the German embassy in Paris was assassinated on November 7, 1938 (died from his wounds on November 9), by a seventeen-year old Polish Jewish student. [Back to text]

107. German Post Office Saving Bank. [Back to text]

108. Director of the Linz Special Commission, the Linz Fuhrer Museum, and the Wiesbaden Museum from March 1943 and the Dresden State Gallery from May 1943. He was involved in Schloss and Mannheimer collection (forced) sales, and the official chiefly responsible for Hitler's looting and purchasing policies after 1943. [Back to text]

109. German or Swiss national of Italian birth. She was a contact of Frau Maria Schmidlin and allegedly involved in art looting transactions. [Back to text]

110. Prominent art dealer of The Hague, the Netherlands, working with Hofer, Posse, and Miedl, as well as Lange, Haberstock, Boehler and other German buyers. [Back to text]

111. Jewish dealer, active formerly in Berlin, Munich, and Amsterdam. Former brother-in-law of Walter Andreas Hofer and his former employer. His Dutch firm was aryanized after Hofer arranged to have his sister divorced from him. [Back to text]

112. Leader of the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront), beginning in 1933. Researchers may find useful Ronald Smelser, Robert Ley: Hitler's Labor Front Labor (New York: Berg, 1988). [Back to text]

113. Martin Bormann was private secretary to Hitler and later director of the party chancellery, Reich Minister, and member of the Cabinet Council for Defense. During the last year of the war Bormann was the most important man in the Reich with the exception of Hitler, who he was often near to coordinate access to the Fuhrer. Researchers may find useful Joseh von Lang, The Secretary, Martin Bormann, the Man Who Manipulated Hitler. trans. Christa Armstrong and Peter White (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981); William Stevenson, The Bormann Brotherhood (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1973); J. MacGovern, Martin Bormann (New York: Morrow, 1968). [Back to text]

114. German film actress, director, and producer most noted for two films she produced in the 1930s, Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Researchers may find useful Leni Riefenstahl, A Memoir (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993). [Back to text]

115. German national; considered a strong Nazi and possibly implicated in looting transactions. Had contacts with Lindpaintner, Frey, and Fischer. [Back to text]

116. Former German cavalry officer and amateur art dealer, with broad official and aristocratic connections throughout Europe. He was the Paris, France agent of Fritz Possenbacher (art and antique dealer of Munich, Germany), and traveled extensively during the war from Germany to France, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. [Back to text]

117. Art dealer of German birth and Hungarian citizenship. He was purported to be involved in several important looted art transactions in France and Switzerland. He was second to Hans Wendland in the Swiss art trade. He was believed to have brought works of art illegally into Switzerland through Rumanian diplomatic channels and participated in an exchange of loot with the ERR. Throughout the war maintained contact with the New York art trade. [Back to text]

118. German organization of guerrilla fighters set up in the last days of the war and commanded by SS General Hans Pruetzmann. The werewolves were modeled on the Resistance fighters in German-occupied countries. It was thought they would continue to fight once the war ended but after Admiral Doenitz, Hitler's successor, ordered them to cease operations, they complied. Researchers may find useful Charles Whiting, Werewolf: The Story of the Nazi Resistance Movement 1944-1945 (London: Leo Cooper, 1996). [Back to text]

119. The RSHA (Reichssischerheitshauptampt) was The Reich Main Security Office formed under the leadership of Reinhard Heydrich in September 1939. Its departments included the Intelligence Division, the Gestapo (Secret State Police), the Criminal Police and the SD (Security Service). The Special Intelligence Division, established by Walter Schellenberg, was charged with procuring foreign currency, among other activities. Amt VI (Office VI), headed by Adolf Eichmann, was responsible for implementing the "Final Solution " to the Jewish problem. [Back to text]

120. Walter Schellenberg from 1939 to 1942 was Deputy Chief of Amt VI of the RSHA (Reich Main Security Office), in charge of the political secret service for foreign countries. In 1942, he was promoted to head Amt VI of the RSHA and Chief of Security in the occupied territories. In 1944 he was appointed head of the united SS and Wehrmacht military intelligence, standing second only to Himmler in the Gestapo hierarchy. Researchers may find useful Walter Schellenberg, Hitler's Secret Service: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg, ed. and trans., Louis Hagen, 2nd Ed., (New York: Pyramid, 1962). [Back to text]

121. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was head of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence and counter-intelligence organization. He was removed from office in February 1944 and arrested in July 1944 for plotting against Hitler. Researchers may find useful K. H. Abshagen, Canaris (London: Hutchinson, 1956); Heinz Hohne, Canaris (New York: Doubleday, 1979); Andre Brissaud, Canaris: The Biography of Admiral Canaris, Chief of German Military Intelligence in the Second World War (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1974); Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, The Canaris Conspiracy (New York: David McKay, Inc., 1969). [Back to text]

122. German Foreign Minister from February 1938 to 1945, having served previously as Ambassador-at-Large and from 1936 to 1938 the German ambassador to Great Britain. Researchers may find useful John Weitz, Hitler's Diplomat: The Life and Times of Joachim von Ribbentrop (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1992); Joachim von Ribbentrop, The Ribbentrop Memoirs (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983); Paul Schwartz, This Man Ribbentrop: His Life and Times (New York: Julian Messner, Publishers, Inc., 1943). [Back to text]

123. A Bavarian financial and speculator, who was a personal friend of Hermann Goering. He purchased the Goudstikker Collection. [Back to text]

124. Dr. Arthur Wiederkehr, a Zurich, Switzerland attorney, on the Proclaimed List, who held six looted pictures for Miedl, five of which were from the Paul Rosenberg Collection; offered one of them, the Van Gogh "Self Portrait, " for sale to Buehrle. [Back to text]

125. Director of the Goering Collection and Goering's chief purchasing agent. [Back to text]

126. German national. Art dealer, resident alternatively in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany since World War I. Probably the most important individual engaged in quasi-official looted art transactions in France, Germany, and Switzerland during World War II. Acted as intermediary between Hofer and Fischer, and as Fischer's chief purchasing agent. He was frequently in Paris, France, during the occupation; close contact of Lohse, Rochlitze, Loebl, Petrides, Mandl, Wuester, etc. He never sold works directly to private purchasers; always working as dealers' expert and agent. Was on the Proclaimed List. [Back to text]

127. Karl W. Bruemming was a bookseller and antique dealer in Darmstadt, Germany. He was chief representative in Germany for Fischer and was an important intermediary in Hofer-Fischer exchanges, as well as many of Dr. Wolffhardt's (SS Hauptsturmfuehrer) transactions for the Linz Library. He traveled frequently to Switzerland during the war and was a key figure in movement of looted works of art between Germany and Switzerland. [Back to text]

128. Baron Eduard von Der Heydt of Ascona, Switzerland, was a former German banker who obtained Swiss citizenship in 1937. He was a wealthy collector, particularly of Chinese art, with strong international connections and was supposedly a cover for protecting the assets of Nazi industrialists, politicians, diplomats, and intelligence chiefs. [Back to text]

129. A Hungarian fascist faction headed by Ferenc Szalasi. By 1939 it was the second largest party in the Hungarian parliament. [Back to text]

130. SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann in December 1939 he took command of Referat IV B4 of the Amt IV (Gestapo) of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), dealing with Jewish affairs, including the implementation of the 'Final Solution,' i.e., the extermination of the Jews. Researchers may find useful Jochen von Lang, ed., Eichmann Interrogated (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1983); Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: The Viking Press, Inc., 1963). [Back to text]

131. Important Swiss dealer. He owned a large establishment which did a considerable volume of international business prior to World War II. During the war he was the focal point in all looted art transactions in Switzerland, and recipient of the greatest number of looted paintings. He conducted extensive business with Haberstock, Hofer, Wendland, Buemming, and all Swiss art dealer. Fischer was on the Proclaimed List. [Back to text]

132. Count Dino Grandi in 1939 became Italy's Minister of Justice. In February 1943 he was dismissed from the cabinet and lead the effort that summer to remove Mussolini from power. He fled Italy before the September 1943 armistice with the Allies. [Back to text]

133. Galeazzo Ciano di Cortellazzo was Mussolini's son-in-law and served as Italy's foreign minister for seven years. In February 1943, he resigned and was appointed ambassador to the Holy See and that July voted in the Fascist Grand Council for Mussolini's dismissal. Later that summer he was seized by the Mussolini supporters and executed in January 1944.[Back to text]

134. Researchers may find useful Galeazzo Ciano, The Ciano Diaries, 1939-1943. Ed. Hugh Gibson (New York: Doubleday, 1983).[Back to text]

135. Partner of Erich Schiffman in "Moubles Manonellas, a Barcelona, Spain shop opened ostensibly for the disposal of porcelain and china smuggled by him from France.[Back to text]

136. German industrialists and steel magnate who helped finance the Nazi Party. Once Hitler took power, Thyssen was chosen to direct an institute of studies devoted to research on the corporate state. By 1935 he began having doubts about the Nazi party's rearmament program and anti-Semitic policies, and in 1938 he resigned from the Prussian Council of State to protest against the persecution of the Jews and the next year he left Germany. He was later turned over to the Nazis, who had already confiscated his property, by the Vichy government and spent the remainder of the war in a concentration camp. Researchers may find useful Fritz Thyssen, I Paid Hitler (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1941).[Back to text]

137. Located in Alsace-Lorraine, it was used mainly for political prisoners.[Back to text]

138. The Birkenau extermination camp was located in the Birkenau woods near Auschwitz in occupied Poland. It was constructed in 1941 on orders from Himmler as a special killing center for 100,000 Russian prisoners.[Back to text]

139. Open in May 1938 near the Bavarian town of Flossenburg. During the next seven years some 65,000 people were incarcerated there. During 1944-1945, over 14,000 people died or were executed at the camp.[Back to text]

140. Near Linz, Austria, it had 60 sub-camps. The main camp was opened in August 1938, and housed European Jews. Of the over 200,000 Jews held there at least 70,000 died from overwork in nearby stone quarries and the armaments industries, from starvation and disease, and by execution.[Back to text]

141. An operation which entailed the wholesale confiscation of household goods and furnishings of French Jewish families in 1943 and 1944, and the disposal thereof by sale in Paris or by shipment to Germany. [Back to text]

Top