vault backup: 2026-10-14 15:45:14

40 - EVENTS/MAJOR_CONFLICTS/World War II.md

@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ World War II was the global conflict fought from September 1, 1939, to September
 
 The [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS) was established by military order on June 13, 1942, under the jurisdiction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The order directed it to collect and analyze strategic information for the Joint Chiefs and to plan and operate special services.[^2] It was headed by General [[William J. Donovan]] and created under President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]. On August 25, 1945, Donovan told the Bureau of the Budget that the agency was "working under what is in effect a liquidation budget."[^3]
 
-President [[Harry S. Truman]] dissolved the OSS by Executive Order 9621 of September 20, 1945. The order moved its Research and Analysis Branch and Presentation Branch to an Interim Research and Intelligence Service in the State Department, transferred all other functions, personnel, records and funds to the War Department, and terminated the Office, including the office of the Director of Strategic Services, as of the opening of business on October 1, 1945.[^4] The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group dates the disbanding to October 1945.[^5] The War Department units that inherited the clandestine side were the Strategic Services Unit (SSU) and its successors. The [[Central Intelligence Group]] was created by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] in September 1947.[^6][^5] The Working Group states that the CIA inherited intelligence operations and agents in Europe from the Army and from the organizations that succeeded the OSS, and that these operations later included the [[Gehlen Organization]].[^5]
+President [[Harry S. Truman]] dissolved the OSS by Executive Order 9621 of September 20, 1945. The order moved its Research and Analysis Branch and Presentation Branch to an Interim Research and Intelligence Service in the State Department, transferred all other functions, personnel, records and funds to the War Department, and terminated the Office, including the office of the Director of Strategic Services, as of the opening of business on October 1, 1945.[^4] The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group dates the disbanding to October 1945.[^5] The War Department units that inherited the clandestine side were the Strategic Services Unit (SSU) and its successors. The [[Central Intelligence Group]] was created by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] in September 1947.[^5][^6] The Working Group states that the CIA inherited intelligence operations and agents in Europe from the Army and from the organizations that succeeded the OSS, and that these operations later included the [[Gehlen Organization]].[^5]
 
 [[General Walter Bedell Smith|Walter Bedell Smith]], who became CIA Director in 1950, had been Eisenhower's wartime chief of staff, and dozens of other senior CIA and military intelligence officials of the 1950s to 1970s had served in the OSS.
 
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ In a 1977 article in the CIA's journal Studies in Intelligence, [[Kenneth A. Kre
 
 [[Walter Schellenberg]], who headed the foreign intelligence branch of the [[Sicherheitsdienst]] (SD), wrote in his memoirs about the flight of [[Rudolf Hess]] to Scotland in May 1941. He stated that SD reports revealed Hess to have been a "silent adherent" of Rudolf Steiner and the anthroposophists, that Hess had made the flight "in accordance with astrological advice" and had close associations with astrologers, seers, mediums and nature therapists, and that collective arrests followed among both groups. According to Schellenberg, [[Heinrich Himmler]] told him that from the day of the flight Hitler's earlier interest in astrology "changed to an uncompromising antipathy," and Himmler was upset by the measures taken against the astrologers.[^28] Schellenberg also wrote that on April 28, 1945 he took an astrologer from Hamburg, whom Himmler knew and thought highly of, to a meeting with Himmler in Luebeck, in order to soften Himmler's reaction to the failure of a peace initiative, and that with the astrologer's help he obtained Himmler's permission to discuss the ending of the German occupation of Norway and the internment of the occupation forces in Sweden.[^29]
 
-The astrologer [[Wilhelm Wulff]] recorded Schellenberg telling him that mystical belief systems were "a suitable vehicle for the propagation of political concepts and for the political control of a nation," as reported in Jacobsen's *Phenomena* and on the vault pages for Wulff and Schellenberg.[^30]
+The astrologer [[Wilhelm Wulff]] recorded Schellenberg telling him that mystical belief systems were "a suitable vehicle for the propagation of political concepts and for the political control of a nation."[^30]
 
 The [[Ahnenerbe]] is described in the opening statement of the prosecution in the Doctors' Trial before the American Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The tribunal's printed record states that the name "literally means 'ancestral heritage'," that the society was "originally devoted to scientific and psuedo-scientific researches concerning the anthropological and cultural history of the German race," and that an Institute for Military Scientific Research was later set up within it. [[Wolfram Sievers]], an SS colonel, was manager of the society and director of the Institute, a direct subordinate of Himmler as president of the Ahnenerbe, and a defendant.[^31] The prosecution quoted a February 1942 report from Sievers to Himmler (document NO-085) proposing the procurement of skulls of Jewish commissars to remedy a shortage of "Jewish race" specimens, and a September 1944 telegram from Sievers to Himmler's adjutant Rudolf Brandt about the skeleton collection assembled at the Reich University of Strasbourg under Professor August Hirt as the Allied armies approached.[^32]
 
@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ The laboratory's first guided missile was the Corporal, first flown in an unguid
 
 The atomic bomb program was placed under a Military Policy Committee chaired by [[Vannevar Bush]], with [[Leslie Groves]] named to sit with it as executive officer. The Smyth Report states that the creation of the committee in effect placed all phases of the project under the control of Bush, [[James B. Conant]], General Styer, Admiral Purnell and Groves.[^35] The [[Los Alamos]] laboratory was the principal site of the work.
 
-[[Operation Alsos]] followed the advancing forces into Germany to investigate the German nuclear energy project and to prevent German scientists from being moved beyond reach. [[Samuel Goudsmit]], chosen as chief scientist at a meeting called by Vannevar Bush at the Office of Scientific Research and Development, was its scientific head. Its military commander, Colonel [[Boris Pash]], wrote that the plan agreed with Goudsmit gave the scientific section the choice of targets (personnel, installations or equipment) and gave Pash the task of seizing and protecting them. Pash described Werner Heisenberg as the first priority, and described the occupation of Haigerloch and the securing of the laboratory of Otto Hahn.[^36] Goudsmit published his own account, *Alsos*, in 1947.[^37]
+[[Operation Alsos]] followed the advancing forces into Germany to investigate the German nuclear energy project and to prevent German scientists from being moved beyond reach. [[Samuel Goudsmit]], chosen as chief scientist at a meeting called by Vannevar Bush at the Office of Scientific Research and Development, was its scientific head. Its military commander, Colonel [[Boris Pash]], wrote that the plan agreed with Goudsmit gave the scientific section the choice of targets (personnel, installations or equipment) and gave Pash the task of seizing and protecting them. Pash described Werner Heisenberg as the first priority, and described the occupation of Haigerloch and the securing of the laboratory of Otto Hahn.[^36] Goudsmit published his own account, *Alsos*, in 1947. He wrote that Pash, not waiting for the Bavarian Redoubt to fall, took six men to Urfeld, south of Munich, to take Heisenberg.[^37]
 
 ### Abwehr
 
@@ -145,7 +145,7 @@ The Office of Alien Property Custodian's annual report for March 11, 1942 to Jun
 
 The prosecution's opening statement in the Farben case before the American Military Tribunal at Nuremberg described the agreements between I.G. Farben and [[Standard Oil]] of New Jersey. The statement says that a 1929 agreement recognized Farben's priority in chemicals and Standard's priority in oil outside Germany, that a 1930 agreement created the jointly owned Joint American Study Company (Jasco) to develop new processes "on a basis of equality (50-50)," and that Frank A. Howard of the Standard Oil Development Company wrote in 1936 that "the IG may be said to be our general partner in the chemical business." It states that Standard turned over its butyl rubber process to Farben while Farben delayed the transfer of its buna rubber processes, and that after the outbreak of war in September 1939 Howard met Farben representatives at The Hague, where Farben transferred its Jasco interest to Standard but not the necessary know-how.[^50] The indictment charged that the cartel agreements delayed the development and production of buna rubber in the United States until 1940.[^51] The Tribunal's judgment in the Farben case describes the 1939 Hague transactions as having been held by the U.S. Federal courts in Standard Oil Co. v. Markham (S.D.N.Y.) and Standard Oil Co. v. Clark (2d Cir., September 22, 1947) to be "sham transactions designed to create an appearance of Jersey ownership of property interests which, nevertheless, continued to be regarded by the parties as IG owned."[^52]
 
-The New York law firm [[Sullivan & Cromwell]] had German clients in the 1930s, according to Frank Lipsius and Nancy Lisagor's history of the firm, and [[John Foster Dulles]] and [[Allen Dulles]] were partners of the firm.[^53] [[IBM]]'s German subsidiary, Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft ([[Dehomag]]), is the subject of [[Edwin Black]]'s account. Black wrote that Dehomag, "with the knowledge of its New York headquarters," custom-designed devices and applications for the Reich as an official corporate undertaking, and that IBM's New York management understood from 1933 that it was doing business with the upper echelon of the Nazi Party.[^54]
+The New York law firm [[Sullivan & Cromwell]] had German clients in the 1930s, according to Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius's history of the firm, and [[John Foster Dulles]] and [[Allen Dulles]] were partners of the firm.[^53] [[IBM]]'s German subsidiary, Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft ([[Dehomag]]), is the subject of [[Edwin Black]]'s account. Black wrote that Dehomag, "with the knowledge of its New York headquarters," custom-designed devices and applications for the Reich as an official corporate undertaking, and that IBM's New York management understood from 1933 that it was doing business with the upper echelon of the Nazi Party.[^54]
 
 ### War crimes trials and the disclosure record
 
@@ -184,14 +184,14 @@ The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, Public Law 105-246 of October 8, 1998, direc
 [^27]: Annotated bibliography entry on Paul A. Dietz, "A successful psychometric experiment with the clairvoyant E. Hanussen," *Tijdschrift voor Parapsychologie*, 1930/31, CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00792R000700690004-2. The parenthetical about Hitler is the bibliographer's annotation.
 [^28]: Walter Schellenberg, *The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg* (Harper, 1956; Pyramid Books ed. as *Hitler's Secret Service*, 1974), chapter "The Mystery of Rudolf Hess," pp. 190-191.
 [^29]: Schellenberg, *The Labyrinth*, chapter on the Himmler talks of April 1945 (Pyramid ed., pp. 393-394).
-[^30]: Wilhelm Wulff, *Zodiac and Swastika* (1973), as reported in Annie Jacobsen, *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis* (Little, Brown, 2017); the quotation appears on the vault pages for Wilhelm Wulff and Walter Schellenberg.
+[^30]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. New York: Little, Brown, 2017, p. 17, citing Wilhelm Wulff, *Zodiac and Swastika* (1973), p. 94.
 [^31]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10*, vol. I (The Medical Case), list of defendants (Sievers, "Reich Manager of the 'Ahnenerbe' Society and Director of its Institute for Military Scientific Research") and the prosecution's opening statement on the defendant Sievers. https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/NT_war-criminals.html
 [^32]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals*, vol. I, indictment (the skeleton collection for the Reich University of Strasbourg) and the prosecution's opening statement quoting documents NO-085 and NO-087 and Sievers's telegram of September 1944.
 [^33]: Erik M. Conway, "From Rockets to Spacecraft: Making JPL a Place for Planetary Science," *Engineering & Science*, Caltech, no. 4 (2007), pp. 2-3. https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/702/2/Spacecraft.pdf
 [^34]: Conway, "From Rockets to Spacecraft," pp. 3-5 (Aerojet; Parsons and Forman; the Corporal and the WAC Corporal; the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Research Panel and captured V-2 instruments; Redstone Arsenal).
 [^35]: Henry DeWolf Smyth, *Atomic Energy for Military Purposes* (Princeton University Press, 1945), sections 5.25 to 5.27 (Military Policy Committee; General Groves as executive officer). https://archive.org/details/atomicenergyform00smyt_0
 [^36]: Boris T. Pash, *The Alsos Mission* (1969), chapters on the formation of Alsos (Goudsmit as chief scientist; the division of tasks between the scientific section and Pash), the priority list headed by Heisenberg, and the occupation of Haigerloch and Otto Hahn's laboratory.
-[^37]: Samuel A. Goudsmit, *Alsos* (Henry Schuman, 1947).
+[^37]: Samuel A. Goudsmit, *Alsos* (New York: Henry Schuman, 1947; Woodbury, N.Y.: American Institute of Physics Press, 1996), p. 111.
 [^38]: Joint Publications Research Service, *Translations on USSR Science and Technology: Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences* (FOUO 37/78, December 6, 1978), CIA reading room, CIA-RDP96-00787R000500430001-1. The characterization belongs to the translated Soviet article.
 [^39]: U.S. Senate, *Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce*, Hearings before the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Part 7 (New York-New Jersey) (1951), testimony of George H. White, pp. 1180-1181 (index entry "White, Col. George H., narcotics agent, United States Treasury, 1180-1187"). https://archive.org/details/investigationofo07unit
 [^40]: *Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce*, Part 7, testimony of George H. White, pp. 1181-1182 (Del Grazio, May 1943).
@@ -207,7 +207,7 @@ The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, Public Law 105-246 of October 8, 1998, direc
 [^50]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals*, vol. VII (The Farben Case), prosecution opening statement, pp. 162-167 (1929 and 1930 Standard Oil agreements, Jasco, Howard's letter of 1936, butyl and buna, the Hague conference of September 1939; documents NI-10550, NI-10433, NI-10431, NI-10455). https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/NT_war-criminals.html
 [^51]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals*, vol. VII, indictment, paragraph 57.
 [^52]: *Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals*, vol. VIII (The Farben Case), Decision and Judgment of the Tribunal, pp. 1273-1290 (Standard Oil agreements; *Standard Oil Co. v. Markham*, 64 F. Supp. 656 (S.D.N.Y.), and *Standard Oil Co. v. Clark*, 163 F.2d 917 (2d Cir. 1947), as quoted by the Tribunal).
-[^53]: Frank Lipsius and Nancy Lisagor, *A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm Sullivan & Cromwell* (William Morrow, 1988), pp. 99-101 and 132-134.
+[^53]: Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius, *A Law Unto Itself: The Untold Story of the Law Firm Sullivan & Cromwell* (New York: William Morrow, 1988), pp. 95, 120-127, 132-133, 141 and 144.
 [^54]: Edwin Black, *IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation* (Crown, 2001), introduction.
 [^55]: *Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal*, Proceedings Volumes, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/imt.asp
 [^56]: Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, Public Law 105-246, 112 Stat. 1859 (October 8, 1998), Section 2. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-105publ246/pdf/PLAW-105publ246.pdf