The Nazis Next Door (40 page)

Notes

Prologue

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He was in trouble:
“Tscherim Soobzokov” file, Nazi War Crimes Interagency Working Group, Declassified Records of the Central Intelligence Agency (Record Group 263), National Archives and Records Administration. Some of the Soobzokov documents remain classified today.

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long-ago friend John Grunz:
In a number of letters to Soobzokov, his CIA handler identified himself as “John Grunz.” This was almost certainly an alias. (See, for instance, letter to Soobzokov of February 14, 1956: “Looking forward to seeing you, I am. Yours Sincerely, John Grunz”; CIA Soobzokov file.)

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secret psychological workups:
CIA Soobzokov file, including internal memos referencing security reviews and polygraphing of Soobzokov on February 20–22, 1956.

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don’t give him:
Internal CIA memo dated July 12, 1974, CIA Soobzokov file. The congressman was Representative Robert Roe of New Jersey, a friend of Soobzokov’s.

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  Führer of the North Caucasus: Accounts from fellow immigrants, including handwritten note from Isa Hoket, of Paterson, New Jersey, dated March 30, 1969; CIA Soobzokov file.

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in the
New York Times!: Internal CIA memo of July 8, 1974, “Memorandum for the Record: Subject: Abd-Al-Karim Subzikov”; CIA Soobzokov files.

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“ashamed to work for a Jew”:
Internal CIA memo on “Telephone call from SOOBZOKOV,” August 11, 1958; CIA Soobzokov file.

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facing a “significant flap”:
Internal CIA memo of July 12, 1974, on Soobzokov and public reports about his Nazi ties, CIA Soobzokov files.

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J. Edgar Hoover had:
FBI letter, June 25, 1958, from Hoover to Dulles, director of CIA, regarding Dulles’s “suggestion” in a letter nine days earlier that the FBI consider using Soobzokov as an informant; CIA Soobzokov files.

1. Liberation

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“human garbage”:
Jacob Biber,
Risen from the Ashes: A Story of Jewish Displaced Persons in the Aftermath of World War II
(San Bernardino, CA: Borgo, 1990).

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only forty thousand people:
Elmer B. Staats, Comptroller General of the United States,
Widespread Conspiracy to Obstruct Probes of Alleged Nazi War Criminals Not Supported by Available Evidence; Controversy May Continue
, report prepared for House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and International Law, released May 16, 1978.

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men like Jakob Reimer: United States v. Reimer
, 2002, archived collection of Justice Department Office of Special Investigations records on file at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Reimer file.

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“He was never entitled”:
Ibid.

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they were bunked:
Mark Wyman
, DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–1951
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 134.

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“we do not exterminate them”:
Earl G. Harrison,
The Plight of the Displaced Jews in Europe: A Report to President Truman
(New York: Reprinted by United Jewish Appeal for Refugees, Overseas Needs and Palestine on behalf of Joint Distribution Committee, United Palestine Appeal, National Refugee Service, 1945).

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“Harrison and his ilk”:
Personal journal of General George S. Patton, including entry for September 15, 1945; excerpts on file at United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum.

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“kikes” and “Jew boys”:
Michael Beschloss,
The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941–1945
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 200.

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“the Jews have no place to go”: Michael Beschloss, Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789–1989 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 200
. Michael Beschloss, Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789–1989 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 200.

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  Who can answer me?: Author interview with Miriam Isaacs, former fellow in residence at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Isaacs’s research focused on music and oral culture of Holocaust survivors in Nazi camps and ghettos.

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“A general malaise was growing”: Biber, Risen from the Ashes.
Biber, Risen from the Ashes.

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Dmytro Sawchuk got a visa:
Justice Department case file on Sawchuk.

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“Asks for help”:
International Tracing Service search of Soobzokov records, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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“Did We Beat the Nazis”:
Gerald Steinacher,
Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 173.

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secret cable on the Nazis’ flight:
Ralph Blumenthal and E. J. Dionne Jr., “Vatican Is Reported to Have Furnished Aid to Fleeing Nazis,”
New York Times
, January 26, 1984.

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“living royally in a ski hotel”:
Daniel Lang, “A Romantic Urge,”
New Yorker
, April 21, 1951.

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“don’t put that in the papers”:
Reimer file, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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“a thousand little Führers”:
Opening statement by Jackson at Nuremberg trial, November 21, 1945; video on file at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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“It is all forgotten”:
Reimer file, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

2. The Good Nazis

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they sat by a crackling fire:
Allen W. Dulles,
The Secret Surrender: The Classic Insider’s Account of the Secret Plot to Surrender Northern Italy During WWII
(Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2006), 96.

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persuaded their Latin American neighbors:
Max Paul Friedman
, Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign Against the Germans of Latin America in World War II
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2–6.

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“heart had not really been in the Nazi cause”:
Petronella Wyatt, “The Quality of Mercy,”
Spectator
, February 1, 2003, p. 48, quoting Ned Putzell, former intelligence official under William Donovan for the Office of Strategic Services at the Nuremberg trials.

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included remarkably little:
Neal H. Petersen, ed.,
From Hitler’s Doorstep: The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles, 1942–1945
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 50. Petersen describes Dulles’s intelligence reports to Washington on the topic of the Holocaust as “inexplicably meager.”

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“I do not see much”:
Dulles cables to OSS headquarters in Washington in 1943; cited in ibid., 63–64, 188–90.

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simply enjoyed a stroll:
Photos on file at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum of Himmler and Wolff together, including photo no. 60466 of the two men taking a walk on Himmler’s birthday in 1941; and Jochen von Lang,
Top Nazi: SS General Karl Wolff; the Man Between Hitler and Himmler
(New York: Enigma, 2005), 45–46.

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“it was an honor”:
Ibid., 358.

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“bureaucrat of death”:
Michael Salter,
Nazi War Crimes, U.S. Intelligence, and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg: Controversies Regarding the Role of the Office of Strategic Services
(New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007).

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“wholesale slaughter of populations”:
Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch,
Principal Nazi Organizations Involved in the Commission of War Crimes: The Nazi Party
, R & A report no. 3133.7, September 10, 1945.

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“save their skins”:
Salter,
Nazi War Crimes
, 113.

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“free to talk to the Devil himself”:
Dulles,
The Secret Surrender
, 87.

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a list of character references:
Ibid., 93.

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more moderate element in Waffen SS:
Cable from Dulles to Washington after meeting with General Wolff on March 8, 1945, reprinted in Petersen,
From Hitler’s Doorstep
.

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“no ogre”:
Dulles,
The Secret Surrender
, 61.

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“He was good-looking”:
Ibid., 71.

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“protect certificates from being sent to Germany”:
Secret cable from Allen Dulles to OSS headquarters in Washington, March 12, 1945. It is not clear what happened to the stock certificates or whether General Wolff was able to hold on to them with Dulles’s help. The certificates were likely looted from Jews who had been killed or imprisoned on Wolff’s orders.

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A grateful Wolff thanked:
Dulles,
The Secret Surrender
, 190–91.

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“If after my death”:
Ibid., 157.

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Germans and Italians:
Richard Breitman,
Analysis of the Name File of Guido Zimmer
, Nazi War Crimes Interagency Working Group, Declassified Records of the Central Intelligence Agency (Record Group 263), National Archives and Records Administration.

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“such distrust, such lack of faith”:
Secret diplomatic cable from FDR to Stalin, April 3, 1945, as cited in Petersen,
From Hitler’s Doorstep
, 637.

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even went yachting:
Gaston Cobentz and Seymour Freidin, “Strange Story of an SS General,”
New York Herald Tribune
, January 23, 1962; and Kerstin von Lingen, “Conspiracy of Silence: How the ‘Old Boys’ of American Intelligence Shielded SS General Karl Wolff from Prosecution,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
22, no. 1 (Spring 2008), 74–109.

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allies “owe some moral obligation
”
:
Christopher Simpson,
Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War
(New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988), 92; and Richard Breitman et al.,
U.S
.
Intelligence and the Nazis
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 317–29.

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“It is thanks to Mr. Dulles”:
Von Lingen, “Conspiracy of Silence,” 90.

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“much more inhumane”:
Von Lang,
Top Nazi
, 318.

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“lost more than his shirt”:
Von Lingen, “Conspiracy of Silence,” 93, citing letter from Dulles to a Swiss intelligence officer on June 12, 1950, after Wolff complained publicly about his treatment. While Dulles helped Wolff escape prosecution at Nuremberg after the war, the West Germans took a new look at his case two decades later, and the Nazi general was imprisoned for five years for complicity in genocide. As he faced his belated jailing in 1963, Wolff again reached out to Dulles for help. But Dulles, fired as CIA director two years earlier, declined to come to his aid this time.

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“if you need these men”:
Raymond Daniell, “Denazification Hit by U.S. Officers,”
New York Times
, September 21, 1945.

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“I could not have done it”:
Transcript of interview with Dr. Hubertus Strughold, U.S. Air Force Oral History Project, Office of Air Force History, conducted November 25, 1974, p. 14. Obtained under Freedom of Information Act.

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“I was transported”:
André Sellier
, A History of the Dora Camp
, translated by Stephen Wright and Susan Taponier (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 2003), 77.

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prevent German chemists:
Tom Bower,
The Paperclip Conspiracy: The Hunt for the Nazi Scientists
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1987), 121.

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“little scientific acumen”: Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1991), 91
. Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1991), 91.

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“‘beating a dead Nazi horse’”:
March 1948 letter from Navy to State Department; Declassified CIA war crimes files, National Archives and Records Administration, “Paperclip” collection.