Nazi War Crimes: intelligence Agencies and Selective Legal Accountability

469 Pages·2007·2.22 MB·English

by  Salter

Nazi War Crimes, US Intelligence
and Selective Prosecution at
Nuremberg
Controversies regarding the role of the
Office of Strategic Services
Nazi War Crimes, US Intelligence and Selective Prosecution at Nuremberg
provides a balanced but critical discussion of the contribution of American
intelligence officials to the Nuremberg war crimes trials process. It discusses
the role of such officials in mobilising the unique resources of a modern
intelligence agency in order to provide a range of important trial evidence
and undertake controversial plea-bargaining negotiations. The book also
reviews recently declassified US intelligence documents to provide new details
of how senior Nazi war criminals, such as SS-General Karl Wolff, were
provided with effective immunity deals, partly as a reward for their wartime
cooperation with US intelligence officials, including Allen Dulles, former
CIA Director. This historical case study suggests that both war crimes
prosecutors and intelligence officials can engage in mutually beneficial
collaborations. The proviso, Michael Salter argues, is that both sides need to
recognise and appreciate the problems that may arise from the fact that these
institutitions are required to operate according to different, and in some cases
contradictory, agendas.
Michael Salter is Professor of Law at Lancashire Law School, UK.

Nazi War Crimes, US
Intelligence and Selective
Prosecution at Nuremberg
Controversies regarding the role of the
Office of Strategic Services
Michael Salter
First published 2007
by Routledge-Cavendish
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN, UK
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge-Cavendish
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
A GlassHouse book
Routledge-Cavendish is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2007 Michael Salter
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Salter, Michael, 1957–
Nazi war crimes, US intelligence and selective prosecution at
Nuremburg : controversies regarding the role of the Office of
Strategic Services / Michael Salter.
p. cm.
ISBN–13: 978–1–904385–81–3 (hardback)
ISBN–10: 1–904385–81–8 (hardback)
ISBN–13: 978–1–904385–80–6 (pbk.)
ISBN–10: 1–904385–80–X (pbk.)
1. Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg,
Germany, 1945–1946. 2. Nuremberg War Crime Trials,
Nuremberg, Germany, 1946–1949. 3. United States. Office of
Strategic Services. 4. United States. Central Intelligence
Agency. 5. World War, 1939–1945—Military intelligence—United
States. 6. Evidence, Criminal—Germany—History—20th
century. I. Title.
KZ1176.5.S25 2007
341.6′90268—dc22 2006036701
ISBN 0–203–94510–7 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 1–904385–80–X (pbk)
ISBN10: 1–904385–81–8 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–94510–7 (ebk)
lSBN13: 978–1–904385–80–6 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–1–904385–81–3 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–94510–0 (ebk)
I would like to thank those individuals and publishing collaborators too
numerous to list for their professional inspiration and help, and – on a
more personal and familial note – to dedicate this work to Charlie, Glen,
John, Leslie, Martin, Naomi and Ray.

Contents
1 Introducing the rationale, aims and methodology 1
Introduction 1
Conclusion 10
2 Evidence of the war criminality of the Wolff group 11
Introduction 12
Relevant offences 14
Evidence of the Wolff group’s involvement in Nazi war crimes 23
Medical experimentation 30
Funding concentration camps 31
The persecution and extermination of European Jews 32
Italian anti-partisan warfare 33
Wolff’s institutional position 35
Wolff’s defensive claims in the light of the Nuremberg evidence 37
The complicities of Guido Zimmer 54
The complicities of Eugen Dollmann 63
Dollmann’s decision to join the Nazi Party and the SS 65
Dollmann’s activities as a translator and diplomatic emissary 67
Potential defence argument 1: an accidental Nazi? 70
Potential defence argument 2: Dollmann as a saboteur? 72
Potential defence argument 3: Dollmann’s lack of knowledge of SS
war criminality? 75
Potential defence argument 4: his lack of any policy-making role 76
Potential defence argument 5: lack of involvement in the unlawful
activities of the SS 77
Potential defence argument 6: Dollmann’s humanitarian
interventions 80
Problems with these defence arguments 81
Conclusion 84
viii Contents
3 The geo-political context of the peace negotiations surrounding
the OSS’s Operation Sunrise 89
Introduction 89
Introducing specific contexts shaping Dulles’ wartime role regarding
SS peace feelers 1944–45 92
Negotiating the conditions of an ‘unconditional’ surrender 96
Conclusion 108
4 Intervening on behalf of Karl Wolff 109
Introduction 109
Dulles’ interventions on behalf of Wolff with respect to the
International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg 121
Intervening to protect Wolff from the second round of the
Nuremberg trials 131
Wolff’s escape from prosecution by the British authorities 135
The ‘Old Lace’ de-Nazification trials 146
1962–64: Wolff’s arrest and German trials 166
Conclusion 176
5 Protecting the wider Sunrise group: Zimmer, Dollmann and Wenner 179
Introduction 179
Zimmer’s post-war recruitment and deployment as a US intelligence
asset 180
Dollmann’s post-war detention, recruitment and deployment as a US
intelligence asset 184
The internal controversy regarding the ‘privileged treatment’ of the
Wolff group 202
Questions of legal immunity in the light of Dollmann’s CIA Name
File 215
Intervening to ensure protection 220
The internal controversy concerning Dollmann’s protection 223
Conclusion 243
6 The contribution of OSS officials to the prosecution of Nazi
war crimes 246
Designing the courtroom as a stage for a media event 253
Facilitating media coverage: controversies and logistical support 255
Organisational charts 257
Providing documentary and eye-witness evidence 258
Contents ix
Producing the Nazi Concentration Camps film 260
The immediate impact of screening the atrocity film 269
7 Gathering and analysing the materials that became the R-Series of
Nuremberg trial evidence 277
Waging aggressive war and crimes committed against prisoners of
war 288
Rothschild’s work in gathering and organising the R-Series evidence 298
Conclusion 306
8 General Donovan’s contribution to the Nuremberg trials 307
Introduction 307
Donovan’s attempts to secure a leading role for the OSS 309
The courting and honeymoon phases 320
Recruiting Donovan’s OSS personnel 332
The flow of OSS staff and support 338
Providing evidence from Dulles’ OSS contacts within the German
opposition 346
Donovan’s assistance with the geo-politics of international
negotiations 351
Donovan’s assistance with American organisations 362
The provision of documentation 366
Other forms of support provided by Donovan 367
Donovan’s long-range interventions: July–September 1945 369
The honeymoon ends in desertion: Donovan departs and plays away 374
The irretrievable breakdown 376
Excluding Donovan and the OSS lawyers from the economic case 381
Prosecuting the German General Staff and the High Command 393
The merits of witness or documentary evidence 398
Donovan’s plea-bargaining proposals for Schacht and Göring 410
Informal contacts with Leverkühn and Lahousen 424
An acrimonious divorce 428
Was either leader proved right? 439
Conclusion 444
Summation: taking stock 445
Bibliography 448
Appendix: Abbreviations 452
Index 453