The Cornell University Law Library Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection is open to the general public, in accordance with the terms set forth in the Guidelines for Using Public Domain Text, Images, Audio, and Video Reproduced from Cornell University Library Collections. Subdivision 62 / Memoranda in Preparation of Case I could have exploded many other times,” he said.Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection Subject:ĭonovan Nuremberg Trials Collection Keywords: “I should have told them to go to hell, but I didn’t do it. Mayer recalled taking Nazis shopping at a Jewish department stores in Washington, DC on a lark, but told Duffin he regretted not being more subversive. Box 1142,” Duffin said, referring to the cipher machines used to encode German transmissions.Īt the end of the war, the program’s mission changed from interrogating Nazis to wining and dining them in an attempt to recruit them to the American side, especially scientists who could also be valuable to the Russians.Īrno Mayer, 88, who escaped the Nazi occupation of Luxembourg and went on to become a history professor at Princeton University, was tasked with charming Wernher von Braun, the famed Nazi rocket scientists who later helped the US get to the moon, appeared on the cover of Time magazine and befriended President John F. One of the Enigma machines was captured using intel discovered at P.O. “By the end of the war, they’d extracted a ton of really important intelligence about where the allies should bomb, about German weapons still being developed, about the structure of the German army. Box 1142 was the first strategic American effort at interrogation, and it worked. Then, in 2006, army intelligence cleared them to talk to the park rangers. Having signed a secrecy agreement with the army, most of the former interrogators did not speak about their work for more than 60 years, even to their wives and children. While many of the Jewish former interrogators were happy to help the US defeat the Nazis, some struggled with the policy of being chummy with the prisoners, who had just helped drive them out of their countries and in some cases kill their loved ones. Our interrogator’s job is to play upon those weaknesses to help make up the complete intelligence picture,” a World War II interrogation training film featured in the report instructs. “Try to make the prisoner feel that you’re his friend, the first one he’s met since his capture. She also obtained over 1,000 pages of previously classified files about the program. The military trained the men to use nonviolent and even friendly interrogation tactics, according to Duffin, who reviewed 70 interviews the rangers conducted with former interrogators and interviewed 10 of the interrogators or their families herself. If true, Merlitz’s account would be an exception to the norm at P.O. But an expert at the National Archives told her he thought Werner could have done what he said he did.

His daughter described him as a sharp dresser with a well-trimmed mustache and strong opinions.ĭuffin said the records of Streicher’s capture are “spotty and contradictory,” and usually someone else is credited with capturing him. Meritz went on to start his own textile business. Streicher was later one of 11 Nazis sentenced to death in the Nuremberg Trials. … I’m gonna do what I have to do.”Īfter three days of feeding Streicher only potato skins that he had also urinated on, Mertiz handed his prisoner off to American officers. I captured a Nazi of unbelievable mischief. And you wanna know something? I am crazy. “I explained to the MPs, I’m gonna do things, you probably think I’m crazy. There were tears in my eyes that I had captured this guy. Trembling and crying with rage, Werner said he took told his fellow soldiers he was going to exact vengeance.

Julius streicher