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German Scientists and Research Institutions in Allied Occupation Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Alan Beyerchen*
Affiliation:
History Department of the Ohio State University

Extract

The advent of sophisticated new weaponry in the Second World War brought science and technology into a prominent position in the minds of military and political planners for a postwar world. Both the Russians and the Americans perceived science in newly demanding terms, and wanted to insure that the treatment of science in defeated Germany would serve their own ends.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

Primary source materials from the National Archives (NA) are denoted by the Record Group (RG) in which they are located. The following collections are cited:Google Scholar

RG 59, Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied AreasGoogle Scholar

RG 218, Combined Civil Affairs Committee Decimal File (CCAC)Google Scholar

Combined Chiefs of Staff Decimal File (CCS)Google Scholar

Joint Chiefs of Staff Decimal File (JCS)Google Scholar

RG 260, Office of Military Government (United States) (OMGUS)Google Scholar

Allied Control Authority (OMGUS HQ, ACA) RG 319, Records of Army Staff, Plans and Operations Division, ABC Decimal File (OPD)Google Scholar

RG 353, State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee/State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee Case Files (SWNCC/SANACC)Google Scholar

1. See Kuklick, Bruce, American Policy and the Division of Germany: The Clash with Russia over Reparations (Ithaca and London, 1972) and Yergin, Daniel, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (Boston, 1977), esp. pp. 227–29.Google Scholar

2. NA RG 218, JCS 383.21 Germany, sec. 7, JCS 1067/7, excerpt of staff discussion JCAC third meeting April 28, 1945; NA RG 353, SWNCC/SANACC, Box 115, IPCOG Meeting April 25, 1945, pp. 5673.Google Scholar

3. NA RG 353, SWNCC/SANACC, Box 115, IPCOG Meeting, April 25. 1945, p. 74.Google Scholar

4. See Goudsmit, Samuel, Alsos: The Failure of German Science (New York, 1947).Google Scholar

5. Goudsmit, , pp. 132–39; Bagge, Erich, Diebner, Kurt and Jay, Kenneth, Von der Uranspaltung bis Calder Hall (Hamburg, 1957), pp. 42–72.Google Scholar

6. NA RG 218, CCAC 383 Germany, sec. 1, CCS 870/6, Memorandum by the United States Chiefs of Staff, 24 August 1945.Google Scholar

7. NA RG 218, CCAC 383 Germany, sec. 1, JCS 1363/2, Assignment of German Personnel to Operation “BACKFIRE” and to United States Project “OVERCAST,” 18 August 1945.Google Scholar

8. NA RG 319, OPD 387 Germany, sec 19, CCAC 189, Memorandum by Strong, K. W. D., Establishment of a “Field Information Agency, Technical, G-2, Supreme Headquarters, A.E.F.,” May 1945. The historian John Gimbel is presently at work on a major study of the exploitation of German science and technology that will address FIAT operations and their significance.Google Scholar

9. Clay, Lucius to Maj. Gen. Daniel Noce, Director, Civil Affairs Division, War Department, 22 January 1947, in The Papers of General Lucius D. Clay: Germany 1945–1949, ed. by Smith, Jean Edward (Bloominton, 1974), pp. 305–06.Google Scholar

10. NA RG 59, Asst. Sec. of State for Occupied Areas, Box 1, “Germany, Place,” Proposed Provision in the Treaty of Peace with Germany re Captured Technology, December 3. 1946.Google Scholar

11. NA RG 218, CCS 471.9, sec. 3, JIS 199/8, Enclosure “C” Lt. Olsen, Karl to Culbertson, William S., 17 October 1945.Google Scholar

12. See Lasby, Clarence, Project Paperclip: German Scientists and the Cold War (New York, 1971).Google Scholar

13. NA RG 218, CCAC 383, sec. 1, CCAC 189, SHAEF to War Department (SCAF 394), 15 May 1945.Google Scholar

14. NA RG 218, CCS 383 Germany, sec. 1, CCAC 189/1, Policy on German Scientific Institutions, German Scientific Teaching and German Scientists, 15 June 1945.Google Scholar

15. NA RG 319, OPD 387 Germany, sec. 19, JCS 1067/14, 20 September 1945 (approved by JCS 3 October, sent out as WAR 72620).Google Scholar

16. NA RG 218, CCAC 350.05, sec. 1, JCAC 43/5, CG USFET to War Department, 8 October 1945.Google Scholar

17. NA RG 218, CCS 350.05, sec. 1, Memorandum for Captain McDill by G. B. Myers, 21 September 1945. See Stanley Tarbell, D. and Tarbell, Ann Tracy, Roger Adams: Scientist and Statesman (Washington DC, 1981), pp. 151–60.Google Scholar

18. NA RG 260, OMGUS HQ ACA, Box 2/92-2, Proposal to Control Council submitted by General of the Army I Sokolovsky, 23 August 1945; Box 2/130-2, Organization of Work, CLWP/P(45)2, 13 October 1945.Google Scholar

19. NA RG 260, OMGUS HQ, ACA, Box 2/130-2, Minutes of the First Meeting of the Liquidation of German War Potential Committee, CLWP/M (45)1, 19 October 1945.Google Scholar

20. NA RG 260, OMGUS HQ, ACA, Box 2/130-3, Paper submitted by the British Member on Control of Scientific and Technical Research and Development, CLWP/P (45)18, 23 November 1945.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., Appendix C to CLWP/P (45)18, Control of Permitted Research in Germany, 21 December 1945.Google Scholar

22. Clay, , Decision in Germany (Garden City, 1950), pp. 5183; Gimbel, John, The American Occupation of Germany: Politics and the Military (Stanford, 1968); Latour, Conrad and Vogelsang, Thilo, Okkupation und Wiederaufbau: Die Tätigkeit der Militärregierung in der amerikanischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands 1944–1947 (Stuttgart, 1973); Peterson, Edward N., The American Occupation of Germany: Retreat to Victory (Detroit, 1977), esp. pp. 54–80.Google Scholar