The 1948 Operation Bloodstone Report

                When Harry Truman became President of the United States in 1945, he was severely handicapped by his lack of knowledge of highly secret American military intelligence operations. Part of this ignorance was due to the fact that Franklin Roosevelt had not wanted Truman as his Vice President in 1944, much preferring the ultra-liberal Henry Wallace who was far more acceptable to Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Wallace's pro-Soviet views were more in harmony with Roosevelt's courtship of the Soviet dictator. It was certainly known in Russia that Roosevelt's health was rapidly failing and a pro-Soviet successor would have been a man with whom Stalin would prefer to deal.

            The Democratic Party officials also recognized this situation and basically forced Roosevelt to choose another running mate. Senator Harry Truman of Missouri was eventually decided upon, dashing the hopes of a fulsome and entirely permissive postwar cooperation by the United States with Soviet Russia for Wallace, Roosevelt and Stalin.

            Roosevelt was a vindictive and petty man and he deliberately kept Truman, a individual with no knowledge of military intelligence, in complete ignorance of such matters, even denying him any information about the development of the atomic bomb.

            After Roosevelt's sudden, but not unexpected, death in 1945, Truman ascended to his high office with almost no knowledge of the structure or the aims of either military intelligence or the Office of Special Services, the OSS, a clandestine intelligence organization set up by William Donovan, a New York lawyer friend of Roosevelt.

            When Truman discovered what was obvious to most insiders, namely that the OSS was filled with active Communists, put there, it should be added, at Roosevelt's specific request so as to be better able to work with their Soviet opposite numbers, he ordered the OSS to be disbanded on September 20,1945, five months after he assumed office.

            Finding it increasingly difficult to obtain information on the actions of U.S. intelligence agencies, Truman pressed Congress for the establishment of an omnibus agency that would coordinate all intelligence matters and advise him of these on a regular basis.

            The National Security Act was passed on July 26, 1947 and subsequent to this, the National Security Council was instituted. Their stated aim was to coordinate all foreign, domestic and military policies insofar as they related to national security.

            The Central Intelligence Agency, formed under the National Security Act, superseded a Central Intelligence Group (CIG), formed by Truman in January of 1946 and initially headed by Admiral Sidney W. Souers, a former deputy chief of Naval Intelligence.

            In 1948, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had been simmering since the death of Roosevelt and the end of the Second World War, began in earnest. Stalin, testing the military and political will of his former ally, instituted a tight, military blockade of the four-power controlled German capital of Berlin. Truman met this challenge with a massive airlift that kept the city supplied by air and Stalin eventually gave up and stopped the blockade. Stalin had serious problems with Tito, ruler of the Soviet satellite state of Yugoslavia and there was a seizure of power by the Communists in the former Republic of Czechoslovakia.

            All of this increased international tension caused the United States, which had almost no realistic intelligence from behind Stalin's Iron Curtain, to begin to turn for advice and assistance more and more to the U.S. and Stalin's former enemies, the Germans.

            It is axiomatic that one seeks allies when one hates, not when one loves.

            In 1946, the former head of the German military intelligence section on the Soviet military system, General Reinhard Gehlen, began to work for the U.S. Army. Gehlen, whose wartime work on Russian military, as opposed to political, activities was limited to order of battle matters, was more often wrong than right in his analysis of the strengths and operational goals of the Soviet Army and had eventually been fired from his position by Hitler for gross incompetence.

            The American authorities were not as quick to judge the arrogant former General and found him very useful in what is called empire building.

            By 1948, Gehlen's reports, with no alterations whatsoever were being issued to the President as having come directly from the brilliant specialists of the CIA.

            In early 1948, at the urgent request of his American military controllers, Gehlen issued a grave report stating that 175 Soviet armored divisions were poised to strike into Germany. This report was entirely fictional, a fact that was known to U.S. military intelligence at the time it was issued. The Gehlen Report was, however, tailored to the needs of several powerful groups within the American government. It so alarmed Congress and the President at the time of its unofficial but entirely deliberate release in official Washington, that the ongoing reduction in U.S. military forces was immediately halted and the business community that had reaped such enormous profits during the course of the Second World War saw the opportunity of recovering the economic ground they had lost when that war ended in 1945.

            As a result of the rise of bellicosity in the West, several programs were officially instituted to combat what was seen as the imminent threat of Soviet military action.

            These were under the aegis of NSC 20, a series of directives issued to various agencies concerning the use of former enemies in the coming fight against the Soviet Union.^[1]

            The first series, under the control of the U.S. Army were, respectively, Operations Apple Pie, (a joint US-British action), Birchwood, Pajamas and Projects Credulity and Dwindle.^[2]

            The U.S. Department of State, not to be outdone, instituted Operation Bloodstone, a program that, like the U.S. Army programs, sought out and recruited for hire, former members of German military intelligence as well as members of the political intelligence and counter intelligence arms, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and the Gestapo. Bloodstone was actively developed by Frank Gardiner Wisner, a former OSS official, head of the CIA's Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) and a strong supporter of the unrestricted use of former German police and intelligence personnel as well as members of other European anti-Communist groups such as the Croatian Ustacha and the Vlasov units.   The latter had been a German-controlled military group made up of former Soviet army personnel who had opted to fight for Hitler against Stalin after the German invasion  of Russia in June of 1941.^[3]

            In order to support the hiring of Germans, who only recently had been America's bitter enemies, a number of position papers concerning use of Gestapo, SD and SS personnel were prepared and sent to various officials in the American intelligence hierarchy, to include the President himself.

            These heavily researched position papers accurately reflect the period official thinking on the matter of the employment of Germans hitherto having been sought for prosecution by all of the Allies of the Second World War.

            The Gehlen Organization, once controlled by the U.S. Army but taken over in 1948 by the CIA, already had a very significant number of Germans who had previously been wanted for various perceived offenses in their ranks..

            One of these highly classified reports dealt with a subject that has been of very limited but intense interest in the years following the end of the European War in 1945.

            This concerns the German Concentration Camp system in general and the claimed planned German extermination of all the Jews of Europe in specific.

            Since the end of the war, an enormous body of literature, motion pictures, television commentaries and other manifestations of sociological and political propaganda have appeared that strongly and endlessly endorse the view that enormous numbers of Jews were either put to death by poison gas in German camps or shot in the hinterland of captured Soviet territory by German military or police units. It is one of the basic themes of this thesis that this alleged program of extermination was officially ordered by Adolf Hitler and willingly implemented by his government.

            In 1948, these allegations were beginning to gain widespread circulation in the United States and it was to address them that the attached official report was prepared.

            Initially, it was the contention of various Jewish groups that all of the various German prison camps contained gas chambers and crematoria designed to slaughter and dispose of as many Jews as could be found under German control. Eventually it was been decided after a great deal of research by German and American historians that while many inmates in these camps died during their confinement, the actual major death camp, complete with the huge gas chambers and even larger crematoria was located at the town of Auschwitz, a city of 10,000 in Silesia, Germany.

            It was to this huge work camp complex, they have been led to believe, that an enormous number of Europe's Jews were sent, specifically to be gassed to death and their corpses burnt in enormous coke ovens.

            The figures of the dead had a decided tendency to expand with the telling until by 1948, the number of six million dead was generally accepted as fact.

            In the intervening years, the figure of six million has been affirmed and reaffirmed by Jewish, and many non-Jewish, writers, made the subject of many media dramas and is generally accepted by the public as factual. Because the complete records of the Concentration Camp system as well as specific records from the Auschwitz camp were seized by the Soviets in 1945, no scholar or researcher has been able to verify the claims of enormous slaughter in the Auschwitz complex. Secure in the knowledge that one could write whatever one wished with complete impunity, writers on the subject constantly enlarged and embellished their basic themes until the end results began to sound more and more like the productions of the Brothers Grimm.

            In 1991, with the collapse of Communism in Russia, much hitherto secret material in former Soviet archives has become available to researchers and, at least in the case of the German Concentration Camp files, the subject of bitter dispute and anger on the part of Jewish groups that actively, and very aggressively, put forward and support the Auschwitz death camp story.^[4]

            A significant number of scholars and historians who have investigated the allegations of enormous numbers of Jews exterminated have discovered that any  writings on the subject must always conform to the six million figure. They also discover very quickly that this conformity is not only necessary but mandatory.

            Any historian, no matter how reputable or exact in their research, who brings this end total into any kind of question discovers that they have run into an extraordinarily powerful entity that very effectively blocks any sort of balanced investigation into the accuracy of the figures of Jewish dead.

            The Bloodstone report is presented here along with an extensive compendium of figures relating to Auschwitz from 1940, when the camp opened as a prisoner of war establishment, until December of 1944 when the camp was being disbanded and its worker/inmates transferred to the relative safety of the west.

            The statistics are taken directly from the official German records and are to be found on thousands of pages of microfilmed material that came from former Soviet Archives.

            It should be noted that until recently, the Bloodstone report was highly classified and not available for research and the release by the Russians of the main Concentration Camp records in 1990 was termed a "serious error" by Jewish activist groups. The latter do not dispute the authenticity or accuracy of the files but question the motives and the wisdom of the Russian archivists who facilitated their public and unrestricted release.

            It has been the stated belief of holocaust scholars that these records, genuine though they are, are subject to being "misunderstood" by anyone other than themselves and that the former Communist government of Russia had promised them these papers would never be made public.

            The reasons for these angry and frightened objections will quickly become readily apparent to the reader as the Bloodstone Report unfolds before their eyes.    

            Objective truth, like grass, has a habit of pushing its way upwards towards the light of day, in obedience to the laws of God and very often in disobedience to the wishes of men. 

            Operation Bloodstone

            Operation Bloodstone was initially created by the U.S. Department of State in 1948.  Its progenitor was George F. Kennan, department expert on Soviet concerns.

            Its stated purpose was to thwart Soviet expansionism but its actual mandate was to create dissension within the newly-acquired territories of the Soviet Union, dissension that specifically included the fostering of armed rebellions by various ethnic groups.

            In order to facilitate this, Kennan’s plan envisioned the use of any and all of the natural internal enemies of the Communist empire as well as the utilization of Stalin’s former enemies such as ex-Gestapo, SD and Abwehr agents, non-German entities such as the Croatian Ustacha, members of the Hungarian Arrow Cross party and many others.

            Immediately after the war, when there was more cooperation with Soviet Russia, members of these agencies were, at the insistence of the Soviets, arrested, tried and often executed for their activities in conquered Russian territory.

            In the German arena, many SD and Gestapo personnel, some formerly operatives at the highest levels of government, were clandestinely recruited for work against the Soviet Union. This recruitment was partially aided by use of the numerous wanted lists prepared at the end of the war.

            The Gehlen organization, run initially by the U.S. Army and later entirely by the CIA, was filled with such people. Other agencies recruited in their own fields of interest.

            In one case, the U.S. Airforce sought and obtained the services of General Dr. Walter Schreiber, a Wehrmacht expert on communicable diseases to include bubonic plague and typhus. Schreiber, whose wartime activities in spreading these diseases among members of the Soviet military and civilian populations made him particularly desirable, was eventually exposed and had to leave America.

            Bloodstone openly recruited anyone whom they felt would be of value, regardless of any existing allegations of war crimes by any entity, including Soviet Russia and the United States itself.

            To an American President who had been subject to the same doses of wartime anti-German propaganda produced for the American public, Bloodstone officials found it necessary to explain, and in many cases, justify their actions.

            The following report is specifically intended to address the wartime German concentration camp system in general and the stories of enormous, planned massacres of European Jews in specific.

            At the time of its issuance in 1948, it was classified Top Secret, a classification that was subsequently downgraded to Classified in 1981 and then reclassified Top Secret in 1982.

            This report is lengthy and often repetitious and, after an introduction, opens with a general overview of the German concentration camp system as it was perceived in 1948.

                                                “I n t r o d u c t i o n 

            With growing worldwide tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, both parties are actively seeking allies to assist them in what may well escalate into open warfare. 

            The Soviet Union views American rapprochement with German interests with alarm and anger. It had always been STALIN’S firm intention to take physical control of the German industrial basin of the Ruhr. The Russian conquest of the highly industrialized Germany has been one of their prime goals since Tsarist times. For this reason, STALIN had backed the STAUFFENBERG attempt on HITLER in 1944 and had every intention of violating his agreements about spheres of influence and wished to press on through Germany to the Rhine in 1945.

            He was thwarted by ROOSEVELT’S death and by the dangerous American military presence in Western Europe in 1945.

            As it was obvious that the new President was far less cooperative with Soviet aims than his predecessor, STALIN embarked on a program of terrorism, military threats and subversion, a program still in force and still extremely dangerous to American interests.

            The Soviet view is that American economic assistance to Europe is antithetical to their plans for the destabilization of that region and the subsequent take-over by Soviet-friendly local Communist parties. They have been thwarted in their goals in Greece and Italy but, in their view, U.S. attitudes towards Germany is considered by the Kremlin as being extremely dangerous for the Soviets.

            A new German military resurrection is of the greatest concern to STALIN followed by American economic assistance and, as they see it in Moscow, eventual American economic control over German economic development.

            In order to drive a wedge between current American policy towards Germany and the American people, the Soviets have embarked on an extensive propaganda program aimed at creating a situation wherein the American public will refuse to support further U.S.-German rapprochement.

            This propaganda mainly deals with German wartime atrocities, or alleged atrocities. The most important aspect of this campaign deals with the German concentration camps and specifically with purportedly huge numbers of Jews being deported, incarcerated in these camps, tortured, put to death by lethal gas and cremated in huge numbers.

            As the Soviets have all of the concentration camp directorate files, it is now possible for them to make any kind of wild and unsubstantiated claim they wish without fear of rejection.

            They have launched an extensive campaign with the assistance of various Jewish writers, historians, political groups and members of the motion picture, press and motion picture entities.

            This program was commenced during the course of the war by such Soviet literary luminaries as Ilya Ehrenberg and other rabidly anti-German Jews and has been continued without a let up until the present day.

            It is now known that many documents presented as evidence at the Nuremberg trials after the war were Russian fabrications and this counterfeiting program is still in effect.

            The image of thousands of emaciated, naked bodies strewn around the compounds of liberated concentration camps is strongly fixed in the minds of the American public. These bodies are purported to be those murdered by the Germans when in fact, they are victims of the typhus epidemics that raged in all the German camps from 1942 onwards. Most especially noted was the camp at Bergen-Belsen liberated by the British. Inmates in this camp had been transferred from Auschwitz in late 1944 and typhus had wreaked havoc in that place since the introduction of lousy Soviet prisoners in mid-1941.

            There is a great deal of confusion in the public mind about these camps and about the massacre of millions of Jews.

            Firstly, it is necessary to give a definition of what constituted a Concentration Camp.

            1. Definition of Concentration Camps

            According to German law, a Konzentrationslager (officially abbreviated to KL, but popularly referred to as KZ) provided Schutzhaft (Protective Custody) for persons who had not been legally sentenced to prison by a court of law, and/or for those who, having served a legal sentence, had been ordered further detention by the Gestapo (Secret State Police), Sicherheitsdienst (SD or Security Service) or the Geheime Feldpolizei (Secret Field Police.)

            Legal definitions for the camps differed widely in the various German-occupied areas of Europe. For example, Straflager (Punitive Camps) in Poland were often frequently somewhat similar to prisons, and served the same purpose, but the treatment of inmates could correspond to that practiced in concentration camps in Germany.

            There did not appear to be a definite formula for the establishment of detention centers. New camps often were attached to existing penal institutions. A Konzentrationslager could be added to or use the facilities of a Zuchthaus (Penitentiary).

An instance of the latter case was the use by the KL ORANIENBURG of the crematorium at the PLÖTZENSEE Zuchthaus. Concentration camps could be expanded by the addition of, for example a Straflager für Arbeitsverweigerer  (Penal Camp for Persons Refusing to Work). Contrary to current legend, all German penal institutions since the turn of the century have made it a standard practice to cremate any dead prisoner and return his ashes to his family. This was especially necessary in the event of the deceased expiring from an infectious disease such as typhus.

            PW Dulags (Durchgangslager, or Transit Camps) and internment camps appeared erroneously in some wartime lists as KL’s, probably because the term Dulag could have been applied also to collecting stations of all sorts for Schutshäflinge (Persons in Protective Custody).

            Movements of inmates from one camp to another, especially from camps in occupied territories to those in the Reich were quite frequent in the last years of the war.

For example, in 1944, large numbers of Hungarian Jews, nearly all of those Jews deported from Budapest in that year, were transferred out of Auschwitz KL to other KLs throughout the Reich.

            2. Number of Camps and Inmates

            Because the Soviets have the complete records of the German concentration camp system and refuse to release them, comprehensive reports on this subject, to include estimates of the number of inmates in the KL’s, the complete number of camps in Germany and German-held areas and, most especially, the number of KL inmates who perished during the war, their origins and the means of their deaths is not immediately available.

            However, as every camp commander was required to submit monthly statistical reports to the main KL directorate and as many copies of these reports exist in various files in the various occupation zones of Germany, it has been possible to reconstruct much of this information. Because of its patent falsity, no documentation from either Soviet or Jewish sources has been utilized.

            A reliable report of October, 1943 concerning the camps in Poland mentioned the existence of 109 camps in that country, divided into the following types:

                                    Nine Transit Camps
                                    Twenty-four KL:’s
                                    Three large forced labor camps
                                    Sixty smaller forced labor camps
                                    Three camps for priests
                                    Nine camps for Jews
                                    One camp “for the improvement of the Nordic race.”

            Some wartime sources have estimated the number of Germans who had been inmates at various periods during the years 1933 to 1944 to be between 750,000 and 1,300,000

            The most conservative estimate of the number of persons in “protective custody” in Germany proper in July of 1944 was from 170,000 to 370,000.

            The number of KL inmates in Germany proper in the last months of the war has been estimated to be between 300,000 and 500,000. Of this number, a significant percentage consisted of “racially pure” Germans, as defined by Nazi law.

            A large percentage of these inmates were engaged in labor projects, often for the Organization Todt- OT and other labor and auxiliary organizations. The largest camp complex located in the east was Auschwitz which was primarily considered a work camp for the SS and often had between 50,000 and 70,000 inmates of all origins on their rolls.

            3. Commitment and Release

            The Einweisung in KL’s (Commitment to Concentration Camps) was effected by both branches of the Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo, or Security Police).

            The Gestapo (both Amt IV or the Reichssicherheitshauptamt RSHA in Berlin and its branches and sub -branches) normally committed and could release those persons charged with, but not sentenced for, political offenses and crimes. This was officially designed Schutzhaft (Protective Custody).

            The Kriminal Polizei (Kripo or Criminal Police: both Amt V of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its branches and sub-branches committed “BV’s” (Berufsverbrecher or habitual criminals) and also was able to order their release.

            4. Administration

            German Concentration Camps were controlled by the SS Wirtschafts- und Verwalltungshauptamt (SS Economic and Administrative Department) and the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Department of National Security, which was the head office of the Gestapo and the Security Service). Both of these departments formed part of the Reichsführung-SS (SS High Command).

            The SS Wirtschafts- und Verwalltungshauptamt  (abbreviated to WVHA) administered the camps, having had complete control over all personnel, including the guards and prisoners.

            One of the chief functions of this department was the supervision of the SS-Unternehmungen  (SS Enterprises), for which prison labor was employed. Most camps used the labor of their inmates, and in some cases, Auschwitz in particular, factories were even built either in or near the camps to utilize this labor. The WVHA was in charge of the products of such work.

            The Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke  DAW or German Equipment Works), one branch of which was located in ORANIENBURG, had a main office in Berlin, and

in liaison with the WVHA took a share in the production activity of the camps.

            The WVHA, whose Headquarters were in Berlin, was divided into several Amtsgruppen or sub-branches. The branch which handled concentration camp matters was Amtsgruppe D, Führung und Verwaltung der Konzentrationslager  (Command and Administration of Concentration Camps). Its offices were located at ORANIENBURG, twenty miles north of Berlin.

            SS Obergruppenführer Oswald POHL was head of the Wirtschafts- und Verwasltungshauptamt  and was directly responsible to HIMMLER

            Amtsgruppenchef  (Chief of Branch) of Amtsgruppe D was Richard GLÜCKS, who held the ranks of Gruppenführer in the General SS and Lieutenant General in the Waffen-SS. GLÜCKS vanished at the end of the war but recent reports, not verified, have him as a resource for the British.

            The following Ämter (Departments) were contained within Amtsgruppe D:

            Amt I This was Zentralamt (Central Department), which was headed by SS Obersturmbannführer Artur LIEBENSCHERL and was responsible for general policy, security arrangements, public relations and coordination of the other departments within the Amtsgruppe.

            Amt II  This was headed by SS Obersturmbannführer Gerhard MAURER. This department had charge of the general administration of prisoners.

            Amt III The Medical Department, under SS Obersturmbannführer Dr. LOLLING, was responsible for general medical and health administration of all camp personnel, both staff and prisoners.

            Amtsgruppe C, (Bauwesen) was another branch of the WVHA, controlled works and buildings and, therefore, supervised the construction within the camps of plants of the DAW referred to above. It directed the activities of concentration camp personnel who were drafted into SS Bau Brigaden and SS Bau Battalionen, (SS Construction Brigades and Battalions) for employment on SS building and construction programs or for clearing bombed areas.

            5. Camp Organization

            Richard GLÜCKS as head of Amtsgruppe D was the Führer der Totenkopfverbände und Konzentrationslager (Commander of the Death’s Head Formations and Commissioner of Concentration Camps.)

            While the methods of organization and administration of camps differed in the various German-held sections of Europe, the following outline is fairly representative of the basic structure of such establishments.

            The most important man in any camp was the Politische Kommissar (Political Kommissar). He was a Gestapo official from the Politische Abteilung (Political Section).

            This section was subordinated to the Gestapo and Amt VI (Sicherheitsdienst through Amt IV (Gestapo), both of which were part of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt RSHA, or Department of National Security).

            Regional control was exercised by the Gestapo through its Leitstellen and Stellen, and by the Sicherheitsdienst through its Leitabschnitte and Abschnitte.

            In some respects, the Political Commissar in a camp was the superior of the Lagerkommandant (Camp Commandant) and could even have the latter removed. Normally, however, he did not interfere with the administration of a camp, except in an emergency.

            A Political Commissar received double the pay of a Lagerkommandant and, in addition, RM 45 daily for travel allowance.

            The rank of a Lagerkommandant was usually in accordance with the importance and size of the camp of which he was in charge. He worked closely with the Political Commissar, and was jointly responsible with the latter for the conduct of the camp, but in addition he was responsible for the safety of the camp.

            The camp guards were under the command of their own officers, but the latter executed the orders of the camp Commandant insofar as such duties as posting of guards and sentries are concerned.

            As deputies, the Commandant had one or more Lagerführer (Camp Sub-commanders), the number depending upon the size of the camp; they generally held the rank of SS Untersturmführer  (2nd Lieutenant), and functioned as section leaders.

            Another post was the Rapportführer, who called the prisoner rolls.

            Under the Commandant, as adjutant and general supervisor, was the Hauptwachmeister  (Chief Warden), a post that was often filled by the CO of the SS guards. He controlled the Platzmeister (Wardens) who had charge of working parties.

            Under each Lagerführer, as his NCO, was an Arbeitsdienstführer (Works Supervisor) , who was in direct contact with the inmates and kept a record of the work to be performed  by them.

            Assisting the Arbeitsdienstführer were Vorarbeiter  (Foremen) and Arbeitskapos

(Labor or Works Supervisors). These foremen and overseers were usually chosen from among those prisoners who were serving court sentences for common crimes and who were committed to the camps by the Criminal Police rather than by the Secret State Police.

            In some camps, they were graded and known as Kapos (supervisors) and Haupt-Kapos (Chief Supervisors). These superiors could either wear an armband with the inscription Kapo on the left upper arm or Gefreiterwinkel (sleeve rank chevrons similar to Wehrmacht corporals).

            In charge of the living quarters in the camps are Blockführer  (Block Leaders).

            Prisoner parties which worked outside the camps, under the supervision of a Kommandoführer were known as Kommandos.. There were usually two guards for every five prisoners, and every third guard was armed with a submachinegun.

            Among the inmates the Lagerältester (Camp Senior Inmate) held the most privileged position. He received his orders from the Lagerführer, and in some instances, was reported to be the “right hand man” of the Lagerkommandant.

            Ranking below the foregoing prisoner officials were the Blockältester, comparable to an Army First Sergeant; the Blockschreiber, who was comparable to a Company Clerk, and the Steubenälteste (Room Wardens), who were prisoners in charge of rooms.

            In the main, there were two doctors in each camp, one attending to the SS personnel and the other to the inmates. The nurses or medical orderlies were largely recruited from among the inmates.

            The great majority of all camps were basically self-administered by trusted inmates and not SS personnel;.

            This has been a general overview of the administration of the camps in the German prison systems.

            Although, as noted above, the complete files of the system fell into Soviet hands and are not accessible, a great deal of material on these camps has survived in areas under Allied occupation and it is, therefore, possible to form reasonably accurate assessments of each of the major camps.

            As the Soviets are now claiming that the camp complex at Auschwitz in former German Silesia was a “great extermination camp for Soviet prisoners of war and large number of Jews,”  perhaps it would be instructive to study this particular camp.

            Auschwitz was an enormous work camp at the confluence of several rivers and had been chosen by the senior SS establishment as a site for factories. It initially occupied the barracks of a former Imperial Austrian artillery unit, later taken over by the Poles.

            There was an extensive and very important artificial rubber (Buna) factory and a large system designed to manufacture gasoline out of coal, that resource being plentiful in the region.

            After the introduction of Soviet prisoners of war post June, 1941, terrible outbreaks of typhus occurred in Auschwitz and the death tolls were enormous.

            Because the SS rented their prisoners out to over a hundred small German firms, it was imperative for them to take steps to halt this typhus epidemic. This was never completely accomplished and inmates transferred from Auschwitz to other camps merely spread the disease.

            Rumors were begun in 1942-1943 by British intelligence, that “many thousands” of Jewish prisoners were being gassed in huge “gas chambers” and their bodies burnt.

It is entirely true that any prisoner in German custody, be them political prisoners, professional criminals or Jews, were cremated upon their death and, at least in the beginning, their ashes sent to their families. During the war this was not possible and ashes were merely dumped into a nearby river. It is important to note that it was absolutely vital to cremate the infected corpses of the many typhus victims and this may well have been the origin of the gas chamber/cremation story now being put about by Soviet propagandists.

            Plans of the Auschwitz camp exist and it can be said categorically that no gas chambers for the killing of any prisoners existed in the camp. What did exist were rather small delousing chambers to kill the lice carrying typhus that could be found in the clothing of newly arrived Polish and Russian prisoners.

            Inmate clothing was confiscated and shipped to Germany as raw material and each inmate was issued clean prison garb. Also, the heads of all arriving prisoners were shaved to prevent the spread of body lice and all inmates were subject to showers with medicated soap whose purpose was to kill any lice remaining on the body.

            Now, DDT is used for this purpose but this compound did not exist in Germany at the time. Apparently the soap was not entirely effective and permitted the spread of typhus in the camps.

            Political Analysis

            The Soviets are deeply concerned with the U.S. use, and intended use, of former German military and security personnel. In order to counter what they see as a potential threat from their former, bitter enemies, they have embarked on a campaign very similar to ones used by British propagandists in the 1914-1918. The similarities are quite remarkable all in all, Then, the German were accused of raping nuns, cutting off their hands, throwing babies up into the air and catching them on bayonets and other fabrications.

            Much of this was taken, in toto, from reports on Belgian atrocities in the Congo some time before.

            The British also introduced the story about turning human bodies into soap by rendering their fat. This same story became prevalent during their anti-German campaigns during the late conflict.

            It is interesting to note that there is a considerable body of evidence that the British authorities utilized the services of GLÜCKS in setting up British detention centers in Palestine during their on-going war with Zionist terrorist groups prior to the creation of the current state of Israel.

            There is no effective way of dealing with this anti-German propaganda. It is considered unproductive to make any attempt at refutation of the growing legends because the world-wide Jewish community is now supporting and exploiting the Soviet propaganda and are obviously utilizing it for their own ends.

            Since a significant number of former German SS and SD personnel are now employed by American intelligence, it is recommended that any material concerning the use of these individuals be strictly limited in its dissemination and that any records now extant be accorded the greatest security protection.”

^[1] The complete text of NSC20/1 may be found in Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy 1945-1950, Thomas Etzold & John Lewis Gaddis, New York, 1978.
^[2] The files on these operations can be found in the U.S. National Archives under P&O File TS, Sections I, II & III, 1948-1948 Records of the Army General Staff, RG 319. Because of their sensitivity, all of these files are still classified Top Secret and are officially refused release under FOIA.
^[3] A full coverage of these groups can be found in The Patriotic Traitors: The Story of Collaboration in German Occupied Europe 1940-1945. David Littlejohn, New York, 1972. Also, there is excellent coverage in Blowback. Christopher Simpson, New York, 1988.
^[4] The first reports that appeared in the American print media on the newly-available Russian files can be found in an article appearing in the New York 'Times' of March 3, 1991, entitled 'Holocaust-Search for the 'Vanished.'' This article is an interview with Ann Stingle of the American Red Cross in Washington that discusses the numbers of camp inmates contained in recently released captured German files from former Soviet archives.