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[somber music playing]
[interviewer] I think… We're good? All righty.
I'm gonna give a brief introduction, and we'll go ahead and get started.
We're here at the home of Dr. Henry Kolm.
We are here interviewing Mr. Alfred Bomberg.
We are interviewing Ambassador John Gunther Dean,
a veteran who served at PO Box 1142.
[George Frenkel] I don't know to what extent it is still classified.
After all, this was a wartime situation.
I took it very seriously, and I just didn't talk about it.
Certainly not to my family.
[Dieter Kober] We had to swear,
"Don't tell anybody where you are or what you're doing."
"Not even your wife or your parents."
"The life of the nation depended on you holding to that secrecy."
[Arno Mayer] The first memory that I have is when we were told
that we were going to be taken to what turned out to be 1142.
And they put us into a bus.
All the windows were covered with wood.
You couldn't see a blasted thing.
[Henry Kolm] They suddenly said,
"We're going to send you to an assignment which is classified."
[Fred Michel] Everybody expected to go to Europe,
but we were pulled out, and nobody knew where we were going to go.
[Gerald Stoner] We start south of Washington.
And I figure, "What's going on here?"
I mean, everything was as if they were trying
to keep the information away from me.
So we're going along,
and I began to see an opening in the trees.
And there was a… I think there was a dirt road, actually.
You know, what's… Where are they taking me?
[Peter Weiss] And then we got off the main parkway
and came to a small
military installation.
[Army veteran 1] We finally got to this place,
and the commander said,
"This is it, guys. You're not going overseas."
"You're staying right here."
[Peter Weiss] One of our guys leaned out the window to the MP and said,
"What's the name of this place?"
And the MP came back with "Nothing!"
[Arno Mayer] I am not so sure that the people who set up this program
that they knew what the hell we were doing.
There was no precedent for this kind of shit. Was there?
[tense music playing]
[interviewer] Okay, we're gonna go ahead and get started here this morning.
And, George, if you could just start off with the most basic of basic information.
Could you give us your full name and your place of birth?
My name is George Weidinger.
I was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1923
and escaped to the United States
on the last ship out of Europe in December of 1939.
It certainly was very, very frightening to me.
Every synagogue in Vienna was burned.
Many, many were sent to concentration camps.
It was Hitler's idea to exterminate the Jews.
Completely get rid of us.
[dramatic music playing]
[Rudolph Fellner] As soon as I came to this country,
I put in an application for becoming a citizen,
which qualifies you to join the Army.
[Arno Mayer] There were hundreds of us there.
Jews who had just been called into the Army.
And the first question they would ask,
"Are you prepared to fight for your new country, for America?"
And then you would say, "Yes, Your Honor!"
And I was all on the side of those
who were gonna beat the shit out of the Germans.
An eye for an eye.
[John Gunther Dean] I don't think anybody had any better reason
to join the Army than I had,
who knew what we were fighting about.
[George Weidinger] We finished our training.
Everybody's name was called except my name.
One step forward.
Turn left.
And all they marched off…
And I was the only guy left on… on that field.
[Peter Weiss] So the colonel called me in.
Weiss, say something in German.
So I gave them a famous poem by Goethe.
[in German] "Who rides so late through the night and wind?"
"It is the father--"
[in English] He said, "Okay. Enough."
"You're going to 1142."
[suspenseful music playing]
[Arno Mayer] The bus stopped.
And the first thing that I saw, it was not a very military camp.
[birds chirping]
[Peter Weiss] It looked like a club.
There was a swimming pool and tennis courts.
[Arno Mayer] I… I would say it didn't seem real somehow.
We didn't know what the hell it was.
[Walter Schueman] I was immediately told,
"Here you have no rank, no titles."
"You can't tell anybody what you do."
This was a very big secret operation.
[interviewer] This was actually a prison camp. Right?
[Arno Mayer] Well, uh… [chuckles] …if you wanna call it that.
They certainly didn't call it. They called it PO Box 1142.
It took quite a few weeks for us
to be told that all these people were gonna be there, these Nazis.
[birds chirping]
[somber music playing]
[Arno Mayer] At that time, a Nazi was a Nazi.
A German was a Nazi, and to bring them here, I mean, good God.
I mean, you shouldn't, after you captured some German officers,
bring them to the United States.
I mean, you know, what's going on here?
[Rudolph Pins] These soldiers came from all branches.
Artillery, Infantry, SS.
A lot of them were transferred directly from the front where they were captured,
and without a change of clothes, they arrived at 1142.
[Henry Kolm] It was not the most comfortable feeling.
Some of them were real Nazis,
and they might have killed you on the spot if they could.
You know, I'm Jewish. And they knew it too.
[interviewer] What were you told that your role was going to be there,
your job was gonna be?
[John Gunther Dean] Getting intelligence, which will help the United States.
[newscaster 1] As the war in Europe rages on,
the Allies face yet another threat.
Hitler's secret weapon, the V-2 rockets.
The V-2s have been raining terror over London,
costing the lives of over 50,000.
Wernher von Braun, Hitler's chief rocket developer,
intends the next generation of rockets reach even greater distances.
[Bill Hess] German rocketry was at its peak.
And the major risk, of course, was that Hitler would develop
a rocket powerful enough to reach New York or Washington.
That would have changed the whole course of the war.
[Walter Schueman] We were told to use our German
to interrogate the German prisoners.
Orders were,
"If anybody ever mentions rockets, get everything they're saying."
[interrogator in German] What's your name?
Buller.
[interrogator] Tell me where the V-2s are hidden.
[Buller] Up my ass!
[Rudolph Pins in English] I remember this one interrogation from September '44.
This prisoner says…
[in German] "I can't talk!"
"I'm an officer in the German Army."
"All I need to give you is name and serial number."
[in English] Then I said,
"I happen to be a German Jew who was pushed out of Germany."
"And if you don't talk,
we have methods of doing things to you and your family."
[Arno Mayer] As a Jewish refugee from Europe,
that's just about as bizarre an assignment as you could get.
[dramatic music playing]
[Henry Kolm] On one occasion, there was a Waffen-SS guy who wouldn't talk.
Rolf said, "I'll make him talk."
He put this guy in an ambulance
and drove him around the base for about an hour.
"Are you ready to talk now?"
"Because if you're not, we're gonna gas you."
But he didn't talk. So they rammed the door shut,
and Rolf said, "Ivan, more gas."
Turned on a vacuum cleaner and blew dust through the vent hole,
and he thought he was being gassed because that's what the Germans did.
Rolf let him out after a while and said,
"Well, are you ready to talk to us now?"
And he talked.
[George Weidinger] One of the great achievements of PO Box 1142
was the fact that we discovered a site
where Hitler was building the V-2 rockets.
[Alfred Bomberg] Wernher von Braun and his crew of scientists
operated from a secret underground factory
called "Peenemünde."
So we scanned the aerial photographs and interrogated prisoners,
and they told us all about it.
[George Weidinger] Having found Peenemünde
created the bombing of the site.
I felt very good knowing that that is one of the achievements
of PO Box 1142.
[victorious music playing]
[cheering]
[newscaster 2] Throughout the world,
throngs of people hail the end of the war in Europe.
It is five years and more since Hitler marched into Poland.
Years full of suffering and death.
Now the war against Germany is won.
In a symbolic gesture, American troops destroy the Nazi party emblem.
[somber music playing]
[Henry Kolm] The sequence of events, just to keep the chronology straight,
is that General Bissell called us together at the Pentagon
and said, "Gentleman, I need to… to take some action
which is illegal and might wind me up in jail."
"There are hundreds of German scientists,
and if we don't bring them into this country,
we will lose all of that technology."
[interviewer] So they weren't on the books or registered or anything?
[Henry Kolm] They were enemy aliens
who were not allowed to come in in time of war.
General Bissell said, "We will take over an island in Boston harbor,
and we will import these scientists illegally
and take them to the island
before the immigration people see the boat."
So these people came over on troopships.
We imported several hundred people illegally to the island.
I distinctly remember the time we picked up Wernher von Braun
and the first of his 300-people crew from Peenemünde. There was a storm.
In the pouring rain and the howling gale,
they were lowered on the ladder in a storm that was too bad for the pilot boat.
They got off the ship, and they came to the island.
Everybody stared at these funny-looking guys
with the leather coats and their funny-looking hats. [chuckles]
[Arno Mayer] If you wanna see the stereotype of the Prussian,
tall, blonde hair, blue-eyes, goddamn it, it was Wernher von Braun!
[Alfred Bomberg] They were an echelon of people that we thought well of,
and I don't know how far advanced we were, but from what I understand,
we had very little information about rocketry.
There was no doubt about it.
[Peter Weiss] Rocket scientists
who were essential to the Nazi war effort,
now becoming essential to our war effort.
[Alfred Bomberg] All of a sudden,
this whole aspect of what I was to do changed,
and then we got into, what I think, the real purpose
of my being there was,
sort of an escort, public relations guy.
Make it comfortable for these people.
[Arno Mayer] A decision was made to make me the morale officer,
which is a ridiculous title to have.
But somebody thought that it could serve a purpose
to be nice to them.
And then the question came up because I hated Germans so much.
Could I really do it with sensitivity and so on and so forth
and not just blindly do my stuff?
At which point I answered,
"I can't answer that question because I've never done it before."
[jazz music playing]
[Henry Kolm] We were told that we were to interrogate people
in the friendly pretext of a chess game, or a ping-pong game, or a tennis game.
Playing volleyball… They loved volleyball.
Horseshoes were not known in Germany.
I showed them how to play horseshoes, and we had fun with horseshoes.
[Arno Mayer] There was a regular routine
that I brought them newspapers, magazines, some whiskey.
What the hell? I didn't think that I would be fighting the Germans,
whom I hated with every gut that I had, that I would wind up that way.
[chuckles] I mean, it was crazy.
[interviewer] What was it like for you to speak with a German prisoner?
[Army veteran 1] Well, I would laugh with them, joke with them.
I wanted them to feel I was on their side because I was born in Germany,
and you know, that maybe I lean towards Germans.
But I was only trying to soften them up.
[John Gunther Dean] Heinz Schlicke, when he came, he was young, sports-oriented,
so somebody had to go and do things with him, so I did.
He was a Nazi? Yes, he was a Nazi. He was at Peenemünde, so what?
But my job was to see what he could do for the United States.
[Army veteran 2] Well, we had a confidential fund.
When I was scheduled to entertain the scientists,
I would go to Colonel Dean and pick up 50 or 100 dollars,
and that would pay the way.
We'd use one of the military buses to go to some nightclubs, dinner,
and I would pay for everything.
At the time, they were showing movies, and those people who cooperated
were allowed to go see them.
And I guess they probably appreciated the opportunity
of seeing an American film.
They liked to learn about America, and they asked about America.
We wanted them to get to know American culture.
[interviewer] Was your job more to get intelligence from them,
or was it more to escort them around and keep them happy?
[Alfred Bomberg] Both. Both.
[slow jazz music playing]
[Arno Mayer] That December, Wernher von Braun said,
"Look, the winter is going to be very, very tough in Europe,
and we would like to send packages to our families
for the holidays."
I said, "I'll see what I can do," and I went to see the camp commander.
He called the Pentagon, came back out, and said,
"We're to keep them happy."
So the following morning, they showed up
dressed in long leather coats
that German wear in the winter.
They also had on a Tyrolese hat,
and in one of them, there was a little feather.
I said, "For God's sakes, nobody is supposed to know you're here."
"So would you please go back and get dressed differently?"
The answer was, "We have no other clothing."
"We will wear what we wear."
And I go to the commander, and he said, "Okay. Take them."
[mellow music playing]
[Arno Mayer] I'd been given a thousand dollars,
and we were driven to Lansburgh Brothers.
Lansburgh Brothers was the largest department store
in Washington D.C., and I knew it was Jewish.
So it gave me some sort of a nasty pleasure
to take these guys to a Jewish department store.
So what do we start with? Coffee, tea, chocolate for the children.
I said, "What now?"
[in German] Underwear!
[in English] I was 17 or whatever. I had never bought any Unterwäsche.
And here were these four German guys
now ordering panties for their wives.
Finally, the woman came out
and held up a dainty nylon pantie.
I still only remember
Wernher von Braun, and he said,
[in German] "No! Made out of wool and with long legs."
[in English] And people, of course, looking like crazy for these four guys,
speaking German, dressed in a funny way.
I asked them, "What next?"
"Brassieres."
Well, I never bought any brassieres, you see.
So we were in the midst of going after the brassieres.
By now, there were certain gestures being made and so on.
[police siren wailing]
[Arno Mayer] The military police arrived, arrested us…
and we were driven back in full glory
to PO Box 1142.
[Arno Mayer laughing] I mean, what the hell?
You couldn't forget it,
and you couldn't make it up.
[John Gunther Dean] You took them out for a spin and have a normal life.
Go to town, have a piece of cake and coffee.
Make it normal.
They're not prisoners and being given corporal punishment.
On the contrary, we tried to win over people.
[Peter Weiss] Wernher von Braun developed the V-2 rocket,
which killed countless numbers of people.
And now he's gonna work for us.
He was treated almost as a hero.
[Henry Kolm] Wernher himself was a visionary, and was he a Nazi? I… I…
He did what the Nazis wanted to do, and it was in his great favor.
You know, ideologically he was interested in rockets and going to the moon.
He wasn't interested in warfare, really.
Yeah, he… he made the V-2s that bombed London and all that, but…
[interviewer] Did he seem apologetic or anything for the V-1s and V-2s?
[Henry Kolm] Uh, his attitude was that this was important progress
from the viewpoint of us going into space.
[Arno Mayer] In one of the factories in which they developed
some of these weapons,
they used Jews who had been arrested by the Gestapo.
He knew what was going on.
Wernher von Braun knew that there was an Auschwitz.
[dramatic music playing]
[newscaster 3] For the first time, America can believe
what they thought was impossible propaganda.
Here is documentary evidence of sheer mass murder.
General Eisenhower, a man hardened by the blood and shock of war
seems appalled at these unbelievable sights.
Most dreadful of all the camps was at Buchenwald,
where only 20,000 of the original 80,000 were found alive.
Slave laborers worked on the V-2 bomb,
serial numbers tattooed on their stomachs.
Sheer mass murder.
Murder that will blacken the name of Germany
for the rest of recorded history.
[somber music playing]
[Peter Weiss] We were not yet fully aware
of the enormity of what had happened
under the Nazi regime.
I didn't know that at the time,
but my grandfather, and uncle, and aunt,
cousin, and other relatives
all died in the Holocaust.
[sniffles]
Like so many others.
[Rudolph Pins] We were all shocked at what happened, you know.
After you hear what happened in Auschwitz,
there isn't anything that can shock you much more.
I don't think it would've helped if I'd told everybody about my feelings,
and moaned and cried.
It certainly wouldn't have helped my parents.
[Peter Weiss] Almost all of us were refugees from Nazis.
We would have preferred to treat them
as the war criminals that they were,
but when you are in the Army, you follow orders.
I tried to suppress the rage
because I wouldn't have been very effective
if I had acted as if I wanted to kill them.
[lighter clicks]
[Arno Mayer] It was unpleasant, to put it mildly.
I mean, I'd almost feel like vomiting
for the very simple reason I had to be nice to these guys.
And the only question that I asked myself is,
"What did they do during the war?"
[interviewer] Could we just talk a little bit more
about your role as a morale officer?
[Arno Mayer] Only the morale officer would translate sermons at Christmas.
[people praying indistinctly]
[Arno Mayer] They said, "It is Christmas, and we'd like to have a Christmas mass."
They got a room which was very private.
They all showed up.
Then there was first the Catholic sermon,
and after that, the Protestant one.
And then it fell to me
to translate these two fucking sermons
from English into German.
They were very pleased.
In fact, they were so pleased that they invited me
to come have a drink with them.
It drove me absolutely crazy.
I… I couldn't have anything humane with them. I couldn't.
Behind my back, they referred to me as "Der kleine Judenbube,"
the little Jew boy.
You know, in your best dreams or nightmares,
you couldn't have expected to become the morale officer
of these high animals.
I mean, the hatred within me was so strong I couldn't… I couldn't resist it.
Because as far as I'm concerned,
they were sons of bitches, and I wanted them dead.
[interviewer] What did you think was gonna happen to these people?
[Peter Weiss] If they sent us to Washington
to buy Christmas presents for their relatives,
they were not likely to be charged with crimes.
[chuckles]
I occasionally went to bed and found myself thinking,
"What… What am I doing here?"
I did wonder whether I could go
to the colonel in charge and say,
"I really can't do this."
Well, you didn't do things like that when you were in the Army. [chuckles]
And also, you didn't do things like that
when you were a recent refugee.
[tense music playing]
[John Gunther Dean] We were trying to help the US government obtain intelligence,
and it came in various forms.
Maybe 1142 was the beginning
of a diplomatic approach to obtaining intelligence.
I'm gonna say something which,
up to you whether you want to keep it in there.
We were not only interested in what the Germans were able to do,
but we were also interested in knowing about our ally at the time,
the Soviet Union.
And that became an important element.
The mutual suspicion
among the Western world and the Russian world
predated even the second World War.
[Peter Weiss] The new policy coming out of Washington
was to keep people who were useful
from falling into the hands of the Soviet Union.
[Robert Kloss] It was a battle between Russia and the United States
who could get the most German scientists.
We got Wernher von Braun, you know,
which was very good to have.
[Arno Mayer] When my parents asked me, "What are you doing?"
The phrase that I kept using over and over and over again,
was always, "I'm preparing World War III."
In my judgment…
I would say…
that the…
Cold War started a hell of a lot earlier than anybody thinks these days.
What I was doing without knowing it, that's really what it was all about.
[somber music playing]
[Alfred Bomberg] We were told they were not prisoners of war.
They were actually in our employment.
In fact, they were on a per diem.
[Arno Mayer] They were promised a fairly rapid naturalization,
and then also, they were promised that their families could follow them.
[Army veteran 2] We took care of their families.
And in many cases, they were encouraged to immigrate.
That is to say, become American citizens.
We offered them the future.
But a lot of them had strong Nazi backgrounds,
and we were a little disturbed
that they would be given tremendous opportunities
to do well in the United States.
Probably better than a lot of other people.
[NASA tech 1] T-15 seconds, guidance is internal.
Twelve, eleven, ten, nine…
[Army veteran 1] A lot of these people were then shipped off to Texas,
where they were going to work on the rocketry program.
And that turned into the Apollo project,
leading America to land the first man on the moon.
[NASA tech 2] Ignition sequence starts.
Six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.
All engine running.
Lift-off! We have a lift-off, 32 minutes past the hour.
Lift-off on Apollo 11.
Tower clear.
[Peter Weiss] It goes back to the question of whether you can do bad things
to achieve good ends.
And I would say that if you do that,
then the end that you achieve
is not worthwhile.
[cheering]
With your continued support,
I will see you back in orbit with that new space station.
And maybe one day we'll have a man on Mars. Thank you.
[melancholy music playing]