U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis

Description

This book is a direct result of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. Drawing upon many documents declassified under this law, the authors demonstrate what US intelligence agencies learned about Nazi crimes during World War II and about the nature of Nazi intelligence agencies' role in the Holocaust. It examines how some U.S. corporations found ways to profit from Nazi Germany's expropriation of the property of German Jews. This book also reveals startling new details on the Cold War connections between the US government and Hitler's former officers. At a time when intelligence successes and failures are at the center of public discussion, U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis also provides an unprecedented inside look at how intelligence agencies function during war and peacetime.

Richard Breitman, professor of history at American University, is the author or co-author of seven books and more than forty articles. One of his books, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution, won the Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History, and another, Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Holocaust Studies. Breitman serves as editor of the scholarly journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Norman J. W. Goda is an Associate Professor of History at Ohio University. He is the author of Tomorrow the World: Hitler, Northwest Africa and the Path to America and numerous scholarly articles. He is currently completing a book entitled: Tales from Spandau: Cold War Diplomacy and the Nuremberg War Criminals. An Associate Professor at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs, Timothy Naftali directs the Presidential Recordings Program and the Kremlin Decision-making Project. Co-author of One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958-1964, he is currently completing Khrushchev's Cold War and Blindspot: The Secret History of US Counterterrorism. Naftali was most recently a consultant to the 9/11 Commission. Robert Wolfe was the senior research specialist for more than thirty years for the National Archives' massive captured German and World War II war crimes trial records, as well as for the records of the postwar occupation of Germany and Austria. His publications include Americans as Proconsuls: U.S. Military Government in Germany and Japan, 1944-52 and Captured German and Related Records.

"Thanks to the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, the CIA, US Army, and FBI were required to declassify documents in their files dealing with Nazi war crimes and criminals during and after WWII. Richard Breitman, Norman J.W. Goda, Timothy Naftali, and Robert Wolfe have analyzed these files. The result is a fascinating series of essays...This volume will be an important addition to every collection dealing with WWII...Highly recommended." -CHOICE, K. Eubank, emeritus, CUNY Queens College "One can only commend the authors for their diligence, thoroughness and erudition in undertaking what was obviously a daunting task. In working through this enormous quantity of material, they have rendered an invaluable service to other historians working on topics related to the Holocaust or the use by Allied intelligence services of Nazis as intelligence assets... this sobering and illuminating volume does much to improve our understanding of both the Holocaust and U.S. intelligence during and after the war." - H-German, Devin O. Pendas, Department of History, Boston College "They have shown how historians and citizens can profit from even a long-delayed disclosure of important documents. Breitman, Goda, Naftali, and Wolfe have told an important but depressing story with skill and objectivity. Scholars concerned with Nazi criminality and its sordid aftermath will long be in their debt." - Robert E. Herzstein, University of South Carolina "Breitman, Goda, Naftali, and Wolfe have done the scholarly community a service by demonstarting the value of these newly available sources. The book--and the effort that produced it--offers a model for how primary sources records can inform both historical inquity and topics of current interest." The International History Review Thomas G. Mahnken, Johns Hopkins University "[An] outstanding volume...a great deal to offer the serious Holocaust reader...This is heartily recommended to them. This is a volume which is an eye-opener, to say the least." Dr. Diane Cypkin, Martyrdom and Resistance