Dr. Werner Osenberg, a mechanical engineer, was a dedicated Nazi and member of the SS; he was also a high-ranking member of the Gestapo, the secret police. In June 1943 Osenberg was assigned by G?ring to run the so-called Planning Office of the Reich Research Council, which was dedicated to warfare. Per a Führer decree of June 9, 1942, the Research Council’s charter read: “Leading men of science above all, are to make research fruitful for warfare by working together in their special fields.”
From the council’s Planning Office, Osenberg’s job was to coordinate a Who’s Who list of German scientists, engineers, doctors, and technicians. With bureaucratic precision Osenberg set to work, tracking down and cataloguing every scientist in Germany. Osenberg’s mission was to put these men into service for the Reich. In short order he had compiled a list of fifteen thousand men and fourteen hundred research facilities. All across Germany scientists, engineers, and technicians were recalled from the front lines, an act Hitler called the Osenberg Action. This led to the release of five thousand scientists from the German Armed Forces. After being screened for skill level, the men of science were set up in appropriated universities and institutions across Reich territory where they could work on weapons-related research programs in service of the war effort.
The mystery of how the Osenberg List ended up in a Bonn University toilet was never solved, but for Alsos it was an intelligence gold mine. Not only was this list a record of who had been working on what scientific project for the Reich, but it contained addresses, including one for Werner Osenberg himself. Goudsmit dispatched a team to a little town near Hannover. There, Alsos agents captured Osenberg and his complete outfit.
The papers found in the toilet were valuable, but it was an index of cards in Osenberg’s office that was priceless. “The primary index consists of a four-drawer cabinet containing approximately two-thousand large printed cards (10″ x 7″) adapted for multiple entry on both sides of the card,” reported Alsos. Secondary indexes included three additional sets of “approximately one thousand cards [each], 6″ x 4″… containing the same information but classified from a different standpoint and facilitating searches along different lines.” This was an overwhelming trove of information, too much for any one organization to handle. Alsos shared the Osenberg List with CIOS; there were thousands of leads that needed following up on. Osenberg’s card catalogue would allow the various teams to begin piecing together how science programs worked under the Reich and who had been in charge.
The Alsos officers packed up Osenberg’s office and took him to Paris, where he was put to work organizing information. Goudsmit was appalled by the hubris Osenberg displayed after he was installed in an office in a guarded facility in Versailles. “Here, Osenberg had set up business as usual; he merely had his secretary change the address on his letterhead to… “at Present in Paris,” Goudsmit explained after the war. He also became exasperated when Osenberg tried repeatedly to convince Goudsmit of his sworn loyalty to the Allies. “I became impatient,” Goudsmit explained, and told Osenberg, “[O]ne cannot trust you.… You were in charge of the scientific section of the Gestapo, which you never revealed to us and you burned all the relating papers.” Osenberg was enraged by the accusation. “No, I did not burn those papers,” he told Goudsmit. “I buried them and, moreover, I was not the chief of the scientific section of the Gestapo, I was merely the second in command.” After that it was easy for Goudsmit to find out from Osenberg “where those papers were buried and where the missing Berlin papers were stored.”
But no one from the Allied forces was going into Berlin just yet. In these last days of March 1945, Berlin continued to be the heart of the Reich, and it was being fiercely defended. It would remain German-held territory for another month, until the last day of April 1945.
It was a city in ruins, and Berliners’ morale was sinking with each passing day. With nearly 85 percent of the city destroyed, Berlin had been reduced to rubble piles. The majority of buildings still standing had broken windows. Everyone was cold. The underground shelters were vastly overcrowded. Heating fuel was scarce. “During early April,” explains historian Anthony Beevor, “as Berlin awaited the final onslaught [of the Red Army,] the atmosphere in the city became a mixture of febrile exhaustion, terrible foreboding and despair.”