What to do about Hitler’s former scientists? The fighting had stopped, and the Allied forces were transitioning from a conquering army to an occupying force. Germany was to be disarmed, demilitarized, and denazified so its ability to make war would be reduced to nil, and science and technology were at the very heart of the matter. “Clearly German science must be curbed,” noted Army Air Forces Lieutenant Colonel John O’Mara, in the CIOS report he authored on the rise of the Luftwaffe. “But how?” World War I had ended with a peace treaty that, among other restrictions, “sought to prevent the rise of German Air Power by forbidding powered flight. The result,” explained O’Mara, “was as ludicrous as it was tragic.” By the time Germany started World War II, its air force was the most powerful in the world. The mistake could not be repeated, and the U.S. procedural guidelines for an occupied Germany, contained in a directive known as JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) 1076, promised to nullify Germany’s appetite for war. All military research was to cease. Scientists were rounded up and taken to detention centers for extensive questioning.
Across the former Reich, SHAEF had set up internment centers where more than fifteen hundred scientists were now being held separate from other German prisoners of war. The U.S. Army had approximately 500 scientists in custody in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Bavarian Alps, including the von Braun and Dornberger group; there were 444 persons of interest detained in Heidenheim, north of Munich; 200 were in Zell am See, in Austria; 30 kept at Chateau du Grande Chesnay, in France. The U.S. Navy had 200 scientists and engineers at a holding facility in Kochel, Germany, including many wind tunnel experts. The Army Air Forces had 150 Luftwaffe engineers and technicians in Bad Kissingen, Germany, a majority of whom had been rounded up by Colonel Donald Putt. CIOS had 50 scientists, including Werner Osenberg, in Versailles. But there was no clear policy regarding what lay ahead for the scientists, engineers, and technicians in Allied custody, and General Eisenhower sought clarification on the issue. From Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in France, he sent a cable to the War Department General Staff in Washington, D.C., asking for specific direction about longer-term goals. “Restraint and control of future German scientific and technical investigations are clearly indicated,” General Eisenhower wrote, “but this headquarters is without guidance on the matter and is in no position to formulate long-term policy.” Were these men going to be detained indefinitely? Interrogated and released?
The War Department responded to Eisenhower’s cable by letting him know his query was considered a “matter of urgency.” Tentative responsibility was assigned to the Captured Personnel and Materiel Branch of the Military Intelligence Service, Europe. Now that group was in charge of overseeing the scientists’ basic needs, including living quarters, food, and in some cases pay. But it would be another two weeks before the War Department would get back to General Eisenhower with any kind of a statement regarding policy. In the meantime, a number of events were unfolding—in America and in Germany—that would affect the decision making of the War Department General Staff.
In the absence of policy, ideas were floated at the Pentagon. Some, like Major General Kenneth B. Wolfe, of the Army Air Forces, took matters into their own hands. General Wolfe was chief of engineering and procurement for Air Technical Service Command at Wright Field, and he supported Major General Knerr and Colonel Putt in their quest for capturing Luftwaffe spoils discovered at V?lkenrode. But General Wolfe envisioned an even bigger science exploitation program and felt strongly that policy needed to be set now. Wolfe flew to SHAEF headquarters in France to meet with Eisenhower’s deputy, General Lucius D. Clay, to promote his idea.