Dr. Robertson was a mathematical physicist who had taken a leave of absence from a professorship at Princeton University to help in the war effort. He was a jovial, gentle man who liked crossword puzzles, Ivy League football matches, and scotch. Robertson spoke German fluently and was respected by Germany’s academic elite not just for his scientific accomplishments but because he had studied, in 1925, in G?ttingen and Munich. Before the war, Dr. Robertson counted many leading German scientists as his friends. World War II changed his perspective, notably regarding any German scientist who stayed and worked for Hitler.
While at Princeton, Dr. Robertson had become friendly with Albert Einstein. The two men worked on theoretical projects together and spent time discussing Hitler, National Socialism, and the war. Einstein, born in Germany, had worked there until 1933, becoming director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics and professor at the University of Berlin. But when Hitler came to power, Einstein immediately renounced his citizenship in defiance of the Nazi Party and immigrated to the United States. Dr. Robertson shared Einstein’s core view. It had been the duty of German scientists to protest Hitler’s racist policies, beginning in 1933. Anyone who had served the Reich’s war machine was not going to be given a free pass by H. P. Robertson now.
Determined to keep the Nazi scientists in his custody, Staver played the Russian card. Robertson may have been anti-Nazi, but he was also deeply patriotic. With access to secret Alsos intelligence information, Robertson was well aware that Russian rocket development was a legitimate and growing threat. Both men knew that in as little as twelve days, the Russians would arrive in Nordhausen. If Staver was not able to locate the V-2 documents by then, the Russians would eventually find them. Major Staver appealed to Dr. Robertson, arguing that his keeping Fleischer, Riedel, and Rees was the army’s last and best shot at locating the hidden V-2 documents. Ultimately, Dr. Robertson agreed. In a final appeal, Staver asked Robertson if there was anything Robertson could offer up that might help him in his search for the V-2 stash. Some clue or detail that Staver might be overlooking?
Indeed there was. Dr. Robertson’s fluency in science and his familiarity with German scientific intelligence had thus far made him an extremely effective interrogator of the Nazi scientific and military elite. Wehrmacht generals, SS officers, and scientists were notoriously eager to speak with him. Listening to Staver, Dr. Robertson had an idea. He pulled a small writing pad out of his shirt pocket and looked over his notes. During an earlier interrogation of a rocket scientist named von Ploetz, Robertson had gotten an interesting lead. He decided to share it with Major Staver.
“Von Ploetz said that General Dornberger told General Rossman [the German army’s Weapons Office department chief] that documents of V-weapon production were hidden in Kaliwerke [salt mine] at Bleicherode, walled into one of the mine shafts,” read Robertson from his notes. Robertson suggested that Staver use that information to his advantage. He agreed to leave Fleischer, Riedel, and Rees with Major Staver while he headed to Garmisch-Partenkirchen to interview General Dornberger and Wernher von Braun.
At Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Robertson found the rocket scientists sunbathing in the Alps. This lovely Bavarian ski resort was the place where Adolf Hitler had hosted the Winter Olympics in 1936. Now the U.S. Army had hundreds of scientists set up in a former military barracks here. The food was plentiful, and the air was fresh and clean. “Mountain springtime,” Dieter Huzel recalled in his memoir. “Trees by now had donned their fresh, new green, flowers everywhere as far as one could see from our windows and balconies. Rain was infrequent and almost every day sunbathing was possible on a lawn-covered yard.” Huzel’s only complaint was that he didn’t receive mail and couldn’t make telephone calls.