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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

U.S. let Nazis settle here after war

Long-secret report says America became ‘haven for persecutors’

Pete Yost Associated Press

WASHINGTON – A report chronicling the history of the Justice Department’s Nazi-hunting unit criticizes the government for knowingly allowing some Nazis to settle in the United States after World War II.

“America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became in some small measure a safe haven for persecutors as well,” says the 600-page document.

The New York Times obtained a copy of the report, which the National Security Archive, a private group, posted on its website. Earlier, the Justice Department had declared dozens of pages from the document off-limits to the public after the archive sued to get it.

The long-secret report provided new details of many of the major cases handled by Justice’s Office of Special Investigations. The report reflects the ways in which American officials, who were assigned to recruit foreign scientists after World War II, circumvented President Harry S. Truman’s order that they not bring in Nazi Party members or people who had actively supported Nazi militarism.

Arthur Rudolph, one of hundreds of scientists brought to the United States after the war, told investigators in 1947 of attending a hanging during the war of inmates accused of sabotage at a plant near Nordhausen, Germany, where Rudolph was operations director. The plant manufactured V-2 rockets using slave labor. U.S. immigration officials knew Rudolph had been a Nazi Party member, but he was admitted to the U.S. anyway. Rudolph went on to become honored in the U.S. as the father of the Saturn V rocket, enabling the United States to make its first manned moon landing. Rudolph went to Germany in 1984 and forfeited his U.S. citizenship.

The report also details a discussion at the CIA over whether former Nazi Party member Otto Von Bolschwing should acknowledge his Nazi past if confronted about it when applying for U.S. citizenship. Reversing earlier CIA advice, the agency concluded that Von Bolschwing should tell the truth. The agency hired Von Bolschwing during the Cold War for his contacts among ethnic Germans and Romanians. The Justice Department sought to deport Von Bolschwing when it found out about his past. Von Bolschwing, it turned out, had worked with Adolf Eichmann, helping devise programs in the 1930s to persecute and terrorize Germany’s Jews. Eichmann was one of the architects of the Holocaust.

“Some may view the government’s collaboration with persecutors as a Faustian bargain,” the report states. “Others will see it as a reasonable moral compromise borne of necessity.”

In court filings in the lawsuit brought by the National Security Archive, the Justice Department said that the report was never finalized, contains numerous factual errors and omissions and does not represent the official position of the Justice Department.

On Sunday, Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said: “The department is committed to transparency and providing information in accordance with relevant laws. Attorneys with expertise in the Freedom of Information Act make determinations about certain redactions based on privacy and other considerations under the law.”