Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher.

The National Archives holds a substantial quantity Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records. And in the forthcoming years even more records will be accessioned.  The FBI case files contain  a variety of documentation, including FBI agent reports; teletype-messages; prosecutive summaries; accounts of interviews and physical surveillance; letters; memorandums; lab reports; informant reports; photographs; newspaper clippings and other public record material; and logs, transcripts, and summaries of electronic surveillance.  They are a rich source for researchers.   According to Judge Harold H. Greene, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in a lawsuit regarding FBI records, wrote that the records of the FBI “perhaps more than those of any other agency, constitute a significant repository of the record of the recent history of this nation, and they represent the work produce of an organization that has touched the lives of countless Americans.”  But, in using those records, challenges will be faced by researchers, including understanding FBI abbreviations and euphemisms.

An example of a FBI document, this one describing lab tests conducted on wine Khrushchev gave to Kennedy as a gift.

On the surface the contents of the FBI files appear straightforward.  Actually they are not so simple to understand.  A Department of Justice senior attorney in the mid-1970s investigating illegal break-ins reported that his staff had been on the case for more than a year and “they still didn’t know how to read an FBI file.”  Part of the problem is the language used in the files.  Like any agency, the FBI has its own terminology and euphemisms that researchers will have to learn in order to understand what they are reading.  There are scores of abbreviations throughout the files that researchers will have to decipher if the information in the file is to make sense.  There are real simple ones, like OO meaning Office of Origin (the FBI office responsible for an investigation) and AO meaning Auxiliary Office (FBI office(s) assisting in the investigation).  Then there are the abbreviations for FBI Field Office supervisors: SAC and ASAC, Special Agent in Charge and Assistant Special Agent in Charge.  Often individuals in FBI records are identified as FNU, LNU, or FNU LNU.  When I began looking at records at FBI headquarters back in the 1980s I thought it strange that there were so many criminals named FNU LNU.  I eventually asked Bureau personnel to explain it to me.  I bet they really thought I was naïve. They smiled, chuckled and told me that those abbreviations stood for First Name Unknown and Last Name Unknown!!

My favorite abbreviation is UACB (Unless Advised to the Contrary by the Bureau).  This is usually used in conjunction with a FBI Field Office notifying FBI Headquarters (i.e., the Bureau) that it planned to do something unless there was an objection.  And, of course, there is “OK H,” on tens of thousands of documents indicating that Director J. Edgar Hoover approved what was being recommended to him (see the scan of a FBI “Research Matters” document). Abbreviations are listed and discussed in Ann Mari Buitrago and Leon Andrew Immerman, Are You Now or Have You Even Been in the FBI Files: How to Secure and Interpret Your FBI Files (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1981).

Then there are the euphemisms.  Former Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach told Congress in 1975 that “the Bureau constantly resorted to terms of art, or euphemisms, without bothering to inform the Attorney General that they were terms of art. I don’t think it is excessively naive to assume that ‘a highly reliable informant’ is precisely that, and not a microphone surveillance.”  For example, when reporting of break-ins, agents sometimes used such terms as “special techniques” or “sensitive investigative techniques.” When included in the files, information from break-ins was reported often as having come from an “anonymous source,” a “highly confidential source,” a “highly confidential informant,” or a “confidential informant.”  The term “confidential informant” also was used to disguise the source of illegally obtained information.  According to former special agent G. Gordon Liddy, if a field office submitted a plan for headquarters approval and it contained the words “‘security guaranteed,’ it meant that we did it last night and got away clean—approve it so we can send you the results officially.”  Often in a report one will see “T-1, a usually reliable informant whose identity cannot be disclosed” or “T-2, a reliable informant who is not available for re-interview.” These may relate to human informants, but occasionally they denote electronic eavesdropping.

So the word to the wise, before undertaking research in the FBI records, one should become familiar with the literature regarding the records and once research has begun to understand that certain words and terms may have some special meaning.  Good luck with your research, UACB!!

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher.

Seventy years ago, on September 19, 1942, one of the most important intelligence organizations in the Southwest Pacific Area was created and not long afterwards its commander, Sidney F. Mashbir, arrived in the theater to take command of it.  This was the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, commonly referred to as ATIS.

After the Allied Forces seized the offensive in the Southwest Pacific Area, the increasing number of prisoners and documents captured necessitated the consolidation and expansion of such Allied linguistic units as already existed.  As a result, General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area, issued on September 19, 1942, a directive establishing the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) as a centralized intelligence organization composed primarily of language personnel and designed to systematize the exploitation of captured documents and the interrogation of prisoners of war. Before the directive was issued Maj. Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, the Chief of Staff, had instructions sent to Col. Karl Ferguson Baldwin, who had spent World War I as military attaché in Tokyo, and then the United States Military Attaché to Australia, on September 18 that he come to Brisbane to undertaken the coordination of ATIS at Indooroopilly, a Brisbane suburb.  He was informed that it would be a temporary assignment until a suitable replacement came from the United States.

Baldwin, arriving at Indooroopilly on September 24, found the translators of the GHQ, SWPA and Allied Land Forces Units working together, translating about 800 documents captured in the Milne Bay operation.  The chief need Baldwin quickly realized was for a head coordinator to insure prompt selection of important material and speedy delivery of “live intelligence” to the proper headquarters, and a setup which would properly tie in the Allied Naval and Allied Air Units so as to form the four units into an efficient and smoothly run section as contemplated in the September 19 directive.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., on September 21, General H. V. Strong, the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, ordered Lt. Col. Sidney F. Mashbir, to report to GHQ SWPA, to serve on MacArthur’s staff and head up an Inter-Allied staff dealing with language work at GHQ, SWPA.

Mashbir, an officer in the US Army, from the Arizona National Guard, had operated across the Mexican border and during World War I engaged in counter-intelligence work.  In 1916, while in Mexico, Mashbir discovered Japanese military documents.  He vowed to learn Japanese.  After the war as a ROTC instructor at Syracuse University, Mashbir attempted to read everything he could about Japan. In 1920 he requested a detail to Japan to learn Japanese. This was approved and in August 1920 he sailed to Japan.  Because of business interests Mashbir submitted his resignation in April 1923. His business concerns were in Tokyo, where he became one of the directors of the Pan-Pacific Association and developed relationships with many powerful men in Japan.  In December 1923 he returned to the United States to further his business career.

Back in the United States, Mashbir successfully applied to return to active duty for a limited period.  In the summer of 1927 he began an eight-month term of service with the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2.  There, among other Japanese-related activities, he rewrote what was then known as the “Order of Battle Manual” on Japan.  Ellis M. Zacharias, with Naval Intelligence, who met Mashbir in the 1920s, wrote in his book Secret Missions, “I have always thought of him as my counterpart in the Army, where officers with an interest in intelligence could be counted on the fingers of one hand.”

Despite his interest in intelligence and his belief in 1928 that the United States and Japan would be at war within fifteen years, he left the military to be an American company’s representative in Japan.  Before leaving the military he was promoted to Lt. Col.  But Mashbir was not totally out of the intelligence loop.  He undertook an intelligence mission on behalf of Naval Intelligence to Japan in 1937.

Mashbir was reinstated in the Army on January 24, 1942, and was immediately placed in charge of the Military Intelligence Branch of the Signal Corps. In late June 1942, Mashbir’s friend Capt. Zacharias reported to Washington to serve with the Office of Naval Intelligence, as the deputy director of Naval Intelligence.  During the summer he often turned to Mashbir for advice and aid and invited Mashbir to join him in drawing up the plan for a joint intelligence organization for Admiral Ernest King. Before leaving for the Pacific, Zacharias took Mashbir to see King.  They discussed the preparation of the plan for the Joint Intelligence Committee.  King asked Zacharias if there was anything Mashbir needed that the Navy could give him.  Zacharias told him he needed two men, one temporary and one permanently—one was the expert on prisoner of war interrogations and the other was the very best linguist the Navy had.  King agreed. Before leaving, King and Zacharias provided him with letters of introduction to the naval liaison officers at any point he might touch, giving him carte blanche, and directing them to cooperate with him in every necessary way.

On September 28 Mashbir left Washington, D.C.  After a change of planes in San Francisco he flew to Australia on a B-24 Liberator, arriving at Brisbane on October 6.  Very quickly upon arriving Mashbir met up with Col. Baldwin.  Mashbir knew Baldwin, because it was he who had selected him for his assignment to Japan in 1920. He also met Brig. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, the SWPA’s G-2 and Sutherland, the Chief of Staff.  The next day Mashbir drove 8 miles from Brisbane to Indoroopilly, where ATIS had been established. There he met the American and Australian linguistic personnel, including eight Nisei, and not long afterwards was turning ATIS into a valuable resource for General MacArthur.  After the war Willoughby wrote that ATIS was “possibly the most single important intelligence agency of the war.”

Mashbir, c. 1951

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher.

Nancy Yeide, head of the Department of Curatorial Records at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, D.C., in December 1997, began doing provenance research on the NGA’s holdings to ascertain whether any of the works of art had provenance problems.  In the wake of the revelations in 1996 and 1997 regarding looted Nazi gold and unpaid Swiss bank accounts, many museums, auction houses, and others began researching the provenance of art work to determine whether any had been confiscated by the Nazis and never returned to the rightful owner.

After checking NGA resources and other sources, Yeide realized that she would have to do research at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, which she learned had custody of some 10 million of pages of records relating to the looting, identifying, recovering, and returning cultural property during and after World War II.  Many of the relevant records were identified in a finding aid I had prepared in early 1997, as part of the U.S. Government’s effort to identify archival records relating to Holocaust-Era assets.

During the course of over two years Yeide spent day after day at the National Archives learning about the documentation available and undertaking research in it.  Very quickly she learned about records created by the Nazis themselves that documented what they seized.  She also learned about the records created and received by numerous American military and civilian organizations and agencies involved with cultural property during and after World War II.  Among the American military organizations she learned about were the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFA&A) Officers whose job it was, among others, to protect and recover looted cultural property; the Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU) of the Office of Strategic Services, who were involved with identifying the locations of looted works of art as well as the identities and locations of those involved in looting, selling and acquiring looted art; and, the Central Collecting Points in Germany that took custody of and restituted looted works of art. She also learned about how American embassies and consulates, particularly in the World War II neutral countries, and the Department of State itself acquired substantial quantities of information about looted art works.  And she learned about the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas, often referred to as the Roberts Commission (chaired by US Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts).  The Roberts Commission, among other functions, compiled data on cultural property appropriated by the Axis Powers.

Her research initially focused on nine works of art in the NGA that had been apparently looted by the Nazis.  Her task was to establish that they had been recovered and returned to the rightful owners.  Two of the works illustrate her research.  These were Henri Matisse’s Still Life with Sleeping Woman and Pianist and Checker Players. Noted dealer Paul Rosenberg acquired these from the artist in early 1940.  Before leaving for the United States a few months later, Rosenberg stored these works in a bank vault in Libourne, outside Bordeaux.  By September 1941, she learned from records at the National Archives, the Nazis had gone into the bank vault and inventoried Rosenberg’s holdings, and then confiscated the art works.  She also learned from the records that the works were taken to Jeu de Paume, Paris, where they were catalogued by the staff of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR).  While not locating within the ERR inventory cards at the National Archives a card for Pianist and Checker Players she did locate one for the other Matisse.  Using ALIU Consolidated Interrogation Reports on the ERR and on Hermann Goering and Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP) research records she ascertained that Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering acquired the works from the Jeu de Paume.

Still Life with Sleeping Woman

Pianist and Checker Players

Using the ALIU Consolidated Interrogation Report on the ERR and a ALIU Detailed Interrogation Report on Gustave Rochlitz, a chief participate in exchanges of painting confiscated by the ERR and important recipient of looted art, Yeide ascertained that Goering exchanged the Still Life with Sleeping Woman with Rochlitz for another work of art.  After the war, she learned from other sources, it was recovered by the Rosenbergs, who subsequently sold it in 1951.  As for the Pianist and Checker Players she learned from MFA&A and Munich Central Collecting Point records that after the war it had been recovered from Rochlitz and that the MCCP had possession of it.  It was restituted to France in May 1946 and returned to the Rosenbergs.  Both paintings ended up at the NGA and are now frequently displayed near one another.

In telling this provenance story I have not gone into all of its complexity, nor have I conveyed the dead ends or inconclusive information with which Yeide confronted in the course of her research.  All of the time spent, even the wasted time, was invaluable from an educational standpoint. By the time she had completed the process she became the acknowledged expert in navigating the vast collection of archival holdings relating to art provenance at the National Archives.  Having this knowledge resulted in her being continually asked to share that expertise.  Many of us interested in provenance research requested that she produce a handbook explaining how to undertake provenance research, including how to navigate the records at the National Archives.  She quickly agreed. Because of the enormity and complexity of the subject matter she asked Konstantin Akinsha and Amy L. Walsh, two other acknowledged provenance researchers, to co-author the work.  The result was The AAM Guide to Provenance Research, published by the American Association of Museums early in 2001.  Since that date Yeide as continued her research at College Park regarding other works of art (see NGA website regarding her efforts) and working with the National Archives with its Digital Portal to Holocaust-Era Assets records.

In 1971, the National Archives established the Center for the Documentary Study of the American Revolution through its American Revolution Bicentennial Administration (Records of the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration: RG 452), at Archives I in Washington, DC.  As one of the major Bicentennial projects, the center was a sort of “one stop” location for the research of the American Revolution, and most importantly, the inception of the charters of freedom.  But the greatest legacy of the Center was the creation of the Index: The Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, published in 1978. The five-volume index, also known as the PCC Index, was a computer-assisted subject and name directory that included a descriptive chronological list of pre-Federal records.

The PCC Index

The Center received a two-year $150,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to complete the PCC Index by 1973. Initially, the archives technicians were supposed to use the microfilm copies of the PCC to compile the guide, which consisted of:

• RECORDS OF THE CONTINENTAL AND CONFEDERATION CONGRESSES (NUMBERED SERIES) 1765-1821: Microfilm Publications: M247
• MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS OF THE CONTINENTAL AND CONFEDERATION
  CONGRESSES (UNNUMBERED SERIES) 1774-1802: Microfilm Publications: M332
• RECORDS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 1787: Microfilm Publications: M866

Due to the poor condition of the microfilm, the archives technicians used the original documents from the National Archives’ holdings.  Retired NARA archivist from the Access Programs Unit, Office of Records Services – Washington, DC (NW), Steven Tilley, described it as “such an interesting experience to have access to the original documents. Today, it may not happen. If they had to do it all over again, they might do it differently, but we actually handled the original records.”  Mr. Tilley further reflected on his days working for the project in an interview describing his role and the team’s procedures:

“They called us indexers, and what our job was, we read every document in the various series. The papers were called items. They were mounted and fully volumes for the most part. We literally read every page and we index sheets we filled out by hand. There wasn’t a lot of technology at the time, but it was very primitive compared to today. We literally filled out these forms by hand and read every page as I said before, every name, every place, every subject. There were certain subjects that we entered. The staff worked its way through the various items and produced thousands of pages of index forms, which were then turned into an early form of computerization called digi-data form. The information from the digi-data cassettes, which were small cassettes, were transferred to computer tape.  Then the computer tape was used to produce an index , a computer assisted index it was called in those days to the Papers of the Continental Congress. It was very exciting.”

It took the PCC Index team roughly five years to complete the detailed guide, but the outcome of their toil filling out thousands forms was worth the wait.  Today the PCC Index is still widely used and it remains to be the standard guide to RG 360, the Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention.  Thanks to the Center for the Documentary Study of the American Revolution, we can easily conduct research drawing on pre-1789 records.

Other finding aids for RG 360 are Kenneth E. Harris and Steven D. Tilley, comps., Index: Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 (1976) and Howard H. Wehmann, comp., and Benjamin L. DeWhitt, rev., A Guide to Pre-Federal Records in the National Archives (1989).

The quoted text from Steven Tilley was taken from the official transcription of his interview for the National Archives Assembly Legacy Project in December 2011. For more information about the interview, citation, and the Legacy Project please contact Assembly@nara.gov.

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher.

This September 17^th is the 225^th birthday of the Constitution.  Undoubtedly thousands of people will visit the Rotunda of the National Archives to see the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, as well as the Articles of Confederation.  If they look up at the murals in the Rotunda they will see one depicting the members of the Constitutional Convention.  If they look carefully at it, they will see an all but forgotten Founding Father, Elbridge Gerry, standing guardian over the documents he helped to bring to life.

Elbridge Gerry “standing guardian” over the Constitution in the Rotunda

Gerry of Massachusetts came to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia on May 29, 1787, desiring a form of government that would find a balance between too much power and too much liberty. Such a government, he believed, should be based upon republican principles, where power would be divided wherever possible and where too much power would not be placed in the hands of a single person, group, or branch of government.

By the end of August Gerry feared the proposed constitution threatened the liberties of the people and the rights of the states.  He thought about leaving, but decided to stay so so he could correct as many defects as he could.

During the first week of September, he spoke frequently on limiting the military power, the manner of electing the President, checking the power of the chief executive, and against having a Vice President, especially one who was to be the president of the Senate. The latter provision he maintained violated the principles of separation of powers. “We might as well put the President himself at the head of the Legislature,” he had argued on September 7. “The close intimacy that must subsist between the president and vice president makes it absolutely improper.” His colleagues were not persuaded. In fact, all of his motions were rejected, as most members were satisfied with the document they had created. Ironically, a quarter of century later, Gerry would be Madison’s Vice President and die on the way to preside over the Senate.

Despite his setbacks during the first week of September, Gerry continued during the second week calling for reconsideration of certain provisions, including measures to protect individual rights and to curtail the power of the central government. On September 12, believing there was nothing else he could do to stop the proposed constitution from being adopted by the Convention, he moved that a national bill of rights be incorporated into it. He was seconded by George Mason. When his motion was rejected, Gerry unsuccessfully offered numerous specific provisions to guarantee individual liberties.

On September 15, after the members had gone over the final draft, Edmund Randolph, Mason, and Gerry spoke in opposition to the proposed constitution. Gerry, after detailing his minor objections, told the Convention that he could live with them if individual rights had not been rendered insecure by the power of the government to make laws it may call necessary and proper, to raise armies and money without limit, and to establish tribunals without juries. He then joined Mason and Randolph in calling for a second constitutional convention where measures could be adopted to adequately protect individual rights.

Two days later Gerry addressed the Convention for the 153rd and last time. After giving his objections to the proposed constitution, he stated he could not sign the document. Then he watched as 39 men affixed their signatures to the document. It must have been distressing to him, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, not to sign. But it was even more distressing to think about the document itself, containing so many things he opposed and not including so many things he believed it should. Nevertheless, it must have pleased him to see that many of his motions and beliefs that protected the rights of citizens and the sovereignty of the states had been incorporated into the document and that he had been able to check many of the excesses of the extreme nationalists, thereby preventing the establishment of an even more powerful government.

In October he wrote the Massachusetts legislature that “it was painful for me, on a subject of such national importance, to differ from the respectable members who signed the constitution. But conceiving as I did that the liberties of America were not secured by the system, it was my duty to oppose it.” In this letter he gave his specific reasons for not signing, stressing the lack of any national bill of rights and the fact that the government was national, not federal in composition. “In many respects,” he wrote, “I think it has great merit, and by proper amendments, may be adapted to the ‘exigencies of Government’ and preservation of liberty.” He concluded the letter by pledging to “support that which is finally adopted.”

Once the Constitution was ratified, Gerry kept his word about supporting it, and agreed, once elected, to serve in the first House of Representatives. He arrived at Congress in the spring of 1789 ready to see that the proposed amendments that Massachusetts and other states had made, were given due consideration and to ensure the Constitution was implemented and administered so as to protect the liberties of the people.

Gerry, who had spoken the sixth most times at the Constitutional Convention, was an active participant, especially during the first five-month session, speaking more times than any other member save James Madison. Setting forth the same themes he had expounded at the Constitutional Convention, Gerry hoped the national government would find a true balance between liberty and power. He continually worked to protect the liberties of the people and the rights of the states.  He would leave Congress in 1793 and during the following 20 years serve on a diplomatic mission to France, two terms as governor of Massachusetts, and as Vice President.  He is the only Founding Father buried in Washington, D.C., at the Congressional Cemetery.  His words and deeds survive, at the National Archives, in the Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, Record Group 360.

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher.

Some sixty-five years ago, in September 1947 the Freedom Train, carrying key documents of American history, including the Bill of Rights, began its journey across the United States.  At each stop visitors had an opportunity to see the documents, many of them from the National Archives.

The idea for such a traveling exhibit originated in the Department of Justice in 1946 and in early 1947 the American Heritage Foundation was established to oversee what became the Freedom Train.  To kick off the activities of the foundation and to make the nation aware of the forthcoming Freedom Train tour and program, a White House Conference was held on May 22. Among the participants was Archivist of the United States Solon J. Buck, Librarian of Congress Luther Evans, Irving Berlin, Henry Ford II, William Randolph Hearst, Jr., Oscar winning film producer David O. Selznick, and NAACP executive secretary Walter White.

The foundation established a Documents Advisory Committee, which included among others Buck and Evans, which selected the documents for exhibit and the Documents Committee, consisting of John Foster Dulles and three others, which approved the selection.

The National Archives was of great assistance to the project, as it was responsible for physically assembling the exhibit materials and for their preparation for exhibition.  Elizabeth Hamer, Chief of the Division of Exhibits and Publications, and Arthur E. Kimberly, Chief of the Division of Cleaning and Rehabilitation, played key roles in these activities.  Staff members also recommended documents to be included in the exhibit.  Altogether the National Archives provided about one-fourth of the exhibit’s 126 documents, including the Bill of Rights, the Treaty of Paris, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Northwest Ordinance, and Washington’s copy of the Constitution.  The other documents on the Freedom Train came from historical societies, universities, government agencies, private collectors, and the Library of Congress.  Among these were Jefferson‘s draft of the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact, the original manuscript of the “Star-Spangled Banner, and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

While the documents were priceless the American Heritage Foundation insisted on insurance policies for them.  Insurance values were then established.  Among the documents that the National Archives lent, the Bill of Rights was insured for $225,000, the Emancipation Proclamation $60,000, Washington’s own copy of the Constitution $10,000, and a petition of the National Women’s Suffrage Association to Congress $500.  Among the other documents lent was a thirteenth century manuscript of Magna Carta insured for $7,500, the Mayflower Compact $3,500, the 1640 Bay Psalm Book $100,000, the 1644 Areopagitica by John Milton $350, and the 1776 Common Sense by Thomas Paine $300.  I suppose one could endlessly debate the value and relative value of these items.

The train was assembled in Cameron Station, Virginia, with the help of the U.S. Army and the National Archives.  It was powered by a streamlined diesel-electric locomotive named “The Spirit of 1776” and consisted of three Pullman cars, one baggage car, and three exhibit cars.  The train, once assembled, was painted white with a red and blue-strip along both sides of its entire length, making a red, white, and blue streamer extending some eight hundred feet.  The words FREEDOM TRAIN in gold letters were placed on alternate cars, with the others having a gold eagle.  The train staff included of a public relations officer, seven maintenance men and engineers, three porters, one document specialist from the National Archives, a Navy chief pharmacist’s mate, and twenty-seven Marines. Ms. Hamer from the National Archives was responsible for overseeing the installation of the documents in the train’s exhibit cars (see photo).To ensure that these priceless treasures were protected and safely displayed, the National Archives throughout the spring and summer of 1947 worked with the National Bureau of Standards and other agencies, as well various experts, to develop standards and procedures.  Once the train tour began a National Archives staff member on a daily basis carefully monitored the temperature and humidity in the exhibit cars, and inspected the exhibit cases.

The train tour began at Philadelphia on September 17, 1947, the 160^th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution.  During its tour the Reader’s Digest reprinted 3.5 million copies of an article on the Bill of Rights that was given to visitors to the Freedom Train and Look magazine prepared over 775,000 copies of an illustrated thirty-two page booklet Our American Heritage, which provided information on the major Freedom Train documents.  The American Heritage Foundation produced a 160-page booklet entitled Heritage of Freedom, which reproduced and discussed the Freedom Train documents.

The tour officially ended on January 22, 1949.  In all, the Freedom Train during its 413-day tour was visited by 3.5 million people in 322 cities in all forty-eight states. The Freedom Train tour had been a great success.  Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote the foundation in February 1949, “in instilling into the American people an increased consciousness of our manifold heritage has been one of the outstanding and most satisfying phenomena of the postwar period.” Although the foundation desired to continue the tour, lack of funds prohibited them from doing so.  Lack of funds also prevented the National Archives, which had been authorized by Congress to acquire and operate the Freedom Train, from continuing the tour.  The National Archives did, however, put the Freedom Train documents on exhibit in their institution from September 1949 to January 1950.

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher.

On May 10, 1966 J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wrote Alex Rosen, head of the Bureau’s General Investigation Division, thanking him for a gift certificate to a Washington, D.C. nursery.  The gift was in honor of Hoover’s anniversary as director.  “I shall derive much enjoyment in selecting what I want for my yard and home,” Hoover wrote.

J. Edgar Hoover in 1953 (National Archives Identifier 518187)

For almost fifty years Hoover received such gifts from Bureau personnel as well as friends and admirers.  Copies of various congratulatory communications to Hoover, many enclosing gifts, and his responses are contained in over thirty boxes found in Record Group 65, Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Congratulatory Letters to J. Edgar Hoover, 1924-1971, Director’s Office Records and Memorabilia).

The communications and gifts began arriving on May 10, 1924, when Hoover, who had been acting director since 1921 was appointed the permanent Director of the then Bureau of Investigation.  As the years passed the number of communications and gifts increased.

They came from relatives and friends, private citizens, state and local government employees, Governors and political leaders, police departments and graduates of the FBI’s National Academy, judges and lawyers, religious leaders, fraternal groups, military personnel, federal employees, foreign police and governments, members of Congress, Bureau and Department of Justice personnel, former Bureau employees, bankers, educators, publishers, and corporation leaders.

Hoover’s friend and deputy Clyde A. Tolson frequently sent gifts, usually flowers.  Hoover was most appreciative of Tolson’s thoughtfulness.  On May 10, 1963, he wrote “Dear Clyde: “You shouldn’t have done it—but it does mean a great deal to me that you remembered my anniversary.  The years have slipped by rapidly, and throughout you have always been most thoughtful. Thank you, very, very much, and you know that I am enjoying the beautiful hydrangea plant which arrived for the occasion.  With warmest personal regards. JEH”

Initially the gift giving was random and the gifts usually consisted of flowers.  But by the 1950s the number and value of the gifts increased and the gift-giving became more formalized and systematic.

On Hoover’s 40^th anniversary of service with the Justice Department, in July 1957, the Bureau’s Administrative Division gave him a cigarette and match container as well as gardenia and camellia plants; the Domestic Intelligence Division gave him silver mint julep mugs inscribed with his personal signature; the Identification Division gave him cuff links with his fingerprints as well as a pitcher and glasses; the General Investigation Division him an English silver service piece; the Laboratory Division gave him a medallion inscribed with Hoover’s name and seven President; and the other divisions also supplied gifts.  The Division Directors, who constituted the Bureau’s Executive Conference, gave him star sapphire cuff links.  Tolson’s office gave him an electric hand mixer and the Director’s staff gave him a bread basket.  The various field offices sent less expensive gifts.

For his May 10, 1966, anniversary Hoover received about 400 messages of congratulation.  The Director’s Office staff gave him cologne and numerous vases of red roses, and other flowers.  The Boston Field Office sent him two bottles of Jack Daniels.  The Chicago Field Office sent him a vase of red roses.  The Washington Field Office sent him an arrangement of orchids.  The Minneapolis Field Office gave him cheese.  The Tampa Field Office gave him an azalea plant.  The Administrative Division, other Divisions, and Headquarters agents sent him luggage.

And so it went year after year during the 1950s and 1960s, often twice a year, the letters and gifts would appear right on schedule.  But increasingly in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, as Hoover and the Bureau came under attack for a variety of reasons, the letters and gifts from political leaders began to decline.

The Director realized, no doubt, that some of the criticism directed his way related to the way in which he profited from his position.  Thus, in 1971, he issued instructions that no big deal was to be made of his anniversaries; and certainly no gifts.  But the gifts continued.  On May 11, 1971, he wrote Bureau official John P. Mohr, “Although I am displeased that my instructions in regard to any remembrance at all of my anniversary were disregarded, I did want to thank you and through my friends in the Bureau for the Whirlpool trash compressor.  This will prove to be most useful, both ecologically and as far as space is concerned.”

Hoover did not have long to enjoy the trash compressor.  During the first week of May 1972 he passed away.  With his death Miss Helen Gandy, Hoover’s longtime secretary, finished destroying almost all of his personal correspondence, a process that had begun the previous fall under Hoover’s direction.

Fortunately the continued existence of the files discussed in this blog gives us a glimpse of the private Hoover.  From them one can see who his friends were, what his admirers thought about him, and what Hoover’s relationship was with various individuals, agencies, and organizations.  One cannot always tell, of course, to what degree the letters and gifts were heartfelt or which ones were sent simply out of good politics.  But they do make for interesting reading, not only to determine who was writing but who was not.

Postscript: One of the more interesting exchanges of communications took place on May 10, 1971, when William C. Sullivan, head of the Domestic Intelligence Division and the Bureau’s third-ranking official, wrote Hoover to congratulate him on his 47^th anniversary as FBI Director.  Hoover responded the same day thanking Sullivan for his letter “extending your congratulations to me on my anniversary.”  “Your gracious comments meant a great deal to me…You were most kind to remember me on this special occasion, and your thoughtfulness helped make it an enjoyable day.” This was at a time when Hoover and Sullivan were seriously feuding over Bureau’s priorities.  The friction between the two worsened and on October 1, 1971, Hoover abruptly fired Sullivan for insubordination and suspected disloyalty. After Hoover’s death the Attorney General appointed Sullivan director of the newly created Office of National Narcotics Intelligence under the Department of Justice in June 1972.  Sullivan had hoped to replace Hoover as the bureau’s director, but was passed over by President Nixon in favor L. Patrick Gray.

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher.

On September 7, 1946, the OMG (Office of Military Government) for Greater Hesse informed OMGUS (Office of Military Government, U.S.) that the Marburg Central Collecting Point closed its career on August 19, when the military guard was relieved following transfer to the church of its last charge, the bodies of the four German notables. OMGUS was further informed that “The final activities of the Marburg Collecting Point were principally concentrated on bringing Operation Bodysnatch…to a successful conclusion.”

Page 2 of memorandum from Capt. Robert Wallach, Assistant Executive Office to OMGUS

Operation Bodysnatch began in the latter part of January 1945 as the Russians moved closer to the German Tannenberg Memorial near Hohenstein, the German commander of Army Group Center, ordered the memorial to be blown up after the removal of the sarcophagi containing the remains of former Field Marshal and Weimar President Paul von Hindenburg and of his wife.  The Hindenburg bodies were then moved to Berlin.  Subsequently their bodies, along with the caskets of Frederick Wilhelm I and Frederick the Great (both of whom had been buried in the church of the Potsdam garrison) were moved to the Heeres-Munitionsanstalt at Bernterode, a salt mine in the northern reaches of the Thuringian Forest.

In 1950 a Life magazine writer speculated that “the corpses were to be concealed until some future movement when their reappearance could be timed by resurgent Nazis to fire another German generation to rise and conquer again.” Whether this is true or not, the caskets were not concealed for long.  By the end of April the caskets would be in American hands and taken on May 8 to Marburg to be stored until such time as a political decisions as to what to do with them was made. The four caskets were deposited in a room in the Schloss [Castle] Marburg. The Military Government officials in Marburg now awaited instructions.

The instructions came in the form of a request by the Department of State in mid-November 1945 that the bodies not be turned over to the German authorities and for Military Government authorities to arrange for the safe-keeping of the caskets for some time to come.  When American and British authorities vacated the castle in February 1946, the caskets were brought to the Marburg Central Collecting Point (MCCP) at the Staatsarchiv building, whose archival holdings had been moved elsewhere during the war, so that they could remain under twenty-four hours U.S. military guard.

During the latter part of March, anticipating the time in the near future when the Staatsarchiv building would be returned to the custody of the German officials and the MCCP shut down, OMG for Greater Hesse requested OMGUS to make a decision on the disposition of the four caskets stored in the Staatsarchiv building.  During the spring and summer of 1946 State Department officials, the U.S. Political Adviser for Germany, the U.S. Military Governor for Germany, and the War Department wrangled with the problem of what to do with the caskets before the Americans vacated the Staatsarchiv building.

Meanwhile, Oskar von Hindenburg, the son of the former German President, tried to have the remains of his parents moved to Hanover in the British Zone of Occupation and OMG Greater Hesse consulted with Wilhelm, the former Crown Prince of Prussia, head of the house of Hohenzollern, about the possibility of moving the remains of his ancestors to Burg Hohenzollern, the mountain peak castle considered the ancestral seat of the Hohenzollern family. But the castle was in the French Zone and the French authorities wanted no Hohenzollerns buried in their zone.  Then the British informed the Americans that under no conditions would they permit the Hindenburgs to be buried in their zone.

It was about this time, in May 1946, that Capt. Everett P. Lesley, Jr., Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFA&A) Specialist Officer, OMG for Greater Hesse, dubbed the project of what to do with the caskets “Operation Bodysnatch.”  Thereafter the codename for the issues involving the caskets “Operation Bodysnatch,” (sometimes “Operation B.”) was often used in official communications.

After the French and British rebuffs OMG Greater Hesse began for a suitable burying place in the U.S. Zone. The military government officials settled on Elizabethkirche, in Marburg, not far from where the caskets were being kept.  They decided the two kings would be buried below the floor in the north transept near a medieval shrine marking the supposed resting pace of St. Elizabeth, a Hohenzollern ancestor. The Hindenburgs would be buried at the base of the north church tower.

After obtaining approvals of the Hohenzollerns and Hindenburgs as well those of German Land Government authorities, OMG Greater Hesse consulted the U.S. Political Adviser for Germany, who informed them in mid-June that OMGUS approved the proposal to inter all four caskets in the Elizabethkirche in private family ceremonies.

During the summer OMG Greater Hesse made architectural arrangements at the church for the burials and logistical arrangements for transferring the contents of the MCCP to the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point.  The latter activity was completed on August 8 and the Americans and a small number of German officials then focused on Operation Bodysnatch.  They were pushed by General Lucius Clay, the U.S. Military Governor, who was getting impatient over the delays in bringing the matter to a close.

Once special gravestones were delivered to Marburg, on the morning of August 16 they were moved to Elizabethkirche. Later that day the four caskets were moved to the church and within a few days the Staatsarchiv building was delivered to the German authorities and attention focused on the burial. The actual burial of the four was accomplished on August 19 before the formal funerals.  The coffins were lowered into open graves and the graves were sealed with a sheet of steel and a layer of cement. After the gravestones were pushed over the opening, a stone cutter then worked with hammer and chisel cutting inscriptions, simply the names and dates of the personages buried, on the unmarked burial slabs.  Then small private funeral ceremonies were held on August 21 for members of the Hohenzollern family and several days later for the Hindenburg family.

The OMG Greater Hesse Deputy Director in Charge of Operations, Lt. Col. Francis E. Sheehan, with Operation Bodysnatch completed, wrote a report for General Clay. He stated that both families expressed to the Military Government their deepest gratitude for its magnanimity and delicacy of feeling, for the choice of Elizabethkirche as the site of the interment, and their satisfaction with the manner in which all arrangements were carried out.  In concluding his report Sheehan observed that the opinion of OMG Greater Hesse was:

…that the conduct of the entire operation is a great credit to the Office of Military Government as a whole, as well as to German civilian authorities in Marburg, who were charged with an exceedingly delicate and potentially compromising task. Any delays encountered could not well have been overridden without giving the impression that Military Government was too anxious to dispose of an awkward situation, an impression which in turn might have been used to advantage by seditious elements. It is believed that any questions arising in the future concerning the propriety of the undertaking can be more than sufficiently answered by referring to the expressed appreciation of the two families, the ecclesiastical authorities and the German people as represented in the city of Marburg.

Of course, a story like this needs a postscript. And indeed there is one.  In early September 1952 the caskets of Frederick the Great and his father, Frederick Wilhelm I, were taken from the Elizabethkirche to the ancient Hohenzollern Castle near Hechingen, where it was intended they remain, according to the words of one of the family members, “until Germany is united again and they can return to Potsdam.”  On September 14 the bodies were laid to rest in the castle’s chapel in the presence of about 200 members of Germany’s royalty.  But the story does not end here.  With Germany reunited, on August 16, 1991 a train left from near the Hohenzollern family castle with the coffins and made its way to Potsdam around noon August 17. The coffins, were unloaded and Frederick William I received a simple reinterment in a church.  Frederick the Great’s coffin lay in a courtyard of his palace, Sans Souci, where he had asked in his will to be buried next to his favorite dog.  During the day some 60,000 Germans, including Chancellor Helmut Kohl, walked by to pay their respects.  At midnight the coffin, draped in Prussia’s black and white colors, was brought to the gravesite and lowered into the grave that Frederick had picked out over two hundred years before.  The Hindenburgs are still at Marburg.

The document is page 2 from the Memorandum, Capt. Robert Wallach, Assistant Executive Office, Office of Military Government for Greater Hesse to OMGUS, Attn: MFA&A Section, Restitution Branch, Economics Division, Subject: MFA&A Status of Collecting Points and Archival Depot Report, September 7, 1946, File: Monthly Report: Office of Military Government for Hesse, August 1946, Activity Reports, 1945-1951, Records of the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point, Office of Military Government (OMGUS), Records of U.S. Occupation Headquarters, World War II, Record Group 260 (Roll 52 of National Archives Microfilm Publication M-1947).

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher and is a follow up to Tuesday’s post.

On May 9, 1945, CIC Agent Allen, a driver, and three of Hitler’s stenographers went to the Hintersee area to look for the location where stenographic notes and transcripts of Hitler’s conferences had been burned.  They found a large hold in the ground that contained the remains of Hitler’s copy of the transcripts of his conferences, a mass of charred paper perhaps two feet deep. With the aid of the stenographers Allen began to search the ashes to determine whether they could find anything that had escaped destruction. After digging about for a few minutes, he came upon what he was told was a complete stenographic original of a whole conference, then another, and then quite a few typescripts which had been charred around the edges. After finding a dozen or more conference records that were intact, or only partially destroyed, Allen decided to take them back with him to Berchtesgadenand to continue the search the next day. He went out again twice more, once with Albrecht and once alone, and on each occasion recovered additional fragments. All in all they were able to recover the remains of fifty-one conferences and conversations, four completely intact, some practically complete, and some consisting of only a few charred pages. Most of the fragments were in shorthand, still wrapped in their original manila envelopes; the other fifteen were typewritten copies and bore the world Fuehrerkopie at the top of each first page. All told, they filled about 800 typed pages, and covered conferences from December 1942 toMarch 23, 1945.  They also included Hitler’s addresses to division commanders on December 12 and 28, 1944. The stenographers estimated that only less than one percent of the documentation had been saved from the fire.

Page from a stenographic transcription

Allen discussed with Albrecht what they should do with the fragments. Since many of them were charred and would stand little handling, they decided to set up offices in Berchtesgaden, where the stenographers could re-transcribe them. There were very few complete records of any one meeting, most the preserved transcriptions having small or large gaps due to destruction by fire. One of the stenographers possessed an excellent memory, which enabled him to remember or deduce from a burnt shred of paper the approximate date of it and the topic it covered, and also who actually took the notes. In some cases they were able to compare two versions of their shorthand notes of the same conference session, one of which may have contained more information than the other. As they transcribed in long hand the documents into German an attempt was made by the stenographers to fill some of the gaps by completing sentences, either from memory or by comparing the two different versions or by logical completion of a sentence.  They also used their knowledge of the subjects under discussion to fill the gaps of single words and parts of words, as well as to supply many missing phrases.  Whenever they added anything they always put these supplied portions in brackets.  In addition Allen and Albrecht brought in as typists several women who had originally worked on the notes in Berlin and who were familiar with the system and arrangement of the material.

At the end of the May stenographers wrapped up their work. They managed to compile some 1,000 pages of transcriptions.  The source of each fragment (stenogram or typed copy) was filed together with the corresponding transcription.  They made six copies of the reconstructed record, a number they thought would be sufficient for the Army’s needs.

Of the six copies of the transcripts prepared Allen gave one copy to the G-2 Section of the 101^st Airborne Division for its archives and retained one copy to go with his collection of the interrogations Albrecht and he had made at Berchtesgaden. Allen sent this material to the Library of the University of Pennsylvania. Allen turned the original charred remains and four copies to a U.S. Army Documents Team.  Of these four copies three were sent to Wiesbaden, where they came under control of a Judge Advocate General War Crimes Office.  One copy of the reconstructed transcripts, along with the original fragments, was sent to the Seventh U.S. Army Document Center at Heidelberg. When this document center closed down, the transcripts and original fragments were sent to the German Military Document Section at Camp Ritchie, Maryland in January 1946.

During the second half of 1945 and early American and British war crimes prosecution staffs tried to track down copies of the transcripts and the charred original fragments, to be used as evidence for the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg.  They were able to have the charred documents returned from Camp Ritchie and were able to locate transcripts that could be used at the IMT.

One stenographic record was found at the USFET G-2 Documents Center at Frankfurt.  This document was a 96-page transcript of aJanuary 27, 1945situation conference at which atrocities against Allied military personnel were discussed.  The staff of the Office of Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality believed that the information contained in it implicated Hitler, Reichsmarshal Goering, Field Marshal Keitel, and Generals Jodl and Guderian.  This document would be the first of the stenographic records introduced at the trial.  This happened during the cross examination of Goering on March 20, 1946, when Justice Robert Jackson, the American Chief of Counsel, introduced into evidence as USA Exhibit 787.   The exhibit file contains not only a translation, but also the actual burned stenographic fragments and the actual reconstructed typed transcript.

Image is from Stenographic transcription in the Headquarters of the Fuehrer, Discussion on the Situation of January 27, 1945, Exhibit USA 787, Filed March 20, 1946, Prosecution Exhibits, USA, United States Exhibits, 1933-1946, Office of the Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality, National Archives Collection of WWII War Crimes Records, Record Group 238.

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher.

This past spring knowing my colleague Sylvia Naylor was doing archival descriptive work on the exhibits used at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, I showed her one of the more interesting files, USA Exhibit 787.  Sylvia did indeed find it interesting.  This exhibit consisted of charred fragments of German stenographic notes (see example of a page). I had first run across them while doing research on Adolf Hitler’s stenographers and their records.

Page from a stenographic transcription

Hitler, in September 1942, decided in to have his own record of what took place at the military conferences in order to have proof on his side of what he had ordered. He ordered that stenographers be employed to take notes of what took place at the conferences.  He intended these notes to serve as the basic material for a history of World War II and a reference aid for his own use. Thus would be formed the Stenographic Service at the Fuehrer’s Headquarters.

Two stenographers were present at the conferences and other meetings at any one time and rotated duty as pairs. Their only task was to take down verbatim shorthand notes of the discussions, recovering every word on both sides of steno pads (measuring 8 x 6 inches) which was spoken. Afterwards the stenographers dictated their stenographic notes to typists brought in from the Nazi Party Headquarters.  The transcriptions for long conferences would run from 100 to 150 pages.

The typists furnished a final transcript made with two carbon copies. The designated “Fuehrer copy” and the two sets of original shorthand notes were collected and periodically taken to Berlin for storage in a basement vault of the Reich Chancellery. Of the two other copies of the transcripts, one was given to Hitler’s Military Historian, Maj. Gen. Walter Scherff, to be used in writing the history of the war. The other was kept as a working copy in a safe at Hitler respective headquarters, available to him for reference in case of questions.

Late during the evening on April 20, 1945, with Allied armies approaching Berlin from all directions, Hitler ordered that all but two of the stenographers proceed to Berchtesgaden and evacuate their original notes and his copy of the transcriptions which was kept in the basement of the Reichs Chancellery. At this point they had accumulated at least 100,000 pages of single-sided text.  At 5am on April 21 six of the stenographers and their records flew out of Berlin with their transcripts and notes.  Later that day they stored their records in an air-raid shelter behind the Berghof, Hitler’s home in the Obersalzberg of the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden, and took up residence at   Berchtesgaden, believing that Hitler would soon follow.  On the evening of April 22, the two remaining stenographers flew from Berlin to Berchestgaden, being ordered to take the records of the last 48 hours to their colleagues in Bavaria, so that-as Hitler expressly stated-the transcripts would be preserved for history. They landed near Munich sometime after 4am on April 23. They then drove to Berchtesgaden to join their colleagues, where the notes of April 21 and 22 were transcribed.

While the stenographers were in Berchtesgaden at the end of April the end came for Hitler and his Third Reich, and with the coming of the end the destruction documents began in earnest.  The copy of the transcripts that at been at the various Fuehrer Headquarters was transferred to Berlin in January 1945 and placed in the vault of the Reich Chancellery.  It was supposedly burned there immediately after the stenographers, with their shorthand notes and Fuehrer copy of the transcripts, traveled south during the night of April 21.

Toward the end of April Hitler’s Military Historian, who had traveled to Bavaria with his copy of the transcribed stenographic notes, came to Berchtesgaden, and raised the question with the stenographers of what should be done with the transcripts in light of the impending defeat and occupation by American forces. He thought it best to destroy everything.  Despite some of the stenographers objecting the decision was made to destroy the transcripts and stenographic notes.

The destruction occurred on one of the first days of May, shortly before the American occupation of Berchtesgaden.  Two stenographers were present for identification purposes.  In a wooded valley near the village of Hintersee, about seven miles to the southwest of Berchtesgaden, the transcripts and stenographic notes were placed in a large hole in the ground, some twenty feet in diameter and three or four feet deep, and hastily set on fire. Soon thereafter Hitler’s Military Historian burned his copy of the transcripts.

On May 5 elements of the 506^th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101^st Airborne and of the 7^th Infantry Regiment of the 3^rd Division entered Berchtesgaden.  As soon as Berchtesgaden was secured T/3 George Allen, with the counterintelligence corps, 101^st Airborne Division, proceeded there to open the Division (Military Intelligence Service) Counter-Intelligence office.  On May 7 two of the stenographers reported to local American military government administration offices, identified themselves and offered to share their knowledge. They were sent to see Allen.  Allen learned from one of them about the role of the stenographers at Hitler’s headquarters.  During the interrogation Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) Special Agent Eric Albrecht, who had been sent to the 101^st Airborne on detached service, arrived and listened to the stenographers’ stories.

The following day, May 8, seven of the stenographers met with Allen and Albrecht. For the next two days Albrecht and Allen talked to the stenographers, as much as they could, in between their other work. They found the stenographers had collectively sat in on every conference Hitler had held with his High Command from September 1942 to April 22, 1945, and learned the details of their work and of their departing Berlin and arriving in Berchtesgaden.  Allen and Albrecht learned from one of the stenographers that one set of the transcripts and shorthand notes had been brought from Berlin to Berchtesgaden in April, in anticipation of the possibility that the government might be transferred to the Alpine Redoubt for the last stand, and that the records had been burned by SS troops near the village of Hintersee.  Allen picked up a driver and went out with three of the stenographers to visit the place and determine more fully what had happened.

Image is from Stenographic transcription in the Headquarters of the Fuehrer, Discussion on the Situation of January 27, 1945, Exhibit USA 787, Filed March 20, 1946, Prosecution Exhibits, USA, United States Exhibits, 1933-1946, Office of the Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality, National Archives Collection of WWII War Crimes Records, Record Group 238.