Berchtesgaden military intelligence records Ms. Coll. 647 Finding aid prepared by Violet Lutz. Last updated on April 06, 2020. University of Pennsylvania, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts 2007 Berchtesgaden military intelligence records Table of Contents Summary Information...................................................................................................................................3 Biography/History.........................................................................................................................................4 Scope and Contents.......................................................................................................................................5 Administrative Information...........................................................................................................................8 Controlled Access Headings......................................................................................................................... 8 Collection Inventory................................................................................................................................... 10 Writings of George Allen related to the Berchtesgaden Military Intelligence Records....................... 10 Records of the Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) detachment of the United States Army, 101st Airborne Division, in Berchtesgaden....................................................................................................11 English translations by George Allen of selected Berchtesgaden interrogations................................. 20 Transcription of fragmentary records of Hitler's military conferences.................................................22 Materials related to the publication of Hitler Directs His War, edited by Felix Gilbert, based on holdings in the Berchtesgaden Military Intelligence Records.............................................................. 32 Newspaper clippings related to the Berchtesgaden Military Intelligence Records.............................. 33 - Page 2 - Berchtesgaden military intelligence records Summary Information Repository University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts Creator Allen, George R. (George Rankin), 1919- Title Berchtesgaden military intelligence records Call number Ms. Coll. 647 Date [inclusive] 1945-1950 Extent 4 boxes (70 folders) Language German Language Note In German and English, with some French. Abstract The core of the collection comprises records of the Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) detachment of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army, which was stationed in Berchtesgaden, Germany, at the close of the Second World War. George R. Allen, who collected the materials, was a member of that CIC detachment. Included are typed transcripts of interviews with, statements from, or reports on family and staff of Adolf Hitler, including Fritz Goernnert (assistant to Hermann Go#ring), Franz Brandenburg and Willy Lau (Go#ring's guards), Christa Schroeder (Hitler's personal secretary), Paula Wolf (Hitler's sister), Angela Hammitzsch (Hitler's half-sister), Theodor Morell (Hitler's personal physician), Erich Kempka (Hitler's chauffeur), Gu#nther Mannertz (member of the SS), Heinrich Doose (member of the Waffen-SS and driver), Percy Schramm (head compiler of the war journal of the German High Command Operational Staff), Erwin Nagel (German soldier in a - Page 3 - Berchtesgaden military intelligence records convicts detachment), and Heinz Buchholz (member of stenographic service of Hitler's headquarters). Also included are transcribed excerpts from stenographic notebooks of Hitler's secretaries, as well as transcribed and re-constructed records of Hitler's daily military conferences, December 1942 to March 1945 (incomplete). The collection contains three essays in English by George Allen concerning the provenance of the records, as well as four manuscript versions, along with galley proofs and page proofs, of Felix Gilbert's book, Hitler Directs His War (1950), with a foreword by Allen. Cite as: Berchtesgaden military intelligence records, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Biography/History George R. Allen (1919-1998) and the Counter-Intelligence Corps in Berchtesgaden, Germany, in 1945 During the Second World War, George R. Allen served with the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army as an interrogator of prisoners of war. As the war drew to a close in 1945, the Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC), which was entering upon the task of rounding up former Nazi officials in German territory, was sorely in need of individuals who spoke German. Because of his knowledge of German, Allen was assigned to the CIC detachment of his division. One of his colleagues in the detachment was Erich Albrecht, who was of half German parentage and spoke fluid German as well as French. The detachment had the task of finding and interrogating Nazis in the areas to which they were assigned. In May, Allen's CIC detachment was sent to Berchtesgaden, in the Bavarian Alps, the site of a favored retreat of Hitler and a key site in Nazi operations. Allen arrived in Berchtesgaden on 5 May 1945. Over the next several months the Germans who were questioned by Allen and Albrecht included a number of figures from Hitler's immediate milieu, such as his sister, his half-sister, his chauffeur, one of his personal secretaries, and his personal physician. The interrogations yielded information about the last days of Hitler, including his suicide and the events around it; the assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944; the death (also by suicide, as it was revealed) of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in October 1944; the structure of the Security Service ( Sicherheitsdienst) of the SS; and the movements and actions of the German High Command Operational Staff ( Wehrmachtführungsstab) in the last months of war. Among the various materials that came into the possession of the CIC detachment in Berchtesgaden were two stenographic notebooks found in Hitler's house, containing dictations of top Nazi officials, including Hitler himself. On 7 May, just as Allen was taking up his duties in Berchtesgaden, he was brought two Germans who - Page 4 - Berchtesgaden military intelligence records were said to have information of special interest. Their names were Gerhard Herrgesell and Hans Jonuschat, and they turned out to be former members of the Stenographic Service of Hitler's headquarters. From them, Allen learned about the existence of detailed records of Hitler's daily military conferences, which the Stenographic Service had been recording for Hitler since September 1942. Eventually Allen met the six colleagues of Herrgesell and Jonuschat, and then had at his disposal the entire eight-person team of stenographers who had been working for Hitler at the end of the war. Hitler had created the Stenographic Service following a serious disagreement with one of his military leaders, Alfred Jodl; the service was given the mission of keeping careful minutes of his military conferences. The members of the service were highly qualified professionals, all of them with legal training; most of them had previously been stenographers for the German parliament, which had stopped meeting in April 1942. Hitler's military conferences were typically held twice a day, with the most important and longest conference, in the early to mid afternoon, devoted to the discussion of the 'morning military situation' ( Morgenlage) for that day; and a second meeting, late in the evening, focused on the 'evening military situation' ( Abendlage). In addition there might be a third special conference. Two stenographers covered each conference so that they could compare their notes; and three official typescript copies were created on the basis of the stenographic records. The primary copy, along with the original stenographic notes, was reserved for Hitler himself, and was kept at his current headquarters, moving around with him from place to place. One of the remaining two copies was filed in the Army Archives in Berlin; and the other was delivered to Brigadier General Walter Scherff, the official historian of the German High Command ( Oberkommando der Wehrmacht). At the time that Allen spoke to the stenographers, both the archive copy and Scherff's copy were presumed to have been destroyed. Hitler's set of the records had been flown out of Berlin to be stored in a garage facility in Hintersee, a small town outside of Berchtesgaden. Around the end of April or the beginning of May, those records were supposed to have been destroyed by the SS, on orders given by Scherff. Nevertheless, Allen went out to the site with several of the stenographers to investigate. In Hintersee, Allen found that the records had been dumped into a pit and burned. But the destruction was not complete. Sifting through the charred remains over the next several days, Allen and his colleague Albrecht were able to retrieve a significant number of viable fragments, amounting to about 800 pages. The former stenographers of Hitler were given a work space at the CIC headquarters at Berchtesgaden, and they worked for two months or more on transcribing and reconstructing the fragments. Before his military service, George Allen, who had graduated from Haverford College in 1940, had worked in the family business, William H. Allen, Bookseller, dealing in specialized and