FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
CLASSIFIED MEMORANDUM
TO: Deputy Director, FBI (100-428091)
FROM: SAC JC Wilson
SUBJECT: INTERNAL SECURITY
There are enclosed herewith to the Bureau three copies, and to the New York Division one copy, of a report received from CG 5724-S* on February 9, 1943. This report deals with the findings of a three-day debriefing of SS Unterscharfuhrer Sebastian Wolf, who surrendered himself to American authorities at the Vatican in January 1943 after capture by an unidentified group (possibly Vatican Intelligence or an affiliated insurgent organization).
Debriefing began on Vatican premises on January 3, 1943. Post-debriefing, Subject was originally scheduled for transfer to POW farm labor camp in Murdoch, Nebraska. Request for transfer to Washington D.C. was granted on grounds that subject possessed unusually candid details about high-ranking Nazi government leaders and operations. Debrief continued in Washington D.C. on February 18 after Mr. Wolf was successfully evacuated to Spain en route to the United States. The following report includes relevant military details under consideration by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Army Air Corps.
3 — Bureau
1 — New York
1 — Chicago
SYNOPSIS OF MILITARY INFORMATION HEREIN
Summary follows. Details copied to Army Air Corps for possible use in Strategic Operations.
Sebastian Wolf drafted at age 15 from the Reich School, a top Nazi political training academy in Feldafing, Germany. Subject detailed names and locations of instructors and locations of 12 additional “Hitler Schools.”
Subject named 26 SS officers and 142 Ahnenerbe members, including highly detailed information regarding duties, ranks, and physical descriptions.
Subject reports food rationing in Germany to a greater degree than previously believed. Confirms reports of poor harvest previous year.
Subject reports Hitler Youth seen near anti-aircraft batteries in central Munich and various points in Brenner Pass (Alps) to protect key rail lines.
Subject denies knowledge of camps imprisoning ethnic minorities but claims to have known Catholic priest imprisoned at Dachau Camp near Munich and personally witnessed Jehovah’s Witness labor camp inmates working near Wewelsburg.
Claims aircraft engine factory operational within old BMW plant (Munich) and detailed locations of six additional munitions plants near Frankfurt.
Confirmed existence of “breeding” programs to encourage population growth among ethnically desirable couples. Claims mother worked at one such camp (possible contact).
VALUE ANALYSIS
Opinion of intelligence value: HIGH/SUSPECT
Sebastian Wolf conveys an unusually high degree of potentially valuable internal SS/Ahnenerbe operational information. Subject appears both highly intelligent and highly charismatic, although given to occasional erratic behavior, perhaps as a symptom of battle fatigue. However, value of information is unusually detailed in relation to subject’s seniority, calling into question validity of claims. Subject explained this by citing high casualty rate on multiple war fronts, apparently depleting draft pool, along with elite status of political institution attended.
In addition, subject’s outlandish claims about occult rituals within the Nazi party are also suspect.
Subject repeatedly asked if meeting with Nobel Prize winner Karl Landsteiner could be arranged upon arrival in U.S. Wanted to discuss unnamed subjects relating to “blood sciences” and “D-N-A.”
Subject left the Vatican under duress. Demanded access to unnamed “Holy Relic” before acquiescing to evacuation demands on January 8, 1943.
RECOMMENDATION
Wolf is only existing POW claiming to have personally worked with Heinrich Himmler since invasion of Poland in 1938. If sane, ongoing insight highly valuable for duration of war.
Recommend admit to federal facility in D.C. area for psychiatric evaluation. Further decision pending outcome of diagnosis.
62-43899-7789
MEMORANDUM TO
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FBI
SUBJECT: Sebastian Wolf Escape
On March 17, 1943 POW Sebastian Wolf (see CG 5724-S*) escaped from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington, D.C. where he had been under psychiatric evaluation after intelligence debriefing.
Agents surveilling suspected Nazi sympathizers and other subversive organizations in surrounding area were put on notice. There were no contact reports.
On March 23, Mr. Wolf was apprehended at the Rockefeller Institute laboratory in New York. Police report Mr. Wolf appeared at the Institute demanding to see Karl Landsteiner, a blood science specialist who won a Nobel Prize in 1930. Mr. Landsteiner is Professor Emeritus at the Rockefeller Institute and spoke with Mr. Wolf briefly before excusing himself to call police.
Landsteiner claims not to know Wolf. His statement that he left Europe prior to Wolf’s birth checks out.
Landsteiner claimed Wolf alarmed him when he said that he had recently been in Wewelsburg, Germany with Dr. Gustav Hahn, who was one of Landsteiner’s professional rivals in Germany. Hahn is a known anti-Semite whom Wolf had previously linked to a “Blood Science Research Group” that reports personally to Heinrich Himmler and other high-ranking Nazi figures.
Landsteiner said he then excused himself to phone the police. His assistant, John Hafner, said the following: “He told me that Dr. Hahn and others had completed research demonstrating that ethnic identity could be identified by blood analysis and, in the near future, would be identifiable through DNA analysis. He said the purpose of his visit was to get Landsteiner’s professional opinion on whether this science could be applied to other kinds of research. I told him that we were not interested in Nazi research, especially as it related to racial matters.”
Wolf was returned to federal custody pending further investigation and psychiatric analysis.
It is requested that you advise me at your earliest convenience as to whether further investigation of this individual’s knowledge of contemporary German medical theory, or Professor Landsteiner’s, as it corresponds to the war effort, should be investigated by the Bureau.
C.E. Longsmith
Special Agent in Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, New York
62-43899-7789
Office of Strategic Services
Official Memo
CLASSIFIED
DATE: April 2, 1945
TO: Office of the Secretary of War
SUBJECT: Operation Paperclip
This is a formal request on behalf of the OSS for the immediate and undivided services of POW Sebastian Wolf (see CG 5724-S*).
Given the American advance on the Rhineland, and the Russian advance in the east, the OSS has concluded that simultaneous occupation of German territory by both American and Soviet forces is inevitable. Of chief concern is the acquisition of German scientific and engineering knowledge, especially related to rocket science knowledge and hardware; jet aircraft design and hardware; nuclear fission science and materials; cryptography research and decoding devices; and certain medical and biological research and advancements, especially relating to genetics, breeding and biological weaponry.
The OSS’s goal is to ensure that such knowledge is acquired and owned wholly by the United States. Therefore, the OSS is proceeding with Operation Paperclip immediately.