Evening star., 1946-04-21
Industrial Sleuths Find Nazi Secrets
New Steel Process Superrecong Tape Medical Discoveries and Other
Valuable Developments Made Available Manufacturers


A few weeks ago the research head of
a large manufacturing firm planked
himself down at desk in Washington,
started reading a stack of reports hand
ed to him by a Government official. For
three hours he read, wrote pages of
notes
At S o'clock he turned to the official
and said quietly: What learned today
is worth half a million dollars to my
company"
That's an example of the newest kind
of war reparations in action. The busi-
nessman had been reading some Of
1000 reports with thousands more
coming-on German scientific, indus
trial and research secrets.
Allied intelligence teams tracked them
down in elaborate hiding places, pried
or f1attered them out of German tech
nicians. Now, along with the secrets Of
other enemy countries and United
States-sponsored research, they are be-
ing made available to the American
public.
"KnOw-How" Is Essential.
tits the first orderly exploitation of
defeated country's brain power" says
brisk, enthusiastic John c. Green, ex-
ecutive secretary of the Office of the
Publication Board, the agency charged
with disseminating the information.
I'm both wars we seized German
patents filed here-and then discovered
that without the industrial knoW-hoW'
they were useless. This time our teams
are getting all the details. We're even
having German installations packed up
and sent here for examination"
Investigators for the Technical Indus
trial Intelligence Branch, at first under
the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now under
the OPB, had to combine the techniques
of Sherlock Holmes and Dale Carnegie
to ferret out Nazi secrets.
For example, when the files of fac
tory were missing, they first checked
local cabinetmakers If factory official
had bought lead lined box, it was a
safe bet that the scientific sleuths would
find some buried treasure in his garden.
Expose Elaborate Tricks.
But often the search wasn't that easy.
On a hint that one plants files were
hidden somewhere in hill a tWo-man
team secured an entire countryside in
their jeep. Finally they came to a mar
row road leading into forest, posted
with warning signs: "Achtung! Minen!"
Somehow it didn't seem likely that this
unimportant road would be mined. They
proceeded along gingerly-and nothing
happened!
In a few minutes they reached an
elaborate concrete dugout in the side of
hill. A sign warned that opening the
steel door would cause an explosion.
The two men tossed a coin and the VIM
ner retired to safe distance. The other
attached the jeeps toW-rope to the door.
crouched down and stepped on the gas.
There was no explosion. The door
ripped off its hinges and inside, as they
had hoped, were several packing boxes
full of missing files.
The German Patent Office thought
they had foiled our Investigators by
throwing secret patents down a 1900
foot mine shaft, dropping liquid oxygen
on them. An intelligence team located
them, discovered that the records were
still, in large part, legible. But they
would never stand the trip to the sur
face. So microfilm equipment and ex-
perts will be lowered down the shaft--to
photograph the documents where they
lay.
X Ration Won Them.
w. w. Galbreath. an expert on
team which investigated the German
metal industry, says getting information
was often a matter of tact. Il made
point of arriving at a factory around
lunch time" he laughs. Before we got
down to business I'd invite the German
I was interviewing to join me in K
ration. After that treat, they couldn't
do too much for you"
About 400 investigators have been sent
to Germany so far, of whom SO are
still working there. Some are TIIB en-
ployeS, others are drafted from the ranks
of business for special mission, and
sometimes a United States industry
itself asks to send out a team. Repre-
sentatives of 10 different fields, from