SECRETS OF THE DEAD: The Hunt for Nazi Scientists PBS Video
Marte Previti (from the archives of the Manhattan Project) |
THE KEY TO THE CAVE
Haierloch, Germany - April 24, 1945 Special Agent Marte Previti of the US Army Counter Intelligence Corps holding the key to the secret cave in which the ALSOS Mission captured the Nazi uranium machine". Special Agent Marte Previti (standing in jeep) holding his Zeiss Super Ikonta B camera.
UNEARTHED CACHE OF NAZI URANIUM
Haierloch, Germany - April 24, 1945 Special Agent Marte Previti (seated) resting after building a pyramid of the precious metal. BRINGING HOME THE BACON
Germany - May 10, 1945 Driving 20 tons of pure uranium to the Alsos Main Headquarters in Paris |
Contribution:
FINDING AND INTERROGATING GERMAN PHYSICISTS PERFORMING ATOMIC RESEARCH, CAPTURING THE RESEARCH DOCUMENTS OF THE PROGRAM AND TWO ATOMIC PILES WHICH WERE NEVER SUCCESSFULLY OPERATED & CAPTURING STOCKPILES OF PURE URANIUM AND HEAVY WATER AT SEVERAL RESEARCH LABORATORIES. I PERSONALLY TRANSPORTED ALL THE ACCUMULATED LOTS OF THESE STRATEGIC MATERIALS INCLUDING MORE THAN TEN TONS OF PURE URANIUM FABRICATED INTO BLOCKS AND SHEETS FOR INSTALLATION AS THE CORES OF ATOMIC PILES, FROM HEIDELBERG TO ALSOS HEADQUARTERS IN PARIS. Experience: AS WE CAPTURED THE SCIENTISTS THEY WERE INVITED TO COME TO THE UNITED STATES AFTER THE WAR TO CONTINUE THEIR RESEARCH WITH WELL PAYING JOBS. ONE OF THEM, DR. KURT DIEBNER AGREED TO JOIN US BUT HAS WIFE AND YOUNG SON WERE THEN LIVING IN A SMALL TOWN WHICH WAS WITHIN THE RUSSIAN ZONE OF OCCUPATION. I WAS GIVEN SECRET ORDERS TO FIND THEM AND BRING THEM BACK THROUGH THE LINES TO SAFETY. I LOCATED THEM AND TOLD MRS. DIEBNER IN HALTING GERMAN THAT SHE WAS TO COME WITH ME AND GAVE HER ONE HOUR TO PACK. I COULD NOT TELL HER WHERE SHE WAS GOING AND AM CERTAIN THAT SHE THOUGHT SHE WAS HEADED FOR A CONCENTRATION CAMP BECAUSE HER HUSBAND HAD WORKED FOR HITLER. WE GOT THROUGH SAFELY AND SHE WAS OVERJOYED TO BE REUNITED WITH HER HUSBAND. FOR SUCCEEDING IN THIS ASSIGNMENT I RECEIVED A COMMENDATION FROM THE COMMANDER OF ALSOS AND WAS AWARDED THE BRITISH EMPIRE MEDAL BY THE KING OF ENGLAND. Stories: DURING OUR SEARCHES FOR GERMAN SCIENTISTS I HAD AN UNUSUAL INCIDENT WHICH COULD HAVE BEEN DANGEROUS FOR ME BUT TURNED OUT WELL. IN MUNICH, GERMANY WE WERE LOOKING FOR A PROFESSOR WALTHER GERLACH, CHIEF OF THE ATOMIC RESEARCH PROGRAM. WE HAD OBTAINED HIS ADDRESS FROM ANOTHER SCIENTIST. IT WAS IN A HALF BOMBED OUT APARTMENT BUILDING. OUR TEAM KNOCKED ON THE DOOR AND IT WAS OPENED A CRACK BY A LITTLE QUAVERING OLD LADY WHO SAID THE PROFESSOR WAS NOT IN AND QUICKLY SHUT THE DOOR. MY COMPANIONS STARTED TO LEAVE BUT I WAS SUSPICIOUS AT HER BEHAVIOR AND WENT BACK TO INVESTIGATE FURTHER. SEARCHING THE APARTMENT I ENTERED A BEDROOM AND WAS SUDDENLY CONFRONTED BY A TALL OFFICER IN FULL UNIFORM INCLUDING A PISTOL. MY CARBINE WAS SLUNG OVER MY SHOULDER SO IF I HAD MADE ANY SUDDEN ATTEMPT TO USE IT I MIGHT HAVE BEEN A DEAD SOLDIER. I LOOKED AT HIM AND MOTIONED WITH MY HEAD TO LEAVE THE ROOM THEN I RELIEVED HIM OF THE PISTOL AND A NICE PAIR OF BINOCULARS. MY TEAMMATES WERE INCREDULOUS AND THEN ANNOYED BECAUSE WE WERE NOT EQUIPPED TO HANDLE A PRISONER OF WAR. THE PROBLEM WAS SOLVED WHEN WE LOCATED AN ARMY COMBAT UNIT WHO TOOK THE LUFTWAFFE MAJOR OFF OUR HANDS. IT SEEMS THAT MY CAPTIVE WAS A PILOT WHO WAS EITHER A RELATIVE OR A STUDENT OF DR. GERLACH WHO HAD GONE AWOL AND WAS HIDING OUT UNTIL HE COULD GET AWAY TO SAFETY. BY THAT TIME THEIR AIR FORCE HAD NO PLANES OR FUEL AND HE WAS JUST TRYING TO AVOID BECOMING A POW. UNFORTUNATELY FOR HIM I SPOILED HIS PLAN. |
Interview from PBS
SECRETS OF THE DEAD: The Hunt for Nazi Scientists
Q&A with Marte Previti
Propelled by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, chemical engineer Marte Previti volunteered to become a special agent of the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps. As World War II drew to a close, Previti and other Allied agents embarked on a series of covert missions behind enemy lines to ferret out and interrogate German physicists and other scientists working for Adolf Hitler. The U.S. mission was code-named ALSOS. Now 94 and a resident of New York City, Previti appears in SECRETS OF THE DEAD: The Hunt for Nazi Scientists, which premieres Wednesday, October 19 at 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). In a recent interview, Previti shared some of his experiences as a secret agent:
Q: Can you describe ALSOS?
A: ALSOS was a scientific intelligence mission to find out what German physicists were doing with atomic energy. Since it was Germans who discovered atomic fission in the first place, we had every reason to believe that they were far ahead of us. G2 was the designation for military intelligence. But we were under a special group, which was called ALSOS, a Greek name for “groves,” and we reported to Major General Groves. I was exhilarated and thought that what I was doing was important.
Q: What training did you undergo before leaving for Europe?
A: I am a chemical engineer by training. In the Army I underwent military intelligence training at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. You had to know map reading, signal reading, and there was some field training. You went out on a mission for two or three days and had to camp out. We got weapons training, but we were not a combat outfit. As a special agent of the counterintelligence corps, my actual rank was a sergeant.
Q: What was your first assignment?
A: As our troops advanced in Germany and overran targets that were of interest to us, we went into the task force and captured the facility and the scientists working on it, and we interrogated them. And little by little, we discovered that we were far ahead of them. We had nothing to worry about…But they were working on other things besides the atomic bomb -- rockets, aviation, submarines, all kinds of things. It was all information that we wanted.
Q: Eventually, you and the other agents made your way to Haigerloch, Germany, where you were on the lookout for Werner Heisenberg, a leading German physicist and head of the Nazi atomic bomb project. Tell us about the secret cave ALSOS agents discovered beneath a castle in the town.
A: Haigerloch was a well-known, beautiful city, with tourism and so on. So we deliberately did not bomb it because we knew we were going to use it as a military headquarters….There we found the entrance to a cave, and we got the key to it. Inside, they had dug this big hole. And they built up an atomic pile with cubes and slabs of uranium and uranium oxide in a circular form and so on. And we knew that at a certain point where you had enough of this material assembled, it was emitting neutrons. And when you got to a certain point, it started to react. It would get hotter and hotter. And when you fit it all together fast, it’d blow up.
Q: And how much uranium did you discover?
A: Maybe up to 20 tons. Me and a driver had to drive a truck full of it to Paris. It was filled with uranium. It was sitting there with no protection of any kind. I thought surely by now I would glow in the dark. It hasn’t happened. I even kept a piece of it.
Q: What was happening in Paris?
A: Paris was always in my mind a place to be gay and have fun and good food. By the time we got there, there was no danger. We were received with open arms. Paris was the headquarters. We reported to headquarters, and gave them the information that we had gathered.
Q: Part of your job was to interrogate German scientists and physicists. Tell us about that.
A: We didn’t mistreat them. We didn’t have to torture them or anything like that. They talked. They were just scientists. We treated them humanely; they were never under any pressure, or any physical danger. They became prisoners of war. And at the end of the war, we invited them to come to the United States and work, to do their research with us. And most of them did. A few went to Russia. They knew that Germany was going to lose. And they were happy in that we were helping them continue working in their field.
Q: Describe your most interesting mission.
A:We were in Munich and we were looking for a doctor, his name was Walther Gerlach, chief of the atomic research program. We were told where he lived so we went there and it was a half bombed out building. We knocked on the door and it opened a crack, and a little old lady in a quavering voice said “What do you want?” “We’re looking for Walther Gerlach.” “He’s not here. He’s at the university.” And she slammed the door shut. I felt suspicious, and said wait a minute, something’s wrong here….And I walked around the apartment, walked in a bedroom and there standing was a German officer, a member of the Luftwaffe. He had a pistol and binoculars. My carbine was on my shoulder, and if he had wanted to kill me, he could have, because I wouldn’t have had time to get my gun down. It turned out he was Major Vonnier, a student of Gerlach. Of course by that time, they had no planes, no gas, no anything. So he was just trying to hide out and wait out until it was all over, so he could go home. And I spoiled his plan.
Q: For your service in Europe, you received a commendation from the commander of ALSOS. You were also awarded the British Empire Medal by the King of England. Tell us about the mission that resulted in that medal.
A: I was assigned a secret mission to find and evacuate the wife and child of a German scientist, Dr. Kurt Diebner, who had agreed to come to the U.S. after the war. They were living in a small town within the Russian zone of occupation and could be pressured to force the professor to work for the Russians. I found them and told Mrs. Diebner in halting German that she was to come with me and gave her one hour to pack. I could not tell her where she was going and I am certain she thought she was headed for a concentration camp because her husband had worked for Hitler. I brought them back through the lines to safety, and she was overjoyed to be reunited with the professor.
Q: The ALSOS agents helped changed the course of history. If the agents hadn’t found the German scientists, what do you think the world would look like today?
A: If they had gotten the atomic bomb, they would have defeated us, and we’d all be speaking German today.
SECRETS OF THE DEAD: The Hunt for Nazi Scientists
Q&A with Marte Previti
Propelled by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, chemical engineer Marte Previti volunteered to become a special agent of the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps. As World War II drew to a close, Previti and other Allied agents embarked on a series of covert missions behind enemy lines to ferret out and interrogate German physicists and other scientists working for Adolf Hitler. The U.S. mission was code-named ALSOS. Now 94 and a resident of New York City, Previti appears in SECRETS OF THE DEAD: The Hunt for Nazi Scientists, which premieres Wednesday, October 19 at 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). In a recent interview, Previti shared some of his experiences as a secret agent:
Q: Can you describe ALSOS?
A: ALSOS was a scientific intelligence mission to find out what German physicists were doing with atomic energy. Since it was Germans who discovered atomic fission in the first place, we had every reason to believe that they were far ahead of us. G2 was the designation for military intelligence. But we were under a special group, which was called ALSOS, a Greek name for “groves,” and we reported to Major General Groves. I was exhilarated and thought that what I was doing was important.
Q: What training did you undergo before leaving for Europe?
A: I am a chemical engineer by training. In the Army I underwent military intelligence training at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. You had to know map reading, signal reading, and there was some field training. You went out on a mission for two or three days and had to camp out. We got weapons training, but we were not a combat outfit. As a special agent of the counterintelligence corps, my actual rank was a sergeant.
Q: What was your first assignment?
A: As our troops advanced in Germany and overran targets that were of interest to us, we went into the task force and captured the facility and the scientists working on it, and we interrogated them. And little by little, we discovered that we were far ahead of them. We had nothing to worry about…But they were working on other things besides the atomic bomb -- rockets, aviation, submarines, all kinds of things. It was all information that we wanted.
Q: Eventually, you and the other agents made your way to Haigerloch, Germany, where you were on the lookout for Werner Heisenberg, a leading German physicist and head of the Nazi atomic bomb project. Tell us about the secret cave ALSOS agents discovered beneath a castle in the town.
A: Haigerloch was a well-known, beautiful city, with tourism and so on. So we deliberately did not bomb it because we knew we were going to use it as a military headquarters….There we found the entrance to a cave, and we got the key to it. Inside, they had dug this big hole. And they built up an atomic pile with cubes and slabs of uranium and uranium oxide in a circular form and so on. And we knew that at a certain point where you had enough of this material assembled, it was emitting neutrons. And when you got to a certain point, it started to react. It would get hotter and hotter. And when you fit it all together fast, it’d blow up.
Q: And how much uranium did you discover?
A: Maybe up to 20 tons. Me and a driver had to drive a truck full of it to Paris. It was filled with uranium. It was sitting there with no protection of any kind. I thought surely by now I would glow in the dark. It hasn’t happened. I even kept a piece of it.
Q: What was happening in Paris?
A: Paris was always in my mind a place to be gay and have fun and good food. By the time we got there, there was no danger. We were received with open arms. Paris was the headquarters. We reported to headquarters, and gave them the information that we had gathered.
Q: Part of your job was to interrogate German scientists and physicists. Tell us about that.
A: We didn’t mistreat them. We didn’t have to torture them or anything like that. They talked. They were just scientists. We treated them humanely; they were never under any pressure, or any physical danger. They became prisoners of war. And at the end of the war, we invited them to come to the United States and work, to do their research with us. And most of them did. A few went to Russia. They knew that Germany was going to lose. And they were happy in that we were helping them continue working in their field.
Q: Describe your most interesting mission.
A:We were in Munich and we were looking for a doctor, his name was Walther Gerlach, chief of the atomic research program. We were told where he lived so we went there and it was a half bombed out building. We knocked on the door and it opened a crack, and a little old lady in a quavering voice said “What do you want?” “We’re looking for Walther Gerlach.” “He’s not here. He’s at the university.” And she slammed the door shut. I felt suspicious, and said wait a minute, something’s wrong here….And I walked around the apartment, walked in a bedroom and there standing was a German officer, a member of the Luftwaffe. He had a pistol and binoculars. My carbine was on my shoulder, and if he had wanted to kill me, he could have, because I wouldn’t have had time to get my gun down. It turned out he was Major Vonnier, a student of Gerlach. Of course by that time, they had no planes, no gas, no anything. So he was just trying to hide out and wait out until it was all over, so he could go home. And I spoiled his plan.
Q: For your service in Europe, you received a commendation from the commander of ALSOS. You were also awarded the British Empire Medal by the King of England. Tell us about the mission that resulted in that medal.
A: I was assigned a secret mission to find and evacuate the wife and child of a German scientist, Dr. Kurt Diebner, who had agreed to come to the U.S. after the war. They were living in a small town within the Russian zone of occupation and could be pressured to force the professor to work for the Russians. I found them and told Mrs. Diebner in halting German that she was to come with me and gave her one hour to pack. I could not tell her where she was going and I am certain she thought she was headed for a concentration camp because her husband had worked for Hitler. I brought them back through the lines to safety, and she was overjoyed to be reunited with the professor.
Q: The ALSOS agents helped changed the course of history. If the agents hadn’t found the German scientists, what do you think the world would look like today?
A: If they had gotten the atomic bomb, they would have defeated us, and we’d all be speaking German today.