A World at Arms (182 page)

For sabotage and similar activities, the best introduction is Michael R.D. Foot,
SOE: An Outline History of the Special Operations Executive, 1940–1946
(London: BBC Publications, 1984). On weapons systems, Fritz Hahn,
Waffen und Geheimwaffen des deutschen Heeres 1933–1945
, 2 vols. (Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, 1986–87); Dieter Holsken, “Die V-Waffen: Entwicklung und Einsatzgrundsatze,”
MGM
38, NO.2 (1985), 95–122; and Alfred Price,
Instruments of Darkness: The History of Elearonic Warfare
(London: Macdonald &Jane’s, 1977), are particularly helpful. Many aspects of the air war are dealt with by experts on them in Horst Boog (ed.),
The Condua of the Air War in the Second World War: An International Comparison
(New York: Berg, 1992).

On atomic weapons, the best works remain two official histories: Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson,
A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Vol. I: The New World 1939–1946
(Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1962), and Vincent C. Jones,
Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb
(Washington, GPO, 1985). There is much scientific information along with political polemics in Richard Rhodes,
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986). The British side is summarized in an originally secret book by John Ehrman,
The Atomic Bomb: An Account of British Policy in the Second World War
(London: Cabinet Office, July 1953).

The listings and suggestions which have been provided are necessarily incomplete; not only have most memoirs been omitted but so have whole bodies of publications like unit histories. There are also many topics not covered at all. The notes in the back of this book will provide additional references for those subjects covered in the text, and the bibliographical aids mentioned at the beginning of this essay will offer assistance in the location of further publications.

The volume of archives surviving from World War II is enormous. A general introduction to the subject is in James O’Neill and Robert W. Krauskopf (eds.),
World War II: An Account of Its Documents
(Washington: Howard Univ. Press, 1976). On the various categories of captured records, a fine place to start is Robert Wolfe (ed.),
Captured German and Related Records
(Athens, Ohio: Ohio Univ. Press, 1974).
For the main depository of British records, see
The Second World War: A Guide to Documents in the Public Record Office
(London: HMSO, 1972 ).

On German records still in the United States, see Gerhard L. Weinberg,
Guide to Captured German Documents
(Montgomery, Ala.: 1952), and “Supplement to the Guide to Captured German Documents” (Washington: National Archives, 1959); those returned to Germany are covered by the inventories (
Findbücher
) of the German Federal Archives in Koblenz. The microfilms made before their return are described in Howard M. Ehrmann,
A Catalogue of the Files and Microfilms of the German Foreign Ministry Archives 1867–1920
(Washington: American Historical Association, 1959); George O. Kent,
A Catalog of the Files and Microfilms of the German Foreign Ministry 1920–1945,
4 vols. (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1962–72); and the series “Guides to German Records Microfilmed at Alexandria, Va.” issued by the U.S. National Archives since 1958. For a helpful introduction to the fate of Italian archives in the war, see Howard M. Smyth,
Secrets of the Fascist Era
(Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1975); there is also a 3-volume series of “Guides” to captured Italian records microfilmed in the United States which has been issued by the National Archives.

The major collection of Japanese World War II records accessible to those who do not read Japanese is in the National Archives in Washington. There are several series of intercepted Japanese diplomatic, military attaché, naval attaché, army and navy, as well as related German messages–with some of them running to tens and even hundreds of thousands, which are included in the Record Group 457 of the National Security Agency, the inheritor of the American wartime decoding records. These materials are of immense importance because they reflect not only affairs internal to the Japanese diplomatic and military services but because they report on the countries where Japanese diplomats were stationed. Furthermore, for the Japanese as for the Gernlan records, the destruction of war has in many cases left the translated intercepts the
only
surviving copies of documents of which no German or Japanese originals exist.

Other major collections in the U.S. National Archives which have been canvassed for this book are the records of the War Department’s G-2 (Intelligence) Section and the vast assemblage of materials gathered for the post-war trials of war criminals. In the difficult choice of which of the many huge archival collections to work through personally, I decided to emphasize the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library at Hyde Park. There is a vast amount of material on all aspects of the war which, if studied patiently, reveals a good deal about the way in which the President ran the American war effort. There are good finding aids at the library which also contains the papers of Henry Morgenthau and numerous other high officials of the Roosevelt administration. Items from Hyde Park are cited as from the Roosevelt files unless otherwise noted, and they are referred to by the filing system in use at the library.

The major depository in England is the Public Record Office (PRO) at Kew. There the prospective reader will find the major collections of the papers of the Cabinet, Prime Minister, Foreign Office, the three service departments, some important personal papers, and a great deal more, all covered by “class lists” from which one selects the files needed and then calls them up via an unusually polite computer. The bulk of British wartime records has been opened, but there are
annoying exceptions, a subject commented on at the end of this essay. Those documents cited in this book are referred to by the designation used at the PRO, including the class and file number–which locates the file in which the original is to be found–and in the case of Foreign Office documents the archive designation originally applied to the item in the Foreign Office.

The other archives which have been consulted for this book are the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King’s College of the University of London and the Imperial War Museum Library. The former is an institution which has been collecting the papers of individuals who played a significant role in World War II; the most important papers are those of Lord Alanbrooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff for most of the war, and of General Lord Ismay, Churchill’s key military assistant during the war and his most important aide in writing the 6-volume memoir-history afterwards. Both of these collections are very well organized and serviced by a helpful staff; they are cited here by the designations used at the Centre. The library of the Imperial War Museum also holds substantial collections of private papers of which several have been utilized and are cited here. Churchill College of Cambridge University has an even larger archive of papers of World War II figures.

If American and British records are at least to some extent centralized in a national depository, German records held in Germany were originally divided between the two states and are only now being reunited in a process likely to be lengthy and complicated. Furthermore, the German Federal Republic, as a part of its original perception of itself as a temporary entity with a temporary capital, decided deliberately not to create a new national archive in Bonn but instead divided its records and placed the main depository in Koblenz. There, after decades of using rented quarters, the Federal Archive had built for it a large permanent structure–a few years before the division of Germany was ended. The
Bundesarchiv
as it is called issues guides to its holdings, is on the whole extremely well organized, and, an unheard of innovation in Europe, is even open in the evening. Records cited from there, primarily from the Reichs Chancellery, the Ministry of Finance, and collections of directives and reports to news agencies, are referred to by the reference system in use at the archive.

The Federal Archive in Koblenz did not, however, obtain immediate custody of all the returned records. The records of the German Foreign Ministry were allotted to an internally controlled archive of the Ministry itself. These records, therefore, are located in Bonn, and they have unfortunately not always been handled with regard for Germany’s treaty commitment to make them fully available to scholars. This revival of the “scrap of paper” attitude toward international agreements has in recent years been replaced by a far more cooperative one. Documents from the German Foreign Ministry archive are cited here under the rubric AA, followed by the name of the collection as commonly abbreviated, the title of the folder series, and the volume number (if there is one), followed by the frame number if the document was microfilmed at one time and such a frame number was stamped on it. It should be noted that the Bonn archive also hold the records of former German missions abroad, and these, where cited, are listed with the name of the embassy or legation; the same procedure has been followed with the collections of private papers held.

The German military records are in the custody of what is now a branch of the Federal Archives located in Freiburg (but alas perhaps to be moved to Potsdam).
This is an extremely well organized and serviced archive with a most important collection of German naval records, a major collection of army records, and fragments of air force records–a descending order which reflects the extent to which the papers of the three services survive. There are finding aids available in Freiburg and a helpful staff. The archive in Freiburg has made a systematic effort to collect the papers of German military figures, and many of these will be found referred to in the notes. All references to the Freiburg collection are prefaced by BA/MA, for its German name
Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv,
followed by the collection and folder numbers, with folio numbers where there is pagination. If it seems strange at times to see references to naval records for information apparently having little to do with the German navy, the peculiarities of the survival of archives mentioned above must be kept in mind.

The Institute for Contemporary History (Institut für Zeitgeschichte) in Munich and the Research Center for the History of National Socialism in Hamburg (Forschungsstelle für die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus in Hamburg) both combine important library holdings with collections of papers. In Munich there are not only deposited papers but also extensive depositions and post-war correspondence about the war period. These are all referred to by citation systems utilized at the two institutions. Scholars will find the reference staffs most helpful. In Munich as in Bonn, Koblenz, and Freiburg, the archivists will assist researchers who need permission to use those personal papers deposited under restrictions; they cannot, of course, guarantee permission, which is, however, usually granted.

Although, like all who work on World War II, I have found it impossible to work in all the available records–otherwise no book on the war would ever be finished–it does appear to me that some comment is in order about records which are still closed to all research. Two points are central to this issue. In the first place, it becomes increasingly ridiculous to assert that records which are half a century old have anything to do with any country’s security today. It is certainly conceivable that there are technical details of weapons systems which ought still to be kept closed–and which scholars generally have no interest in anyway–and there are undoubtedly some records pertaining to private matters, such as medical and court martial records, which need to be kept closed for the obvious protection of privacy (but in some cases could surely be made accessible under protective rules requiring the omission of names). For the rest of the documentation, however, “national security” sounds quite hollow.

The second general consideration is that of the physical quality of the paper. The records of the war, insofar as they have not been microfilmed, are literally disappearing as the original paper deteriorates. In all countries, the quality of paper was deliberately made worse during the war in order to conserve resources needed elsewhere in stressed and stretched wartime economies; the result of this is that the wood acetate paper of the war period is disintegrating rapidly. If it is not microfilmed, it will literally vanish. If it is not made accessible to scholars very soon, it will have deteriorated beyond use before anyone can see it, with the effect that countries that keep such material closed will cut themselves off from an important part of their own past.
^a

Specific examples of records now closed which should certainly be made available are numerous. The huge collection of Allied intercepts of German diplomatic traffic, referred to as the “Floradora” material, ought to have been released a long time ago. As in the case of the already declassified “ultra” and “magic” intercepts of German and Japanese messages, many of these documents are likely to be the only surviving copies of the original texts, so they are important for that reason as well as what they can tell us about Allied knowledge of German activities. It is similarly ridiculous that documents at Hyde Park are returned by the agencies to which they are referred for declassification with the answer that they still cannot be opened.

Some years ago, as chair of a committee of the Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association, I was successful in having the Inter-Agency Classification Review Committee direct the National Security Agency to declassify substantial quantities of German documents pertaining to German code-breaking activities before and during World War II. Those records have transformed our understanding of major aspects of the Battle of the Atlantic, to mention just one example. The bulk of the German records pertaining to cryptography, however, remain closed under joint British-American control. Since these records, by definition, are now at least almost half a century old, their continued classification serves only to discredit the whole concept of “national security.”