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Downloaded from
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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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[somber music playing]

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[interviewer] I think…
We're good? All righty.

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I'm gonna give a brief introduction,
and we'll go ahead and get started.

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We're here at the home of Dr. Henry Kolm.

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We are here interviewing
Mr. Alfred Bomberg.

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We are interviewing
Ambassador John Gunther Dean,

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a veteran who served at PO Box 1142.

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[George Frenkel] I don't know
to what extent it is still classified.

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After all, this was a wartime situation.

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I took it very seriously,
and I just didn't talk about it.

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Certainly not to my family.

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[Dieter Kober] We had to swear,

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"Don't tell anybody
where you are or what you're doing."

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"Not even your wife or your parents."

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"The life of the nation
depended on you holding to that secrecy."

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[Arno Mayer] The first memory that I have
is when we were told

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that we were going to be taken
to what turned out to be 1142.

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And they put us into a bus.

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All the windows were covered with wood.

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You couldn't see a blasted thing.

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[Henry Kolm] They suddenly said,

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"We're going to send you
to an assignment which is classified."

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[Fred Michel]
Everybody expected to go to Europe,

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but we were pulled out,
and nobody knew where we were going to go.

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[Gerald Stoner]
We start south of Washington.

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And I figure, "What's going on here?"

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I mean, everything was
as if they were trying

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to keep the information away from me.

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So we're going along,

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and I began to see
an opening in the trees.

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And there was a…
I think there was a dirt road, actually.

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You know, what's…
Where are they taking me?

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[Peter Weiss]
And then we got off the main parkway

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and came to a small

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military installation.

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[Army veteran 1]
We finally got to this place,

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and the commander said,

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"This is it, guys.
You're not going overseas."

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"You're staying right here."

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[Peter Weiss] One of our guys
leaned out the window to the MP and said,

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"What's the name of this place?"

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And the MP came back with "Nothing!"

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[Arno Mayer] I am not so sure
that the people who set up this program

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that they knew
what the hell we were doing.

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There was no precedent
for this kind of shit. Was there?

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[tense music playing]

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[interviewer] Okay, we're gonna go ahead
and get started here this morning.

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And, George, if you could just start off
with the most basic of basic information.

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Could you give us your full name
and your place of birth?

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My name is George Weidinger.

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I was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1923

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and escaped to the United States

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on the last ship out of Europe
in December of 1939.

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It certainly was
very, very frightening to me.

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Every synagogue in Vienna was burned.

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Many, many were sent
to concentration camps.

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It was Hitler's idea
to exterminate the Jews.

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Completely get rid of us.

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[dramatic music playing]

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[Rudolph Fellner]
As soon as I came to this country,

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I put in an application
for becoming a citizen,

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which qualifies you to join the Army.

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[Arno Mayer]
There were hundreds of us there.

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Jews who had
just been called into the Army.

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And the first question they would ask,

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"Are you prepared to fight
for your new country, for America?"

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And then you would say, "Yes, Your Honor!"

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And I was all on the side of those

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who were gonna beat
the shit out of the Germans.

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An eye for an eye.

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[John Gunther Dean] I don't think
anybody had any better reason

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to join the Army than I had,

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who knew what we were fighting about.

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[George Weidinger]
We finished our training.

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Everybody's name was called
except my name.

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One step forward.

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Turn left.

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And all they marched off…

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And I was the only guy left
on… on that field.

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[Peter Weiss] So the colonel called me in.

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Weiss, say something in German.

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So I gave them a famous poem by Goethe.

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[in German] "Who rides so late
through the night and wind?"

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"It is the father--"

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[in English] He said, "Okay. Enough."

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"You're going to 1142."

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[suspenseful music playing]

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[Arno Mayer] The bus stopped.

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And the first thing that I saw,
it was not a very military camp.

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[birds chirping]

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[Peter Weiss] It looked like a club.

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There was a swimming pool
and tennis courts.

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[Arno Mayer] I… I would say
it didn't seem real somehow.

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We didn't know what the hell it was.

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[Walter Schueman] I was immediately told,

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"Here you have no rank, no titles."

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"You can't tell anybody what you do."

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This was a very big secret operation.

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[interviewer] This was actually
a prison camp. Right?

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[Arno Mayer] Well, uh… [chuckles]
…if you wanna call it that.

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They certainly didn't call it.
They called it PO Box 1142.

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It took quite a few weeks for us

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to be told that all these people
were gonna be there, these Nazis.

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[birds chirping]

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[somber music playing]

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[Arno Mayer] At that time,
a Nazi was a Nazi.

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A German was a Nazi,
and to bring them here, I mean, good God.

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I mean, you shouldn't,
after you captured some German officers,

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bring them to the United States.

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I mean, you know, what's going on here?

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[Rudolph Pins] These soldiers
came from all branches.

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Artillery, Infantry, SS.

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A lot of them were transferred directly
from the front where they were captured,

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and without a change of clothes,
they arrived at 1142.

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[Henry Kolm] It was not
the most comfortable feeling.

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Some of them were real Nazis,

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and they might have killed you
on the spot if they could.

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You know, I'm Jewish.
And they knew it too.

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[interviewer] What were you told
that your role was going to be there,

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your job was gonna be?

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[John Gunther Dean] Getting intelligence,
which will help the United States.

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[newscaster 1] As the war
in Europe rages on,

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the Allies face yet another threat.

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Hitler's secret weapon, the V-2 rockets.

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The V-2s have been
raining terror over London,

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costing the lives of over 50,000.

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Wernher von Braun,
Hitler's chief rocket developer,

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intends the next generation of rockets
reach even greater distances.

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[Bill Hess]
German rocketry was at its peak.

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And the major risk, of course,
was that Hitler would develop

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a rocket powerful enough
to reach New York or Washington.

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That would have changed
the whole course of the war.

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[Walter Schueman]
We were told to use our German

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to interrogate the German prisoners.

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Orders were,

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"If anybody ever mentions rockets,
get everything they're saying."

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[interrogator in German] What's your name?

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Buller.

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[interrogator] Tell me
where the V-2s are hidden.

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[Buller] Up my ass!

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[Rudolph Pins in English] I remember
this one interrogation from September '44.

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This prisoner says…

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[in German] "I can't talk!"

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"I'm an officer in the German Army."

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"All I need to give you
is name and serial number."

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[in English] Then I said,

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"I happen to be a German Jew
who was pushed out of Germany."

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"And if you don't talk,

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we have methods of doing things
to you and your family."

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[Arno Mayer] As a Jewish refugee
from Europe,

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that's just about
as bizarre an assignment as you could get.

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[dramatic music playing]

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[Henry Kolm] On one occasion, there was
a Waffen-SS guy who wouldn't talk.

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Rolf said, "I'll make him talk."

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He put this guy in an ambulance

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and drove him
around the base for about an hour.

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"Are you ready to talk now?"

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"Because if you're not,
we're gonna gas you."

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But he didn't talk.
So they rammed the door shut,

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and Rolf said, "Ivan, more gas."

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Turned on a vacuum cleaner
and blew dust through the vent hole,

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and he thought he was being gassed
because that's what the Germans did.

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Rolf let him out after a while and said,

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"Well, are you ready to talk to us now?"

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And he talked.

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[George Weidinger] One of
the great achievements of PO Box 1142

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was the fact that we discovered a site

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where Hitler was building the V-2 rockets.

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[Alfred Bomberg] Wernher von Braun
and his crew of scientists

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operated from a secret underground factory

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called "Peenemünde."

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So we scanned the aerial photographs
and interrogated prisoners,

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and they told us all about it.

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[George Weidinger] Having found Peenemünde

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created the bombing of the site.

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I felt very good knowing that
that is one of the achievements

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of PO Box 1142.

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[victorious music playing]

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[cheering]

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[newscaster 2] Throughout the world,

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throngs of people hail
the end of the war in Europe.

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It is five years and more
since Hitler marched into Poland.

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Years full of suffering and death.

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Now the war against Germany is won.

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In a symbolic gesture, American troops
destroy the Nazi party emblem.

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[somber music playing]

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[Henry Kolm] The sequence of events,
just to keep the chronology straight,

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is that General Bissell
called us together at the Pentagon

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and said, "Gentleman,
I need to… to take some action

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which is illegal
and might wind me up in jail."

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"There are hundreds of German scientists,

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and if we don't bring them
into this country,

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we will lose all of that technology."

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[interviewer] So they weren't
on the books or registered or anything?

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[Henry Kolm] They were enemy aliens

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who were not allowed
to come in in time of war.

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General Bissell said, "We will take over
an island in Boston harbor,

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and we will import
these scientists illegally

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and take them to the island

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before the immigration people
see the boat."

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So these people came over on troopships.

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We imported several hundred people
illegally to the island.

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I distinctly remember
the time we picked up Wernher von Braun

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and the first of his 300-people crew
from Peenemünde. There was a storm.

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In the pouring rain and the howling gale,

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they were lowered on the ladder in a storm
that was too bad for the pilot boat.

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They got off the ship,
and they came to the island.

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Everybody stared
at these funny-looking guys

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with the leather coats
and their funny-looking hats. [chuckles]

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[Arno Mayer] If you wanna see
the stereotype of the Prussian,

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tall, blonde hair, blue-eyes,
goddamn it, it was Wernher von Braun!

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[Alfred Bomberg] They were an echelon
of people that we thought well of,

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00:14:23,028 --> 00:14:26,699
and I don't know how far advanced we were,
but from what I understand,

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we had very little information
about rocketry.

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There was no doubt about it.

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[Peter Weiss] Rocket scientists

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who were essential to the Nazi war effort,

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now becoming essential to our war effort.

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[Alfred Bomberg] All of a sudden,

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this whole aspect
of what I was to do changed,

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and then we got into,
what I think, the real purpose

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of my being there was,

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sort of an escort, public relations guy.

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Make it comfortable for these people.

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[Arno Mayer] A decision was made
to make me the morale officer,

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which is a ridiculous title to have.

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But somebody thought
that it could serve a purpose

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to be nice to them.

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And then the question came up
because I hated Germans so much.

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Could I really do it
with sensitivity and so on and so forth

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and not just blindly do my stuff?

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At which point I answered,

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"I can't answer that question
because I've never done it before."

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[jazz music playing]

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[Henry Kolm] We were told
that we were to interrogate people

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00:15:40,564 --> 00:15:45,569
in the friendly pretext of a chess game,
or a ping-pong game, or a tennis game.

239
00:15:46,779 --> 00:15:49,406
Playing volleyball… They loved volleyball.

240
00:15:50,491 --> 00:15:53,243
Horseshoes were not known in Germany.

241
00:15:53,327 --> 00:15:56,497
I showed them how to play horseshoes,
and we had fun with horseshoes.

242
00:15:56,580 --> 00:15:58,707
[Arno Mayer] There was a regular routine

243
00:15:58,791 --> 00:16:03,128
that I brought them
newspapers, magazines, some whiskey.

244
00:16:04,838 --> 00:16:08,968
What the hell? I didn't think
that I would be fighting the Germans,

245
00:16:09,051 --> 00:16:13,764
whom I hated with every gut that I had,
that I would wind up that way.

246
00:16:13,847 --> 00:16:15,516
[chuckles] I mean, it was crazy.

247
00:16:17,142 --> 00:16:21,146
[interviewer] What was it like for you
to speak with a German prisoner?

248
00:16:21,230 --> 00:16:24,525
[Army veteran 1] Well,
I would laugh with them, joke with them.

249
00:16:24,608 --> 00:16:29,780
I wanted them to feel I was on their side
because I was born in Germany,

250
00:16:29,863 --> 00:16:33,242
and you know,
that maybe I lean towards Germans.

251
00:16:34,118 --> 00:16:36,495
But I was only trying to soften them up.

252
00:16:38,414 --> 00:16:42,668
[John Gunther Dean] Heinz Schlicke, when
he came, he was young, sports-oriented,

253
00:16:42,751 --> 00:16:46,005
so somebody had to go
and do things with him, so I did.

254
00:16:46,714 --> 00:16:51,051
He was a Nazi? Yes, he was a Nazi.
He was at Peenemünde, so what?

255
00:16:51,135 --> 00:16:54,972
But my job was to see
what he could do for the United States.

256
00:16:57,016 --> 00:16:59,643
[Army veteran 2] Well,
we had a confidential fund.

257
00:16:59,727 --> 00:17:02,938
When I was scheduled
to entertain the scientists,

258
00:17:03,022 --> 00:17:07,067
I would go to Colonel Dean
and pick up 50 or 100 dollars,

259
00:17:07,151 --> 00:17:08,777
and that would pay the way.

260
00:17:09,528 --> 00:17:14,283
We'd use one of the military buses
to go to some nightclubs, dinner,

261
00:17:14,366 --> 00:17:16,201
and I would pay for everything.

262
00:17:18,704 --> 00:17:23,709
At the time, they were showing movies,
and those people who cooperated

263
00:17:23,792 --> 00:17:25,461
were allowed to go see them.

264
00:17:26,045 --> 00:17:29,757
And I guess they probably
appreciated the opportunity

265
00:17:29,840 --> 00:17:32,718
of seeing an American film.

266
00:17:32,801 --> 00:17:36,889
They liked to learn about America,
and they asked about America.

267
00:17:36,972 --> 00:17:39,975
We wanted them
to get to know American culture.

268
00:17:41,977 --> 00:17:46,231
[interviewer] Was your job more
to get intelligence from them,

269
00:17:46,315 --> 00:17:51,361
or was it more to escort them around
and keep them happy?

270
00:17:51,445 --> 00:17:52,988
[Alfred Bomberg] Both. Both.

271
00:17:53,489 --> 00:17:55,324
[slow jazz music playing]

272
00:17:57,868 --> 00:18:00,329
[Arno Mayer] That December,
Wernher von Braun said,

273
00:18:00,412 --> 00:18:04,083
"Look, the winter is going to be
very, very tough in Europe,

274
00:18:04,166 --> 00:18:08,545
and we would like
to send packages to our families

275
00:18:08,629 --> 00:18:10,214
for the holidays."

276
00:18:11,632 --> 00:18:14,927
I said, "I'll see what I can do,"
and I went to see the camp commander.

277
00:18:15,719 --> 00:18:18,138
He called the Pentagon,
came back out, and said,

278
00:18:18,222 --> 00:18:19,473
"We're to keep them happy."

279
00:18:21,975 --> 00:18:24,770
So the following morning, they showed up

280
00:18:26,480 --> 00:18:30,859
dressed in long leather coats

281
00:18:30,943 --> 00:18:33,320
that German wear in the winter.

282
00:18:33,904 --> 00:18:35,823
They also had on a Tyrolese hat,

283
00:18:36,406 --> 00:18:38,534
and in one of them,
there was a little feather.

284
00:18:39,493 --> 00:18:44,081
I said, "For God's sakes,
nobody is supposed to know you're here."

285
00:18:44,164 --> 00:18:47,751
"So would you please go back
and get dressed differently?"

286
00:18:48,794 --> 00:18:50,963
The answer was,
"We have no other clothing."

287
00:18:51,046 --> 00:18:53,298
"We will wear what we wear."

288
00:18:53,382 --> 00:18:57,010
And I go to the commander,
and he said, "Okay. Take them."

289
00:18:58,387 --> 00:18:59,721
[mellow music playing]

290
00:19:01,056 --> 00:19:02,850
[Arno Mayer]
I'd been given a thousand dollars,

291
00:19:03,725 --> 00:19:06,270
and we were driven to Lansburgh Brothers.

292
00:19:07,271 --> 00:19:11,150
Lansburgh Brothers
was the largest department store

293
00:19:11,233 --> 00:19:14,444
in Washington D.C.,
and I knew it was Jewish.

294
00:19:15,112 --> 00:19:18,115
So it gave me
some sort of a nasty pleasure

295
00:19:18,198 --> 00:19:22,161
to take these guys
to a Jewish department store.

296
00:19:23,787 --> 00:19:28,625
So what do we start with?
Coffee, tea, chocolate for the children.

297
00:19:29,168 --> 00:19:30,586
I said, "What now?"

298
00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:33,046
[in German] Underwear!

299
00:19:33,839 --> 00:19:37,634
[in English] I was 17 or whatever.
I had never bought any Unterwäsche.

300
00:19:37,718 --> 00:19:40,596
And here were these four German guys

301
00:19:41,180 --> 00:19:44,099
now ordering panties for their wives.

302
00:19:45,184 --> 00:19:47,102
Finally, the woman came out

303
00:19:47,728 --> 00:19:52,191
and held up a dainty nylon pantie.

304
00:19:52,691 --> 00:19:54,276
I still only remember

305
00:19:55,277 --> 00:19:57,571
Wernher von Braun, and he said,

306
00:19:57,654 --> 00:20:04,036
[in German] "No! Made out of wool
and with long legs."

307
00:20:04,620 --> 00:20:08,123
[in English] And people, of course,
looking like crazy for these four guys,

308
00:20:08,207 --> 00:20:11,210
speaking German, dressed in a funny way.

309
00:20:12,127 --> 00:20:14,129
I asked them, "What next?"

310
00:20:14,213 --> 00:20:15,422
"Brassieres."

311
00:20:15,505 --> 00:20:19,551
Well, I never bought
any brassieres, you see.

312
00:20:21,094 --> 00:20:23,847
So we were in the midst
of going after the brassieres.

313
00:20:25,474 --> 00:20:28,685
By now, there were
certain gestures being made and so on.

314
00:20:29,269 --> 00:20:30,437
[police siren wailing]

315
00:20:30,520 --> 00:20:32,606
[Arno Mayer] The military police arrived,
arrested us…

316
00:20:35,108 --> 00:20:38,487
and we were driven back in full glory

317
00:20:39,196 --> 00:20:41,865
to PO Box 1142.

318
00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:46,411
[Arno Mayer laughing]
I mean, what the hell?

319
00:20:46,912 --> 00:20:48,121
You couldn't forget it,

320
00:20:48,622 --> 00:20:50,666
and you couldn't make it up.

321
00:20:54,586 --> 00:20:57,923
[John Gunther Dean] You took them out
for a spin and have a normal life.

322
00:20:58,006 --> 00:21:01,510
Go to town,
have a piece of cake and coffee.

323
00:21:01,593 --> 00:21:02,928
Make it normal.

324
00:21:03,011 --> 00:21:06,515
They're not prisoners
and being given corporal punishment.

325
00:21:07,140 --> 00:21:09,559
On the contrary,
we tried to win over people.

326
00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:19,820
[Peter Weiss] Wernher von Braun
developed the V-2 rocket,

327
00:21:19,903 --> 00:21:23,865
which killed countless numbers of people.

328
00:21:24,658 --> 00:21:26,994
And now he's gonna work for us.

329
00:21:27,744 --> 00:21:31,581
He was treated almost as a hero.

330
00:21:35,544 --> 00:21:40,757
[Henry Kolm] Wernher himself
was a visionary, and was he a Nazi? I… I…

331
00:21:43,093 --> 00:21:46,763
He did what the Nazis wanted to do,
and it was in his great favor.

332
00:21:46,847 --> 00:21:50,851
You know, ideologically he was interested
in rockets and going to the moon.

333
00:21:50,934 --> 00:21:53,312
He wasn't interested in warfare, really.

334
00:21:53,854 --> 00:21:58,191
Yeah, he… he made the V-2s
that bombed London and all that, but…

335
00:21:59,067 --> 00:22:03,864
[interviewer] Did he seem apologetic
or anything for the V-1s and V-2s?

336
00:22:04,448 --> 00:22:08,994
[Henry Kolm] Uh, his attitude was
that this was important progress

337
00:22:09,077 --> 00:22:11,913
from the viewpoint of us going into space.

338
00:22:17,336 --> 00:22:20,297
[Arno Mayer] In one of the factories
in which they developed

339
00:22:21,048 --> 00:22:22,507
some of these weapons,

340
00:22:22,591 --> 00:22:26,386
they used Jews
who had been arrested by the Gestapo.

341
00:22:27,429 --> 00:22:29,139
He knew what was going on.

342
00:22:30,474 --> 00:22:35,228
Wernher von Braun
knew that there was an Auschwitz.

343
00:22:36,104 --> 00:22:37,856
[dramatic music playing]

344
00:22:46,198 --> 00:22:48,992
[newscaster 3] For the first time,
America can believe

345
00:22:49,076 --> 00:22:51,661
what they thought
was impossible propaganda.

346
00:22:51,745 --> 00:22:55,290
Here is documentary evidence
of sheer mass murder.

347
00:22:55,874 --> 00:22:59,586
General Eisenhower, a man hardened
by the blood and shock of war

348
00:22:59,669 --> 00:23:02,756
seems appalled
at these unbelievable sights.

349
00:23:04,216 --> 00:23:07,594
Most dreadful of all the camps
was at Buchenwald,

350
00:23:07,677 --> 00:23:11,431
where only 20,000
of the original 80,000 were found alive.

351
00:23:11,515 --> 00:23:14,267
Slave laborers worked on the V-2 bomb,

352
00:23:14,351 --> 00:23:17,145
serial numbers tattooed on their stomachs.

353
00:23:17,771 --> 00:23:20,023
Sheer mass murder.

354
00:23:20,107 --> 00:23:22,275
Murder that will blacken
the name of Germany

355
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:25,153
for the rest of recorded history.

356
00:23:25,654 --> 00:23:27,447
[somber music playing]

357
00:23:29,199 --> 00:23:32,702
[Peter Weiss] We were not yet fully aware

358
00:23:32,786 --> 00:23:38,583
of the enormity of what had happened

359
00:23:39,084 --> 00:23:41,545
under the Nazi regime.

360
00:23:42,170 --> 00:23:44,673
I didn't know that at the time,

361
00:23:44,756 --> 00:23:50,512
but my grandfather, and uncle, and aunt,

362
00:23:51,513 --> 00:23:55,183
cousin, and other relatives

363
00:23:56,435 --> 00:23:58,854
all died in the Holocaust.

364
00:23:59,396 --> 00:24:00,439
[sniffles]

365
00:24:03,150 --> 00:24:05,902
Like so many others.

366
00:24:09,698 --> 00:24:12,117
[Rudolph Pins] We were all shocked
at what happened, you know.

367
00:24:12,617 --> 00:24:15,412
After you hear what happened in Auschwitz,

368
00:24:15,495 --> 00:24:17,956
there isn't anything
that can shock you much more.

369
00:24:19,082 --> 00:24:23,044
I don't think it would've helped
if I'd told everybody about my feelings,

370
00:24:23,128 --> 00:24:25,130
and moaned and cried.

371
00:24:25,797 --> 00:24:28,049
It certainly wouldn't have
helped my parents.

372
00:24:30,177 --> 00:24:34,973
[Peter Weiss] Almost all of us
were refugees from Nazis.

373
00:24:36,016 --> 00:24:39,769
We would have preferred to treat them

374
00:24:39,853 --> 00:24:43,565
as the war criminals that they were,

375
00:24:45,025 --> 00:24:49,196
but when you are in the Army,
you follow orders.

376
00:24:50,989 --> 00:24:54,201
I tried to suppress the rage

377
00:24:54,284 --> 00:24:59,080
because I wouldn't have been
very effective

378
00:24:59,164 --> 00:25:02,125
if I had acted
as if I wanted to kill them.

379
00:25:02,667 --> 00:25:03,919
[lighter clicks]

380
00:25:04,002 --> 00:25:07,047
[Arno Mayer] It was unpleasant,
to put it mildly.

381
00:25:07,130 --> 00:25:09,925
I mean, I'd almost feel like vomiting

382
00:25:10,008 --> 00:25:12,886
for the very simple reason
I had to be nice to these guys.

383
00:25:13,386 --> 00:25:16,306
And the only question
that I asked myself is,

384
00:25:16,389 --> 00:25:18,433
"What did they do during the war?"

385
00:25:24,105 --> 00:25:27,067
[interviewer] Could we just talk
a little bit more

386
00:25:27,150 --> 00:25:29,152
about your role as a morale officer?

387
00:25:29,694 --> 00:25:34,908
[Arno Mayer] Only the morale officer
would translate sermons at Christmas.

388
00:25:38,245 --> 00:25:40,288
[people praying indistinctly]

389
00:25:41,414 --> 00:25:45,544
[Arno Mayer] They said, "It is Christmas,
and we'd like to have a Christmas mass."

390
00:25:46,711 --> 00:25:49,339
They got a room which was very private.

391
00:25:49,422 --> 00:25:50,590
They all showed up.

392
00:25:51,341 --> 00:25:54,469
Then there was first the Catholic sermon,

393
00:25:54,553 --> 00:25:57,264
and after that, the Protestant one.

394
00:25:57,347 --> 00:25:58,890
And then it fell to me

395
00:25:58,974 --> 00:26:02,269
to translate these two fucking sermons

396
00:26:02,352 --> 00:26:04,312
from English into German.

397
00:26:05,021 --> 00:26:06,481
They were very pleased.

398
00:26:06,565 --> 00:26:10,235
In fact, they were so pleased
that they invited me

399
00:26:10,318 --> 00:26:12,571
to come have a drink with them.

400
00:26:12,654 --> 00:26:14,823
It drove me absolutely crazy.

401
00:26:17,617 --> 00:26:21,288
I… I couldn't have anything humane
with them. I couldn't.

402
00:26:22,789 --> 00:26:26,626
Behind my back, they referred to me
as "Der kleine Judenbube,"

403
00:26:27,335 --> 00:26:28,628
the little Jew boy.

404
00:26:29,921 --> 00:26:33,300
You know,
in your best dreams or nightmares,

405
00:26:33,383 --> 00:26:37,137
you couldn't have expected
to become the morale officer

406
00:26:37,762 --> 00:26:39,639
of these high animals.

407
00:26:41,057 --> 00:26:45,604
I mean, the hatred within me was so strong
I couldn't… I couldn't resist it.

408
00:26:46,146 --> 00:26:47,856
Because as far as I'm concerned,

409
00:26:47,939 --> 00:26:50,400
they were sons of bitches,
and I wanted them dead.

410
00:26:53,737 --> 00:26:56,781
[interviewer] What did you think
was gonna happen to these people?

411
00:26:56,865 --> 00:26:59,034
[Peter Weiss]
If they sent us to Washington

412
00:26:59,117 --> 00:27:03,246
to buy Christmas presents
for their relatives,

413
00:27:04,664 --> 00:27:09,878
they were not likely
to be charged with crimes.

414
00:27:09,961 --> 00:27:11,004
[chuckles]

415
00:27:13,089 --> 00:27:18,762
I occasionally went to bed
and found myself thinking,

416
00:27:18,845 --> 00:27:20,930
"What… What am I doing here?"

417
00:27:22,932 --> 00:27:27,187
I did wonder whether I could go

418
00:27:27,270 --> 00:27:30,148
to the colonel in charge and say,

419
00:27:30,231 --> 00:27:32,525
"I really can't do this."

420
00:27:33,943 --> 00:27:38,782
Well, you didn't do things like that
when you were in the Army. [chuckles]

421
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,702
And also, you didn't do things like that

422
00:27:42,786 --> 00:27:47,540
when you were a recent refugee.

423
00:27:48,958 --> 00:27:50,794
[tense music playing]

424
00:27:54,589 --> 00:27:58,593
[John Gunther Dean] We were trying to help
the US government obtain intelligence,

425
00:27:58,677 --> 00:28:00,679
and it came in various forms.

426
00:28:01,721 --> 00:28:03,765
Maybe 1142 was the beginning

427
00:28:04,349 --> 00:28:08,728
of a diplomatic approach
to obtaining intelligence.

428
00:28:11,606 --> 00:28:13,775
I'm gonna say something which,

429
00:28:13,858 --> 00:28:16,569
up to you whether you want
to keep it in there.

430
00:28:18,863 --> 00:28:22,409
We were not only interested
in what the Germans were able to do,

431
00:28:22,492 --> 00:28:27,247
but we were also interested
in knowing about our ally at the time,

432
00:28:27,872 --> 00:28:29,290
the Soviet Union.

433
00:28:30,041 --> 00:28:33,503
And that became an important element.

434
00:28:34,713 --> 00:28:37,215
The mutual suspicion

435
00:28:38,216 --> 00:28:41,845
among the Western world
and the Russian world

436
00:28:42,887 --> 00:28:47,142
predated even the second World War.

437
00:28:48,143 --> 00:28:52,814
[Peter Weiss] The new policy
coming out of Washington

438
00:28:52,897 --> 00:28:56,860
was to keep people who were useful

439
00:28:56,943 --> 00:29:00,905
from falling into the hands
of the Soviet Union.

440
00:29:01,614 --> 00:29:04,451
[Robert Kloss] It was a battle
between Russia and the United States

441
00:29:04,534 --> 00:29:07,579
who could get the most German scientists.

442
00:29:07,662 --> 00:29:10,123
We got Wernher von Braun, you know,

443
00:29:10,206 --> 00:29:12,625
which was very good to have.

444
00:29:13,835 --> 00:29:16,129
[Arno Mayer] When my parents asked me,
"What are you doing?"

445
00:29:16,212 --> 00:29:19,758
The phrase that I kept using
over and over and over again,

446
00:29:19,841 --> 00:29:22,385
was always, "I'm preparing World War III."

447
00:29:25,722 --> 00:29:27,348
In my judgment…

448
00:29:30,018 --> 00:29:31,186
I would say…

449
00:29:33,271 --> 00:29:34,230
that the…

450
00:29:36,191 --> 00:29:40,528
Cold War started a hell of a lot earlier
than anybody thinks these days.

451
00:29:41,362 --> 00:29:45,825
What I was doing without knowing it,
that's really what it was all about.

452
00:29:47,035 --> 00:29:49,788
[somber music playing]

453
00:29:49,871 --> 00:29:52,916
[Alfred Bomberg] We were told
they were not prisoners of war.

454
00:29:52,999 --> 00:29:54,876
They were actually in our employment.

455
00:29:54,959 --> 00:29:57,420
In fact, they were on a per diem.

456
00:30:00,048 --> 00:30:04,594
[Arno Mayer] They were promised
a fairly rapid naturalization,

457
00:30:04,677 --> 00:30:08,264
and then also, they were promised
that their families could follow them.

458
00:30:08,973 --> 00:30:11,267
[Army veteran 2]
We took care of their families.

459
00:30:11,351 --> 00:30:15,313
And in many cases,
they were encouraged to immigrate.

460
00:30:15,396 --> 00:30:17,857
That is to say, become American citizens.

461
00:30:19,484 --> 00:30:21,903
We offered them the future.

462
00:30:22,529 --> 00:30:26,783
But a lot of them
had strong Nazi backgrounds,

463
00:30:27,325 --> 00:30:30,453
and we were a little disturbed

464
00:30:30,537 --> 00:30:34,374
that they would be given
tremendous opportunities

465
00:30:34,457 --> 00:30:36,084
to do well in the United States.

466
00:30:36,668 --> 00:30:39,337
Probably better
than a lot of other people.

467
00:30:42,924 --> 00:30:46,177
[NASA tech 1] T-15 seconds,
guidance is internal.

468
00:30:46,261 --> 00:30:49,681
Twelve, eleven, ten, nine…

469
00:30:49,764 --> 00:30:53,351
[Army veteran 1] A lot of these people
were then shipped off to Texas,

470
00:30:53,893 --> 00:30:57,021
where they were going to work
on the rocketry program.

471
00:30:57,814 --> 00:31:01,109
And that turned into the Apollo project,

472
00:31:01,192 --> 00:31:04,821
leading America
to land the first man on the moon.

473
00:31:04,904 --> 00:31:07,156
[NASA tech 2] Ignition sequence starts.

474
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:13,413
Six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.

475
00:31:13,496 --> 00:31:15,582
All engine running.

476
00:31:15,665 --> 00:31:20,086
Lift-off! We have a lift-off,
32 minutes past the hour.

477
00:31:20,169 --> 00:31:21,546
Lift-off on Apollo 11.

478
00:31:21,629 --> 00:31:23,256
Tower clear.

479
00:31:26,593 --> 00:31:31,764
[Peter Weiss] It goes back to the question
of whether you can do bad things

480
00:31:31,848 --> 00:31:34,851
to achieve good ends.

481
00:31:36,227 --> 00:31:40,899
And I would say that if you do that,

482
00:31:40,982 --> 00:31:44,027
then the end that you achieve

483
00:31:44,110 --> 00:31:46,404
is not worthwhile.

484
00:31:52,619 --> 00:31:53,870
[cheering]

485
00:32:08,134 --> 00:32:10,178
With your continued support,

486
00:32:10,261 --> 00:32:13,973
I will see you back in orbit
with that new space station.

487
00:32:14,474 --> 00:32:17,310
And maybe one day
we'll have a man on Mars. Thank you.

488
00:32:52,345 --> 00:32:54,347
[melancholy music playing]