Britain Abducted Top Nazi's For Exploitation

How Britain Put Nazis' Top Men To Work

By Stewart Payne
Last Updated: 2:11am BST 30/08/2007
Telegraph

German scientists and technicians were abducted at the end of the Second World War and made to work in Britain as part of a secret programme to plunder the defeated nation's trade secrets and intellectual assets, declassified government documents have revealed.

An elite British Army unit captured hundreds of Germans in possession of Nazi scientific and technical know-how and transported them across the Channel to work in government ministries and private companies.

Others were forced to travel to Britain, where they were interviewed by commercial rivals and detained if they did not reveal trade secrets.

The unit, known as T-Force, was lightly armed and highly mobile.

Following the D-Day landings it was tasked with seizing anything of scientific or military value.
The purpose was two-fold. Initially the scramble to uncover Nazi military secrets in the dying days of the war was seen as helpful in ending the conflict in the Far East and a method by which Britain could benefit from German knowledge to give it a commercial edge as it rebuilt its war-ravaged economy.

As the Cold War developed, it was also part of a campaign to prevent the Soviet Union from benefiting from Nazi scientific and industrial assets.

The Foreign Office papers, marked "top secret" and discovered at the National Archives at Kew, show that, in addition to those Germans believed to have volunteered to work in Britain, hundreds more were rounded up and transported to the UK against their will.

The documents concede that methods used resembled those of the Gestapo, Nazi Germany's secret police.

A memo written by a civil servant working with the British military in Germany in August 1946 explained the procedure. "Usually an NCO arrives without notice at the house or office of the German and warns that he will be required.

He does not give him any details of the reasons, nor does he present his credentials.

"Some time later the German is seized (often in the middle of the night) and removed under guard."

"This procedure savours very much of the Gestapo methods and, quite apart from causing great and unnecessary inconvenience to the individual and to the industry employing him, it is bound to create feelings of alarm and insecurity."

The abductions were carried out in the British-controlled zone of post-war Germany on the orders of two organisations.

One, the British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee (Bios) was made up of armed forces and Whitehall representatives, and was answerable to the Cabinet.

The other was the Field Information Agency (Technical), or Fiat, a joint Anglo-American military intelligence unit that earmarked scientists for "enforced evacuation" from US and French zones, and from Berlin.

Both had offices in London from where investigators would be sent to Germany, looking for human resources as well as machinery that could be shipped back to Britain. Representatives from leading companies such as ICI, BSA Tools, and Courtaulds were included in the teams.

After the war, T-Force was formed into the Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section, which escorted Bios and Fiat investigators, and took away the scientists and technicians identified as being in possession of knowledge useful to the UK.

After interrogation, which could last for months, they were either released or put to work in Britain. Those who worked were paid 15 shillings (75p) a week.

The files suggest that up to 1,500 scientists and technicians were identified for removal to the UK "whether they are willing or not".

All the occupying powers used various methods to loot Germany of its scientific and technical know-how. By 1947 there was concern that this was impeding Germany's reconstruction, and the programmes were stopped.

The policy of forcing scientists to work in the UK changed to offering them contracts, with many taking up work with British aerospace and armaments companies.

Related Article:
12 June 2007: Wartime spies have their cover blown by MI5