OSS DOCUMENTS AND WAR CRIMES RECORDS RELATING TO HITLER DIARIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87-00181R000100060008-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2010
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: May 9, 1983
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/16: CIA-RDP87-00181 R000100060008-4
FOR
I-79M 610 U EDITIONOSUS
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CONFIDENTIAL
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
SUBJECT: (Optional)
OSS DOCUMENTS AND WAR CRIMES RECORDS RELATING TO HITLER DIARIES
FROM:
Chief, Classification Review
EXTENSION
NO.
Division
322 Ames
DATE
9 May 1983
TO: (Officer designation, room number, and
building)
DATE
OFFICER'S
COMMENTS (Number each comment to show from whom
RECEIVED
FORWARDED
INITIALS
to whom. Draw a line across column after each comment.)
1.
Director of Information
Services, 1206 Ames 10
19a3
0
2.
UNCLASSIFIED WHEN
SEPARATED.
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CONFIDENTIAL
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/16: CIA-RDP87-00181 R000100060008-4
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/16: CIA-RDP87-00181 R000100060008-4
? CONFIDENTIAL W
9 May 1983
25X1
Director of Information Services
I
FROM:
25X1
Chief, Classification Review Division
SUBJECT: OSS Documents and War Crimes Records
Relating to Hitler Diaries
On 6 May 1983, C/CRD received a call from Alan Thompson, Chief,
Declassification Division of NARS, asking for clearances to release
three OSS documents from the War Crimes Records that appear to relate to
the Hitler diaries. Mr. Thompson wanted a quick response because
of intense media interest in the information. This information
was contained in a file on one Joseph Spacil, who joined the Nazi SS
in 1931. According to this information, Spacil allegedly revealed
that Hitler kept a personal diary -- handwritten on thin tissue-like
paper beginning in 1923, and that he, Spacil, had been in possession
of these diaries after the death of Hitler; along with correspondence
between Hitler and Eva Braun and a bloody uniform taken from Hitler's
body. It was attested that Spacil buried the uniform, burned the
correspondence, and buried the diaries in a zinc can. The allega-
tions are made by one Franz Konrad who claimed Spacil had told him
these things while they were prisoners together in a POW camp awaiting
interrogation.
The three OSS documents were all written in 1945 probably by
the OSS/X-2 and concerned the German use of mobile gas chambers on
the Russian front which, in some way, Spacil may have been involved.
The content of the documents did not appear classified but the names
of three OSS officers were mentioned. Mr. Thompson requested our
clearance to release these names and the three documents as soon as
possible because of high media interests.
Chief, CRD contacted the DO/IRO on the secure line and explained
the situation and described the documents involved. The DO/IRO said
he had no objection to release of the documents and that the names
of OSS officers are releasable unless they continued to work for the
CIA in a covert capacity. The documents also contained two codewords,
"Saint" and "Lucky" and the DO/IRO said that such codewords had long
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/16: CIA-RDP87-00181 R000100060008-4
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/16: CIA-RDP87-00181 R000100060008-4
25X1
25X1
C/C
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/04/16: CIA-RDP87-00181 R000100060008-4
10
CONFIDENTIAL V
since been released. The names in Question were:
in this material, it raises the question whether the Army is always
certain that information or documents belonging to other agencies 4--
Chief, CRD then called Mr. Robert Wolfe, Chief, Modern Military
Records at NARS, and informed him that CIA raised no objection to
the release of the three documents. Mr. Wolfe explained more of the
background in this case. He stated that about a year ago, some of
the material in the War Crime Records had been released by the Army
to an inquiring journalist. When the Hitler diaries story broke,
this journalist recalled that he had read something about the
Hitler diaries in the material which the Army had given him. The
result was to spark an interest in War Crimes material which
included the file in question on Spacil that had been withheld
from release by the Army in 1956 because it contained information
about the activities of CIC. Mr. Wolfe went on to say that while
the statement by Konrad appears to support the Hitler diaries
story, a check of the interrogation record revealed that Spacil
was asked directly about the Hitler diaries and he claimed that
he never had such diaries, that Konrad was in error and may have
been referring to the diaries of Ms. Eva Braun. Mr. Wolfe also
stated that when he releases this information to the media, he
would include all of the details related above to make sure that
people understand there is a question over the veracity of
Franz Konrad's statement concerning Hitler diaries. It was also
noted on this same date, that the West German Bundesarchiv reported
that the documents were obvious forgeries based on technical analysis.
It should be noted that Mr. Wolfe was very irrate with the
U.S. Army because they had released to a journalist parts of records
that had been accessioned to NARS. In such cases, the record copy
is held by NARS and any public release should be made by them, not
by the originating agency. Since three OSS documents were contained