BY LATE 1944 Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz had concluded that the best opportunity for the Kriegsmarine’s officers to gain operational experience in large-scale fleet maneuvers was to learn from the Japanese. German naval operations, which had once been of imposing potential, with surface vessels such as the Bismarck and Ίirpitz, were now limited to U-boat operations and coastal engagements; in contrast, Japan’s war in the Pacific had been a primarily naval affair since 7 December 1941. Therefore, on 3 December 1944 Dönitz announced to Hitler his intention of transferring German naval officers to assignments with the Japanese Imperial Navy for the purpose of acquiring experience that could later be used to revamp the decimated German fleet.1
In addition, a naval technical mission to Japan had been previously considered. In 1943 German naval attaché Paul Wennecker requested an information exchange, but it was postponed because of its low priority. However, Dönitz’s desire to send naval officers to Japan, coupled with Hitler’s desire to accommodate the Japanese, prompted the OKM to revive the plan, although preparations for the mission’s departure were not finalized until December 1944.
The naval mission to Japan was distinct from the mission of the other specialists aboard U-234. Because of the magnitude of Japanese fleet operations, the OKM perceived a need for German observation of Japanese “developments, methods, equipment, etc. of value,” information that could be returned to and utilized by the Kriegsmarine. On the other hand, mission members were instructed to reveal as little as possible to their Japanese hosts; their packages were all marked “Not to be handed to Japanese subjects,” and all material belonging to the members of the naval contingent was to be screened by mission chief Gerhard Falcke and Wennecker’s staff before being exchanged with the Japanese.2
Dönitz had originally intended to send ten to fifteen officers to Japan. However, because of space limitations, he could send only four aboard U-234. In December 1944 the four were issued orders to report to Falcke in Berlin. Falcke, who had been in contact with Wennecker as to exactly what to bring to Japan, coordinated the accumulation of the necessary technical information for the journey, and by February the contingent had arrived in Kiel. Finally, on 25 March 1945, naval aviator Richard Bulla, antiaircraft specialist Heinrich Hellendorn, and naval judge Kay Nieschling joined Falcke in Kiel, where they boarded U-234. After first traveling to Norway while U-234 completed her sea trials, Falcke’s mission finally departed in April on the long voyage to Japan.
Commanding the naval contingent to Japan was forty-eight-year-old Gerhard Falcke, a naval construction engineer and electrical welding expert. Upon the conclusion of preliminary POW interrogations, the ONI assessed Falcke as “well-informed, reliable, intelligent, [and] cooperative”—a “high-type” man who, despite professing no “active interest in things political,” nevertheless exhibited allegiance to National Socialism.3 The OKM had regarded Falcke as the ideal officer to head the technical mission to Tokyo; before completing his training as a naval engineer, he had served as the Kriegsmarine’s foreign liaison, coordinating cooperative naval efforts with the Soviet Union, Italy, Bulgaria, Spain, and Japan. His combination of diplomatic and engineering experience provided him with unique qualifications for this mission.
Falcke was one of the oldest of U-234’s passengers. Born in 1897 near Merseburg, he attended Volksschule at Koburg and Gymnasium in Cologne, graduating in 1915. After completing secondary school, Falcke immediately joined the Imperial German Navy, serving at sea until resigning his commission as Leutnant zur See (lieutenant [jg]) in 1919. Like Kessler, Falcke left the navy after the war to resume his education and subsequently entered the technical Hochschule (university) at Aachen to study electrical engineering, welding, and machine and tool construction.
Falcke received his degree in 1925 and immediately began his career as a production engineer with the Siemens Company in Seimensstadt. By 1928 he had advanced to section manager and was transferred to research and development, where he specialized in electrical welding methods. In 1935 he left Siemens to establish himself as an independent contractor. Falcke quickly received orders to install electrical welding processes for the Messer facility in Frankfurt/Main as well as the Müller plant in Cologne; however, he was accused of nonfulfillment of his contracts in both instances and subsequently left after a short stay. In 1936 Falcke went to work for the fledgling Luftwaffe, serving as a technical adviser with the Air Force Technical School near Berlin. At the academy Falcke brought his expertise in electrical welding methods to bear on standard production procedures to produce airframes with superb structural integrity.4
On 15 March 1938, with the situation in Europe worsening, Falcke was recalled to duty with the Kriegsmarine. In view of his engineering experience he was immediately advanced to the rank of lieutenant commander and assigned to the Shipping Branch (Flottenabteilung) Branch) of the OKM in Berlin. There he coordinated the procurement of material and equipment for the navy’s Construction Office (Konstruktionsamt) and, upon obtaining the necessary items, also determined priority for the allotment of these materials for the construction of new weapons and equipment for naval surface vessels. In 1940, however, Falcke was reassigned when the Shipping Branch and the Construction Office were combined to form the Department of Warship Construction (Hauptamt Kriegsschiffbau).5
In 1940 Falcke was named chief of the Liaison Section of the Department of Warship Construction. In this capacity he was the liaison for naval technical representatives from countries within Germany’s sphere of influence.6 Although his duties required diplomatic and technical visits to these countries, Falcke himself never ventured from his Berlin office; his staff members handled all travel to foreign locales while he received visits from foreign technical and shipping representatives. As a result, Falcke gained extensive knowledge pertaining to the exchange of naval-related materials, plans, documents, and personnel with these countries.7 Of all the countries with which Falcke was familiar, he was the most interested personally in Japan; indeed, Falcke spoke fluent Japanese and was a student of Japanese culture.8 Consequently, when the OKM sought an officer with the diplomatic and engineering proficiency to head up Wennecker’s naval technical section in Japan, Falcke was the logical choice.9
Because of his liaison with the Japanese, and particularly the Imperial Japanese Navy, Falcke was able to provide the ONI at Portsmouth with details of German and Japanese naval cooperation. According to Falcke, the Axis powers had maintained political connections through their respective foreign offices prior to the Tripartite Pact. After the conclusion of the pact, subsequent evaluations indicated to Japanese officials that Germany’s command structure, weapons technology, and armaments industry were more advanced than their own. Consequently, the Axis powers ratified supplemental agreements concerning the exchange of military and economic information; the idea was that such information would be conveyed to the appropriate officials who would then acquire proficiency in their particular areas.10
Falcke also guided his ONI interrogators through the OKM’s confusing chain of command as it applied to Japanese affairs. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKM), or Wehrmacht High Command, provided general directions and decisions pertaining to Japanese liaison involving the Wehrmacht. The Foreign Office coordinated matters on a political level, and the Ministry of the Office of Armament Industry directed industrial matters, both military and civilian. In addition, the Group for Industry and various civil officials worked together to provide cooperation between the military and the private sector. Finally, the OKM itself was divided into two separate departments: the Sea War Directorate, which coordinated Japanese and German military matters, and the Department of Warship Construction, which handled access to German shipyards as well as the sending of reciprocal missions to Japan.11
Another department of interest to the ONI was the Marinesonderdienst-Ausland (MSD), which coordinated all overseas shipping and receiving for the Reich. As part of his liaison duties, Falcke maintained a close working relationship with the MSD and was able to provide the ONI with an overview of its command structure, as it existed at the time of U-234’s departure. By the spring of 1945, because of Allied penetration into Europe, the MSD had relocated from Bordeaux to Kiel. At Kiel the MSD had its Naval Warfare Executive Office for Foreign Navies, which was commanded by a Commander Eiffel, with a Dr. von Hanfstengel serving as his adjunct. Directly under the Executive Office was the Navy Transportation Department–Kiel, which was headed by Commander Becker, who employed Lieutenant Commander Longbein as his executive officer; these two individuals would coordinate and supervise the loading of U-234 at Kiel.
The MSD also had officers stationed in Japan as part of the German-Japanese attaché group. In the spring of 1944 this group consisted of Commanders von Krosigk, van Wuellen-Schloten, Ross, and Souchon, First Lieutenant Koch, and Inspector Boreck.12 Of these, von Krosigk and Souchon were assigned to coordinate, from the Japanese perspective, the loading and arrival of U-234, Germany’s final cooperative effort in her official affiliation with Japan.13 According to Falcke, U-234’s aborted mission was the culmination of a long and frustrating attempt to arrange cooperation between allies positioned half a world apart.
Because Falcke worked closely with the Japanese naval contingent in Germany, he was able to provide ONI investigators with details of German-Japanese naval cooperation. He told them that during the early stages of the war, having recognized Germany’s superior war-making capabilities, the Japanese government convened a “Military Tri-Pact Commission” to be sent to Europe. In early 1941 the commission, which consisted of military, technical, and economic experts and was headed by Adm. Nomura Naokuni, arrived in Berlin with orders to explore the possibilities of material and technological exchanges between Germany and Japan. According to the provisions of the pact’s supplemental protocols, each branch of the German armed forces was to prepare a lecture series and inspection program to familiarize the Japanese commission with German manufacturing and research techniques.14 The commission would receive a comprehensive up-to-date review of Germany’s wartime command structure and armaments technology within the designated parameters.
Once the lecture schedule was agreed upon, instruction began immediately, covering all aspects of Germany’s naval war experience. Officials from the OKM’s Naval War Leadership lectured on the individual branches of naval warfare, especially those that had been involved in the invasion of Norway, as well as the auxiliary cruiser program. Naval personnel issues, such as finances and training, were addressed by officers from the Personnel Bureau. Various aspects of ship engineering, such as mechanized and high-voltage electrical engineering, ship construction, and shipyard organization and efficiency, were covered by officials of the Department of Warship Construction, including Falcke. Armaments issues and weapons technology, such as communications and radio defense networking, were handled by the responsible weapons offices, while financial issues were covered by the Office of Armaments Economy of the Supreme Command. A major goal of this endeavor was the transfer of German industrial technology to Japan. Material procurement, processing methodology, standardization, and fuel and lubrication issues were handled by the appropriate offices by way of a group interactive consortium, in which experts from Reich offices, as well as private German industry, were selected to speak.15
Because members of the Japanese commission attended only those sessions that pertained to their particular area of expertise, lectures in different areas (for example, weapons technology and ship construction) were scheduled to occur simultaneously. As a result, despite the great scope of the lecture program, the entire series was completed within two and a half weeks.16
Although Nomura’s legation investigated all forms of German naval technology, they were primarily interested in U-boat construction. Falcke later recalled that the Japanese were “quite surprised” at the difference between German and Japanese construction, especially regarding the size differential between comparable submarines. For example, the German Type VII submarine, a 769-ton boat, carried the same firepower as the Japanese 2,500-ton vessel. However, there proved to be a practical reason for the disparity in size; because the expanse of Japan’s operating area required larger interior storage spaces, Japanese naval engineers sacrificed speed and maneuverability for extra room. Regarding stability and durability, Nomura noted that whereas Japanese submarines were riveted, German U-boats were welded and therefore possessed greater structural integrity.17 All of this information was evidently of great value to Nomura, who upon his departure expressed his appreciation to Falcke in a letter acknowledging the efforts Falcke had made in Nomura’s behalf despite his demanding schedule at the Department of Warship Construction.18
Although the informational exchange program was advantageous to both Germany and Japan, a growing distrust between the parties was evident. The distrust was due in part to the lack of bilingual personnel who could translate Japanese into German. To guarantee a complete understanding of the proceedings, the Japanese members requested a written transcript, so that details could be translated at a later time. While a number of the Japanese present had some command of German, having earlier spent substantial amounts of time studying in Germany, relatively few of the Germans involved could read or write Japanese. Those who did have some knowledge of the language still had difficulty understanding military or technical expressions. In dealing with their Japanese counterparts, German officials were further disadvantaged by their ignorance of Japanese culture. This ignorance, coupled with the language difficulties, fostered the impression that the Japanese could not be trusted to maintain “absolute secrecy.”19 Consequently, German personnel involved in the exchange program were instructed to exercise discretion when delivering lectures or conducting tours; Falcke was instructed to “withhold information of . . . high importance from [Nomura’s] mission,” on the assumption that “the Japanese were not [being] entirely above board.”20
This assumption was not altogether unfounded. During the early months of the cooperative exchange, the Japanese had sent the Germans data concerning American battleships, principally consisting of cross-section drawings of the widest part of the ship, in return for German data on British warships. However, the drawings that the Japanese provided, though remarkably accurate, proved to be of little value because they all were of older-model ships.21
The Japanese too harbored justifiable suspicions that their German counterparts were being less than completely honest. Nomura and other members of the commission had expressed an interest in certain matters that the OKM regarded as sensitive. The High Command and the Foreign Ministry therefore issued simultaneous orders stating that whereas all German officials involved in the exchange program were to provide the Japanese commission with the benefits of their expertise, there were nevertheless restrictions on the nature and extent of the instruction they could provide. Specifically, instruction would be limited to German weapon systems and devices that were already deployed at the front.22 In his interrogation by ONI officials, Falcke confirmed that the Germans had withheld certain types of information. He reported that whereas the Germans had received orientation on all of the Japanese naval weaponry that was in operational use, as well as some items still in the developmental stage, they had withheld information about recent developments such as torpedo and U-boat pressure boxes and circulating motors. In addition, as “a matter of principle,” they had not furnished research results to the Japanese.23
Although German leaders were reluctant to reveal the extent of their technology during the early years of the war, the once-stringent limitations on cooperation were amended as Germany and Japan both began to suffer losses at the front. Falcke, whom the ONI regarded as having “knowledge of what was expressly for exchange with Japan,” revealed that he was escorting hundreds of pounds of drawings and plans, with which the Japanese could develop their own naval armaments industry.24 Included in these documents, which were stored in mine container 30550–27 on U-234, were drawings for the German battleship Bismarck, the new 36C and Z51 destroyers, and the Type 43 M-boat, along with new S-boat designs.25 Perhaps most important were drawings of Germany’s new submarines, which included plans for the manufacture of the Types II, VII, IX, X, and XI conventional U-boats, along with the Types XXI and XXIII boats. In addition, Falcke was to draw upon his naval construction expertise to provide the Japanese with specialized directions for the manufacture of the new boats, beginning with the Type IX.26 To ensure continuity with German manufacturers, Falcke also carried copies of the construction licenses and patents, which would resolve any questions as to Japan’s right to build the boats.27
Falcke’s ONI testimony also provided investigators with an inside view of the workings of what had been considered an efficient German naval bureaucracy. Primarily because of the multiplicity of Falcke’s talent and expertise, his duties at the Department of Warship Construction were far-ranging—so much so that Falcke repeatedly complained about the position’s demands on his time. During the early months of the war the department was inundated with requests from Germany’s allies and dependents, a flood that Falcke’s understaffed office was ill prepared to handle. As early as November 1939 Falcke notified his superiors that he and his staff were overworked to the point that even vacations and furloughs were not being granted.28 Throughout the war Falcke, who was also expected to maintain his research assignments as a naval engineer, complained of debilitating personnel problems brought on by the manpower demands of the war. In addition, the ever-increasing demands of foreign countries meant “too much work [and] not enough sleep”; the situation was “ruining his health.”29 In April 1943 Falcke claimed that organizational red tape and continued staffing problems had contributed to health problems in the form of an ear infection;30 however, his pleas for replacement personnel were ignored.
Falcke was also responsible for the welfare of German personnel sent overseas on behalf of the Department of Warship Construction. Because of wartime demands on the Kriegsmarine budget, Falcke did not have sufficient funding to properly finance the department’s network of liaison personnel, and consequently he spent many hours pleading for reimbursement of his representatives, who were forced to dip into their personal funds in order to complete their missions. Many times, upon refusal of reimbursement, Falcke reimbursed his personnel out of his pocket, which added to the frustrations of his position.
Falcke’s difficulties with the logistics of overseas travel and assignments were typified by the experience of Chief Engineer Hermann Lange, who traveled to Japan in August 1943. Lange, a naval designer, had expected an allotment of Japanese yen prior to departing Europe; however, he received neither German marks or Japanese yen as compensation. In addition, logistical difficulties delayed his departure from Bordeaux for two weeks, a period of time for which he did not have sufficient funds. As a result, he was forced to borrow 250 marks from MSD chief Becker. Upon arriving in Japan with no reserve of Japanese currency and his own private funds much depleted, Lange complained to Falcke that he could not perform his assignment properly. The 3,000-yen clothing allotment that he had received from the naval attaché in Tokyo was “not enough money with Tokyo’s economy”; he could neither dress himself nor entertain Japanese dignitaries in a style befitting German diplomatic personnel. The effectiveness of his position was suffering, Lange claimed; it was up to Falcke to rectify Lange’s fiscal deficiencies.31 By this time, after four years of bureaucratic squabbles, fiscal misadventures, and run-ins with temperamental allies, Falcke had had enough, and in April 1944 he requested a transfer, stating that despite his best efforts his office was nonetheless incompetent.32
In addition to his administrative duties, Falcke also coordinated the transmittal of requests from military planners to their research and development departments. There were problems in this area, Falcke said, most of them due to miscommunication between research personnel and military leaders; there was often a gap between what the military wanted and what the technicians and scientists could actually provide. Falcke told his ONI interrogators that he assumed that such confusion did not occur in the U.S. military, where there was surely much less bureaucracy and officials surely did not demand what was “not technically possible.”33
Like his contemporaries, Falcke was interned at Fort Meade, Maryland, until his transfer to the interrogation center at Fort Hunt, Virginia, in June 1945.34 He remained at Hunt for the remainder of the summer, at which time he was placed under the jurisdiction of the provost marshal general of the army. Despite his National Socialist leanings, Falcke was designated an “anti-Nazi” and was subsequently relegated to internment at a facility designed to segregate ardent followers of Hitler from their less fanatical compatriots. As a result, on 27 August 1945 Falcke was transferred to the “anti-Nazi” prisoner-of-war facility at Ruston, Louisiana.35 In December the provost marshal general announced the closure of the Ruston facility, and Falcke, along with 213 fellow officers, was transferred to Dermott, Arkansas.36 His later whereabouts are not clear; although his fellow officers were repatriated to Germany in late 1946, a 1949 newspaper article claimed that Falcke performed “several years’ work for the United States Navy” before returning to Germany.37
Gerhard Falcke exemplified the midlevel National Socialist bureaucrat trained in diplomatic as well as technical matters. Ambitious and devoted to National Socialism at the beginning of the war, Falcke was unique in that his disenchantment was brought about not by the political and military failure of the Reich but rather by the decimation of his command by bureaucratic inefficiencies.
While Falcke spent the majority of his service in an administrative role, he nonetheless remained proficient in matters of naval engineering as well as naval procurement. He was the ideal choice for a liaison mission to Japan, which desperately needed someone of his social and intellectual skills. For his part, Falcke regarded his mission to Japan as his final chance to fulfill what he considered his destiny.
Lt. Cdr. Richard Bulla had been ordered to Japan to observe rather than instruct. During the war the Kriegsmarine was deficient in the development of carrier-borne naval aviation, an area in which the Japanese Imperial Navy excelled. By late December 1944 a desperate German High Command had come to recognize the importance of naval aviation to the success of its submarine offensive and sought to rectify this deficiency by learning the secrets of Japan’s success. To this end, on 28 December, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz ordered Bulla to board U-234 and travel to Japan.38
Bulla had the unusual distinction of serving as an officer in both the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine simultaneously. Although he had enlisted in the regular navy in April 1935, he was nonetheless transferred to the Luftwaffe, still functioning as a naval officer, in December 1938. Bulla served as the adjutant of Wing Group 206 until the September 1939 invasion of Poland, when he rejoined the Kriegsmarine. In December he received orders to report to the cruiser Atlantis to serve as the raider’s flying officer and torpedo officer.39
The Atlantis’s commanding officer, Capt. Bernhard Rogge, was intrigued by the use of aircraft aboard naval vessels, regarding aircraft as vital to the protection of the raider. Bulla confirmed Rogge’s opinion and proved invaluable as the “eyes” of the Atlantis, patrolling vast expanses of the Indian Ocean in his Heinkel (HE) 114 patrol craft.40
Initially successful as a reconnaissance pilot, Bulla nonetheless became dissatisfied in his duty as an observer and pressed Rogge to allow him to develop a combat role for his plane. With Rogge’s permission, Bulla outfitted his HE 114 with two 110-pound bombs and a 20-millimeter cannon, complete with 120 rounds of ammunition. In addition, he suspended a grapnel from the aircraft, the purpose of which was to catch an enemy ship’s radio aerial before it could transmit an emergency signal.41 Bulla’s innovations proved highly effective, and they helped the Atlantis become one of the most successful German raiders of the war, with a total of 145,697 gross tons destroyed to her credit.42
In late December 1944 Bulla was ordered from his assignment at an artillery officers’ school and instructed to report to Berlin, where he was presented with orders to proceed to Japan. In the interim prior to his departure, Bulla spent his time in briefings held by Dönitz, the chief of naval personnel, an Adm. K. Balzer, and the Japanese military attaché, Oshima Hiroshi. On 1 February 1945 Bulla arrived in Kiel, where he reported to his former Atlantis shipmate Lieutenant Commander Fehler and boarded U-234.43
Bulla informed ONI investigators that his mission to Japan called for him to spend two to five years studying Japanese naval aviation, after which he would return to Germany to establish a similar branch in the German navy in peacetime.44 This revelation surprised navy officials; during the war the Kriegsmarine had been conspicuous for its lack of a naval air arm. Many observers believed that after the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck, partially by British carrier-borne aircraft, the Germans would expedite the formation of a fleet air force. In February 1943, however, construction of the sole German aircraft carrier, the 23,000-ton Graf Zeppelin, was halted because of changing strategic priorities.45 As a result, the Kriegsmarine was converted to a submarine navy,46 prompting ONI officials to question Bulla’s mission and its implications as to the Kriegsmarine’s aborted plans for postwar Europe.
ONI officials were relieved when Bulla revealed that he had been the only naval officer ordered to Japan for the purpose of studying Japanese naval aviation, an indication that the German High Command had realized too late the importance of carrier-based aviation.47 However, the length of Bulla’s proposed mission—two to five years—caused intelligence officials in Washington to speculate that Germany had been relying on Japan to continue the war, as evidenced by cooperative missions such as that of U-234. Bulla’s expectation of returning to Germany and creating a naval air force in peacetime further convinced intelligence officials that German military planners planned to use the alliance with Japan to buy time in which to perfect secret weapons and technology of mass destruction.48
Bulla revealed that the technical exchanges between Germany and Japan had been minimal, for while the Japanese were eager to obtain the latest German scientific developments, they were reluctant to part with their own developments or materials.49 On the other hand, regular submarine service between the two allies had existed for some time. Bulla recounted that as a Luftwaffe pilot during the summer of 1942, he had rendezvoused with the Japanese submarine I-30 in the Atlantic and escorted it to the submarine base at Lorient, France. As to the purpose of the submarine service, Bulla stated that while he was of the opinion that “some of the latest German developments which [were] actually under production in Germany found their way to Japan via these submarines,” Japanese plans for the mass production of jet aircraft were pending the arrival of U-234.50
Many of Bulla’s most valuable revelations, however, did not come as answers to investigators’ questions but were overheard in monitored conversations between him and his cellmates. Even in the supposed privacy of his cell, Bulla proved to be the consummate soldier; while other prisoners complained about prison life or speculated about postwar Germany, Bulla engaged in conversations about military matters. One ONI monitor reported that “[Bulla] seems to have been a flyer and knows a lot about German planes [and talks about] missions over London and also aerial combat.”51 During one conversation Bulla told about engaging a small British vessel in the Atlantic, which, though heavily armed, “I sank in a masterly way, without incurring any loss or damage.”52
ONI investigators were surprised to discover that Bulla’s expertise extended to armaments and new weapons. Room monitors listened intently as he and Hellendorn discussed the different calibers of Germany’s latest ship-borne antiaircraft guns, which ranged from 28 to 88 millimeters and were electrically controlled. Many of the newest 88-millimeter guns were equipped with a new arming device, which accelerated the rapid-fire capability of the weapon. Bulla and Hellendorn also compared the range of the new weapons, mentioning that most of the latter-day German vessels had turned to the 38-millimeter antiaircraft gun as their primary air-defense system53—a development that prompted Hellendorn’s mission to integrate the new guns into the Japanese inventory.
Like Bulla, Heinrich Hellendorn had traveled to Japan primarily as an observer rather than an instructor. In January 1945 Admiral Dönitz personally addressed U-234’s naval contingent and instructed Hellendorn to offer the Japanese his expertise in shipboard antiaircraft defense while simultaneously studying the Imperial Navy’s tactics at sea. Dönitz informed Hellendorn that upon the completion of their mission he was to return to Germany—which must have come as a relief to the young first lieutenant, for he had never desired to depart in the first place, ONI interrogators regarded the twenty-six-year-old Hellendorn as a “frank, sincere . . . intelligent . . . non-political individual [who] gives his information readily.”54
Born in October 1919 in Bentheim, Hellendorn completed his compulsory education of four years of Volksschule and six years of Mittlelsschule at Bentheim, with a final three years of Oberschule at Norden. In September 1939 the Kriegsmarine summoned Hellendorn to Stralsund, where he underwent basic military training; in December he was assigned to the Schleswig Holstein for five months of seaman and signal training. Upon completion of his sea training, he spent three months as a cadet at the Naval School at Flensburg, graduating in April 1940 as a Fähnrich, or midshipman.
In August 1940 Hellendorn was assigned to Antwerp, where he spent three months training naval reserve troops. In October he attended the Ship Artillery School in Kiel, where he was instructed in artillery firing and aiming techniques. Upon completion of this two-month training, he reported to Swinemünde, where he was trained in tactical artillery aboard the ships Drache and Fuchs. In February 1941 he was ordered to report to Hamburg, where he was assigned to the battleship Bismarck; here he received his first experience as an artillery officer. In May he returned to Swinemünde to the Flak Artillery Coastal School for further training, and in June he was named third flak artillery officer to the Bismarck’s sister ship, the Tirpitz. In August 1944 he was promoted to second officer. However, he was wounded in action and subsequently granted convalescence leave until January 1945. Late in January he was summoned to Berlin, where he received orders to report to Admiral Dönitz’s headquarters. It was there that he learned of his assignment to Japan.55
Hellendorn was unable to provide the ONI with any information regarding naval artillery that it did not already possess. However, he did shed light on the makeup of the Kriegsmarine during the closing months of the war. Hellendorn informed his captors that the German navy consisted mostly of merchant and luxury vessels; German leaders had always believed that England would never declare war on Germany, therefore the Kriegsmarine’s fleet never underwent a sizable increase. In regard to tactics, Hellendorn confirmed Germany’s deficiency in large-scale fleet actions with his admission that German naval strategy focused on coastal defense patrol; it was this deficiency that prompted Dönitz to send his officers to Japan for training.56
Because of their common interest in ordnance and artillery, Bulla and Hellendorn compared “recipes” for effective armor-piercing projectiles during their discussions in captivity. While contemptuous of early German attempts at antiship shells, they agreed that the high-explosive character of antiaircraft shells, combined with the armor-piercing power of an antitank shell, provided the most effective projectile. Bulla expounded on this theory, stating that his most effective projectile consisted of “one high-explosive antitank [shell], one armor-piercing shell, one high-explosive incendiary, one M [mine], and one D [delay].”57
Bulla also surprised ONI monitors when he revealed the existence of a new aircraft that was able to “climb and descend vertically and can take off or land on a plate of five meters. . . . The [German] Navy wanted eighty of these planes for use on destroyers.” Bulla further stated that the new aircraft could fly in inclement weather when standard aircraft could not and were outfitted with a new bomb release, which, unlike previous unreliable German releases, operated on a relatively “simple principle.”58
Although Bulla proved to be a valuable source of information for ONI investigators, doubt remained as to the extent of his knowledge. Bulla repeatedly claimed that he knew little of the submarine’s mission, or of German technology in Japan. When Hellendorn mentioned to Bulla that he had told the interrogators that he knew nothing about Japanese rockets, Bulla responded, “Yes, the Japs were smart enough never to tell about it to the Germans.”59 However, upon returning from his 24 May interrogation, in which he claimed little knowledge, Bulla privately informed Hellendorn that he knew about the first Japanese U-boat to visit Germany, an event that had been shrouded in secrecy.60 In addition, it had been Bulla, with confirmation by Hellendorn, who had provided the identity of Shoji and Tomonaga, the two Japanese officers on board U-234.61 Bulla’s claim that he knew little is questionable, for he had convenient access to Japanese diplomats in Berlin; indeed, he lived across the street from Oshima Hiroshi, who had been elevated from military attaché to ambassador.62 Whatever the extent of Bulla’s involvement, he did appear to appreciate his good fortune in having landed in America, telling Hellendorn, “we can learn something here.”63
Whereas Falcke, Bulla, and Hellendorn were operational naval officers, Kay Nieschling was not. Nieschling was a naval judge, ostensibly sent to Japan to provide jurisdiction to the numerous German naval personnel stationed in Japan. In addition, he was charged with helping to clear the German diplomatic corps in Japan of the remnants of the Richard Sorge spy ring, which at its height had crippled the effectiveness of the Naval Attaché’s Office. Nieschling, like Falcke, was proficient in political matters and, though admittedly committed to National Socialist idealism, surprised his captors with his relatively objective views of the global situation following Germany’s capitulation.
By 1945 the German presence in Japan had reached such proportions that Wennecker petitioned Berlin for help in the legal administration of the German legation. The OKM looked to its corps of young, ambitious officers and found in Kay Nieschling a suitable candidate. Consequently, on 24 December 1944 Nieschling received orders to report to staff judge Admiral Rudolph in Berlin, who subsequently informed the younger judge of his assignment to Tokyo.64
Nieschling’s assignment to Tokyo came as no surprise to Kriegsmarine observers, for Wennecker needed both a junior naval officer and a military judge. Wennecker’s contacts in the Japanese navy were limited to admirals and staff officers, which restricted his perception of the overall state of the Japanese navy.65 The OKM believed that Nieschling, who had acquired a reputation as an effective diplomat during an assignment in Norway, would help broaden the Kriegsmarine’s knowledge of the Imperial Navy through his interaction with Japanese junior officers.66
Nieschling’s official duty was to serve as the judicial and investigative officer for the two-thousand-man German naval contingent stationed in Japan.67 By November 1943 the Allied naval blockade had prevented the movement of German blockade-runners between Japan and Europe. As a result, any German naval personnel arrested for violations of military or civil law could not return to Germany for trial and therefore had to stand trial in Tokyo. Nieschling was assigned to establish a system of German military courts to address this problem. However, his primary assignment was to examine the records of the German Foreign Ministry and purge those German Communists who had participated in the Sorge spy scandal.68
Richard Sorge was a German journalist assigned to the Japanese bureau of the Frankfurter Zeitung who simultaneously served as a spy for the Soviet Union. From his arrival in Tokyo in September 1933 until his arrest in October 1941, Sorge headed an espionage ring that infiltrated both the German and Japanese diplomatic communities. Sorge’s base of operations was the German embassy, which he penetrated so thoroughly that he became a virtual staff member of two German ambassadors during his eight-year operation.69 Upon his arrest in 1941 Sorge boasted, “The fact that I successfully approached the German Embassy in Japan and won absolute trust by people there was the foundation of my organization in Japan. . . . Even in Moscow the fact that I infiltrated into the center of the embassy and made use of it for my spying activity is evaluated as extremely amazing, having no equivalent in history.”70
Indeed, Richard Sorge commanded one of World War II’s most successful espionage organizations. However, two incidents emerge as his most vital communiqués to the Soviets. Thanks to his high-level contacts within the Japanese military’s inner circle, Sorge was able to obtain information that enabled him to warn Moscow of the June 1941 date of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Josef Stalin, however, was skeptical of Sorge’s reliability and ignored this vital intelligence. When Sorge’s prediction was realized, his credibility was restored. His next report was treated with more respect.
By the late summer of 1941 Stalin felt the pressure of the German invasion in the west, in addition to the threat posed by the Japanese presence in Manchuria. A Japanese invasion would be a strategic nightmare, forcing the Soviets to fight on two fronts simultaneously. However, Sorge was instrumental in alleviating Stalin’s concern; in September he notified Moscow that the Japanese had decided not to invade the Soviet Union through Manchuria, opting instead for a movement south against Indochina and the colonial possessions of the Western powers. Consequently, Stalin was able to transfer his Siberian troops to the German front, where they aided in the defense of Moscow.
Such monumental leaks of intelligence were sure to attract the attention of Japanese and German officials, and in October 1941 Sorge and thirty-five of his operatives were arrested by the Tokko, or Thought Police. After a lengthy trial Sorge was imprisoned for three years in Tokyo until his execution in 1944. However, the repercussions of his spy ring did not end with his death, and German officials in Berlin feared that high-ranking diplomatic personnel, including Wennecker, might be continuing Sorge’s work. Consequently, the OKM sent the ambitious Nieschling to investigate and prosecute the remnants of Sorge’s organization.
The ONI determined that among the passengers and crew aboard U-234, Nieschling was one of the most conspicuous in his dedication to National Socialism; indeed, he was assigned the duty of political officer aboard the submarine during the voyage to Japan. Although his enthusiasm had wavered during the early 1930s, the outbreak of war in 1939 restored his loyalty, as high-ranking Wehrmacht officers convinced the young judge that it was beneficial to Germany that he remain devoted to National Socialism and Adolf Hitler. Consequently, Nieschling rose within the ranks of the Kriegsmarine, making important contacts as he advanced his career. By the time he arrived in Berlin for briefing on his mission to Tokyo, he was the subject of discussion concerning “his possibilities as a future [Nazi] leader in Japan.”71 Indeed, Nieschling had developed a reputation; American intelligence described him as a “high-ranking naval judge, well-informed on German personalities in Japan and Japanese personalities in Germany.”72
ONI monitors noted that “this man [Nieschling], without a doubt, is a hopeless case, 100% Nazi,” an observation supported by Nieschling’s admission that he “carried Mein Kampf wherever he went, it being [his] Bible.”73 Nieschling stated that National Socialism and Germany were “one and the same . . . 80 percent of the German people are still Nazis . . . and will remain Nazi until they die.”74 Nieschling further argued that the United States should not consider National Socialism dangerous, provided American assessments did not include the “terror, destruction, and resistance movements like ‘Werewolf’” or the rogue military courts of “impure Nazis” in American POW camps.75 However, should the United States attempt to eliminate German National Socialism, it would “have to police the world for at least two generations.”76 Although investigators dismissed this pronouncement as meaningless dogma, it nonetheless proved prophetic: Nieschling had unwittingly foreshadowed American efforts to bring to justice suspected war criminals who avoided trial.
The ONI was naturally curious about the operative effectiveness of its counterpart, the Seekriegsleitung (SKL), or OKM Intelligence. However, Nieschling’s appraisal of the SKL led the ONI to conclude that the organization’s reputation for ruthless efficiency was more legend than fact. Nieschling described the SKL as being infected with sectional rivalry and jealousy as well as infiltrated by elements of the resistance. Vital departments were directed by political appointments, as exemplified by Capt. Norbert von Baumbach, head of 3SKL (Intelligence Evaluation), whom the OKM did not consider an officer of “capabilities and brains.”77 Nieschling revealed that situations such as von Baumbach’s were not isolated, leading the ONI to conclude that the SKL was less than effective, and surely not the intelligence juggernaut of rumor.
Although Nieschling stated that the overall mission of U-234 was to “keep Japan active in the war and to increase Japanese war potential,” he also revealed that because of Japanese secrecy and refusal to cooperate, Germany had no idea just what that potential was.78 Not only did the Japanese withhold secrets from Germany; they also were notoriously distrustful of their ally. To illustrate this point, Nieschling related the story of a German naval attaché in Tokyo who, upon departing on a mission, discovered that he had forgotten some vital papers. When he returned to his office, he found the place “swarming with Japanese police and officials.” The embarrassed Japanese claimed that they had made a mistake—they had intended to search the office next door—and apologized profusely.79 Incidents such as this were emblematic of the mistrust between the Axis partners, and the ONI concluded that German-Japanese relations, though active, were nonetheless strained.
Nieschling provided valuable information on Japan’s diplomatic relationship with the Soviet Union, a point of contention between Germany and Japan that was of vital interest to the United States. The Allies had been pressing the Soviets for the formation of a second front against Japan but were uncertain of Stalin’s veracity regarding the relationship between Moscow and Tokyo. Because of his prominence within the German diplomatic corps, Nieschling was privy to secret OKM documents that outlined the nature of the Soviet-Japanese relationship, and was therefore able to shed some light on Stalin’s intentions.80
The OKM believed, correctly, that Moscow would never start a two-front war, having absorbed devastating losses while resisting the 1941 German invasion. From interviews with Soviet prisoners of war, the Wehrmacht learned of the existence of Siberian combat units on the eastern front, an indication that the Soviet Union had withdrawn a large percentage of its Siberian defenses to fight the Germans, once the threat of a Japanese offensive was removed. In addition, at the time of the OKM report there existed “no enmity” between Japan and the Soviet Union, and therefore no plausible reason for war existed. Nieschling also pointed out that the OKM had observed that in the few disagreements between the two, the Soviet Union, although quite obstinate, always “backed down in the end.”81
To further illustrate the Soviet-Japanese relationship, Nieschling related a conversation he had had with Lieutenant Commander Shoji, one of the two Japanese passengers on U-234. During a discussion regarding Moscow’s violation of the Soviet-Japanese nonaggression pact, Shoji, who had been stationed with the Japanese Foreign Mission Office in Stockholm, recalled that the Japanese ambassador in Moscow had been “treated badly,” presumably to satisfy the United States.82 Shoji nonetheless praised the effectiveness of the Soviet Foreign Office, stating that “Japan could never tell what Russia had in mind. . . . Stalin was [always] cleverer than the Japanese.”83
Perhaps the most alarming information gleaned from Nieschling was his appraisal of the state of the German nation during the final months of the war. Nieschling revealed that as late as January 1945 the German High Command was determined to end the war “in ways which were more or less . . . acceptable,” even if it required resorting to a levée en masse for one final resistance.84 Hitler’s generals were counting on an outpouring of nationalist fervor to sustain such an effort, but as Nieschling pointed out, there was also a strong practical basis for continuing the war. First, Germany’s food supply had suffered no significant damage and appeared good for at least another year.85 In addition, despite heavy air raids against the civilian population, basic needs for clothing, fuel, and transportation were apparently being met. The reichsmark remained strong and healthy, and the danger of public unrest had been effectively controlled by the Gestapo. Finally, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels had convinced Hitler that the Allied propaganda “war-of-nerves” could be fought with “intensive and clever counter-propaganda.”86 These were ominous claims, but ONI officials dismissed them as an attempt on Nieschling’s part to salvage some dignity in the aftermath of defeat.
Nonetheless, even as late as January 1945 the battered German war machine was not totally beaten.87 Nieschling revealed that he had seen OKM documentation to the effect that the U-boat corps “stood to receive a very important fresh impetus very shortly.” Germany’s munitions industry had revitalized the U-boats with improved weapons such as stealthier, more powerful mines and precision acoustic torpedoes. In addition, recent technological advances such as a long-range anti-position-finding device, the Schnorchel, and an untraceable radio transmitter promised to render German submarines virtually invisible to Allied antisubmarine countermeasures. Finally, a new defense system designed to protect the submarine from its most dangerous enemy, the depth charge, would reduce the effectiveness of the Allied hunter-killer groups that by 1944 had severely weakened the U-boat menace in the Atlantic.88
Nieschling verified rumors of additional “new weapons”—the specifics of which he admittedly had no knowledge of—that would inflict heavy losses on advancing Allied troops and foreshadow a renewed German offensive that would “shock” the Allies with its “immense troop and material concentrations.”89 The strategic deployment of these weapons earlier might have reversed the direction of the war in Europe. Although there was no longer a threat in Europe, the existence of such weapons presented American intelligence with a twofold dilemma. First, the ONI concluded that if other German missions like that of U-234 were successful, American troops participating in the proposed invasion of Japan might face weapons against which they had no defense. The second concern was voiced by Nieschling, who reminded the ONI that the Americans and British were not the sole victors privy to the new weapons; no one could be certain how much of Germany’s technology had been seized by Soviet troops during their advance on Berlin.
Although the ONI investigators noted that Nieschling had “an unreasonable fear of Russia,”90 they were nonetheless interested in hearing his account of Germany’s assessment of the American-Anglo-Soviet alliance. According to Nieschling, German leaders could never understand why the English and Americans would not cease their advance and allow Germany to fight the Bolsheviks.91 The High Command expected to negotiate a last-minute agreement that would form an anti-Soviet Anglo-German-American alliance, based on the premise that the “complete ruin and absolute reduction of Germany to chaos could not be in line with . . . English policy.” Nieschling predicted, with considerable foresight, that should the effort to secure such an alliance fail, a schizophrenic postwar Germany would emerge, torn between the “intolerant total dogmatism” of the Soviet Union and the “constructive, democratic West.”92
Many Germans believed that an alliance between the forces of democracy and communism was inherently polarized, and therefore impossible to maintain. Soviet aggression threatened world peace; therefore, rather than fight alone, the Allies should side with the German nation, regardless of “its militarism and National Socialism.”93 Nieschling expressed concern that the United States and Great Britain would have to begin this fight against communist aggression in the near future, the same fight in which Germany had seen its “culture, fortunes, and holiest ideals fallen to the ground and cruelly crushed.”94 For the most part, ONI officials dismissed Nieschling’s predictions as scare tactics and propaganda, designed to sow suspicion and mistrust in American relations with Moscow.95
Paranoid or not, Nieschling raised issues for which the ONI had neither satisfactory answers nor explanations. The United States contended that in the event of a Soviet uprising in Europe, the U.S. military force there possessed eighty-five thousand aircraft with which to preserve the peace. Nieschling challenged this claim, inquiring whether the Americans had calculated the date at which the operational effectiveness of these aircraft would cease. Furthermore, Nieschling said that he doubted that the United States understood the “terrible and unimaginable” possibilities of the existing V-2 and proposed V-3 rockets, with their “unlimited range and boundless potential.”96 Nieschling also correctly surmised that the Americans possessed little knowledge of the abilities of the Soviet Union’s armaments industry and scientists. Another matter of potentially grave consequence to the Allies was the Soviet Union’s possession of vital German experimental installations.97 Nieschling was convinced that the Soviets would not hesitate to exploit any German technology they could acquire.
Whether Nieschling was an astute observer of world politics or merely a demagogue spouting Nazi doctrine, his predictions proved remarkably accurate. He predicted that an immediate consequence of an American victory over Japan would be a free China, which would subsequently fall to communism.98 When the Allies decided upon the Elbe River as the line of demarcation between the Western and Soviet spheres of influence in Germany, Nieschling commented that this could only result in the future division of the German Reich, in which “very painful and nerve-shaking elements of the coming struggle are already in formation.”99
Nieschling also correctly surmised that the Soviet Union would cause the Western Allies trouble in the near future.100 While the United States and England represented the bastions of freedom in the postwar world, Moscow’s refusal to aid the Americans by fighting the Japanese would leave the United States standing “alone and weak opposite a still-powerful Russia.”101 To preserve the peace, it was imperative that the United States possess both a resolute will and strong weapons. Nieschling pointed out that although America had “put these weapons in iron,” it was vital that “God grant the United States more wisdom . . . in its leadership than Germany had.”102 Germany had indeed been defeated, but, Nieschling suggested, perhaps the historical significance of Germany’s final resistance would prove to be that it had strengthened the United States.
Given the ominous implications of U-234’s mission, none of Nieschling’s comments, dogmatic as they were, could be regarded as completely unimportant. Nevertheless, the ONI evaluated his musings as little more than a defeated staff officer’s desire to see Germany freed of Soviet occupation and open to the return of German national identity and Prussian militarism.103 But before Kay Nieschling is dismissed as merely another by-product of Hitler’s failed Third Reich, it must be remembered that as a high-ranking naval, diplomatic, and political officer he was privy to military and political decisions and other developments unavailable to most. He was a knowledgeable and candid observer whose suspicions of Soviet geopolitical designs and whose revelations concerning Soviet possession of German weapons technology can arguably be viewed as a forewarning of the coming ideological struggle between the Soviet Union and the West. He addressed his detractors with uncanny accuracy when he warned, “Woe to the German, the defeated! But thrice woe to the conquerors of today!”104