In the second week of April, 1945, American forces advancing in Saxony bypassed the small village of  Burgscheidungen. A few days later, on April 18^th, an American officer, 2^nd LT. Alfred G. Fenn of the First Army military government detachment, made contact with the owner of the local schloss, Graf von der Schulenberg and his interpreter, a Fraulein Friedrichs. Although the two were a bit evasive, he learned that a section of the German Foreign Office was located there. Returning three days later for a second interview, Fenn learned from Friedrichs that the unit was in fact, the cryptologic bureau of the Foreign Office, known as Per Z S.  Troops from the 102nd cavalry Regiment were sent to Burgscheidungen to provide protection to the village and its castle, TICOM was notified, and Team 2 formed and dispatched, arriving in the area by the end of April.  Per Z S became one of only two German SIGINT organizations to be captured with documents, equipment and personnel intact.The initial field interrogations of Per Z S personnel revealed considerable information on the organizational structure and names and titles of many members. They also revealed a number of personality conflicts within the group and disagreements on the amount of cooperation to provide. TICOM was very careful in the handling of its prisoners, insuring that they were treated well and being careful keeping them separated from other Nazi POWs to avoid influencing their attitudes. In addition to personnel, TICOM discovered a considerable amount of documents stored in filing cabinets and also recovered many Hollerith machines used by Per S Z.

 

The team, under the command of LT COLs Evans and Neff began their work of interviewing the prisoners and cataloging the documents in the field. Some of the German personnel had already scattered and Evans and Capt. Adams on 28 April chased down Senior Per S Z cryptanalysts Dr. Adolf Paschke and Dr. Werner Kunze as they were being transported to a First army POW cage. Trips to Zschepplin and Muehlhausen yielded a handful of other personnel, and plans were soon made to evacuate the key personnel to England by air. Bad weather and political issues delayed the trip, and TICOM worried that the slow progress would discourage the German’s cooperative attitude and hurt their moral.

  Paul E. Nuff 

            After the fact, Paul E. Neff commented that the most difficult part of the mission was getting diplomatic permission from the British to evacuate the German personnel to England for interrogation. The airlift finally occurred on the afternoon of 7 May.

 Burgscheidungen was located in the soon to be occupied Soviet zone. A decision was made to evacuate all the Per S Z civilians to Marburg in the American area, including the families of those evacuated to England. This took place on May 11, the troops guarding Burgscheidungen were relieved and Team 3 returned to Paris a few days later.

 

 

Maj. William P. Bundy

Capt. R.W. Adams

Capt. D. M. MacIntyre

Sgt. I. Loram

Sgt. F.A. Marx

Cpl. Schnabel

 

(Note: as no roster was listed in the documentation for Team 3, the above individuals were referenced in the report and the list may be incomplete.)

National Archives and Record Administration, College Park (NARA). RG 457, Entry 9037 (Records of the NSA), Box 168.