A rough draft of an unfinished chapter of my father’s life that did not make it into my investigative memoir, Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew, is about my father’s duties while in Nuremberg from 1946 to 1952. He was a Provost Sergeant in charge of a special confinement unit with the 793rd MP Battalion that was in charge of security at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. We know from the historical record that he was involved in the confinement of the Nazi war criminals and may have had some involvement with their executions.
In our family’s possession are several items of significance: wooden spoons that belonged to one or more of the Nazi prisoners, keys to the cells where the war criminals were held, and a holy water bucket (called an aspersorium) used by the U.S. Army Chaplain and Lutheran priest Hency Gerecke, who sprinkled holy water on some of the Nazis before their executions.
Brenda and I plan to see the film Nuremberg, starring Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring, over Thanksgiving. Interestingly, one of Gerecke’s most notable interactions was with Hermann Göring, who, at the last moment, asked to receive communion. Gerecke denied the request because Göring had consistently refused to show any remorse or sincere faith throughout the trial.
Some of my father’s most powerful and heart-wrenching letters were written while he was in post-war Germany. Watching the film will incentivize me to finish that chapter from his life and find a home for it. There’s so much he wrote about that coincides with historical events that I could probably write another book.
James B. Wells 