ScienceDirect - Technol Rep Tohoku Univ ... - Garryck Osborne

NICK COOK 161
would become Kammler's alter ego in the administration of the special
projects group. Seven years older than the SS general and with a
reputation as an industrialist that was as solid as a rock, Voss, with his
nuts-and-bolts background, was the ideal complement to Kammler's
driven bureaucrat. Even better, the two men had a task from Hitler and
Himmler to run the special projects group without the least interference
from Goering or Speer. Apparently, neither Goering, head of the
Luftwaffe, nor Speer, head of all armaments programs, would have the
least idea it existed.
But for Tom Agoston, in fact, the reality of the Kammlerstab might
never have emerged at all.
Agoston was a Cambridge graduate who had served during the war as
an air photo interpreter. After the war, he traveled to Germany to report
on the Nuremberg war crimes trials. It was there that he ran into Voss.
Though not indicted by the war crimes tribunal, Voss was so close to
the Nazi elite that his name was constantly on the lips of the prosecutors.
"Everyone wanted to interview Voss, but they couldn't find him,"
Agoston told me over the phone from his home in Germany a half
century later, the satisfaction still evident in his voice. "As he was
sheltering in my house at the time, this was hardly surprising."
In the course of several extended interviews in 1949, Voss unburdened
himself of the whole Skoda story, speaking of his activities there with
"unique frankness."
Tired and disillusioned, Voss was patently grateful for Agoston's
company and when the subject of the Kammler Group surfaced, he told
the reporter everything.
The Kammler special projects office was regarded by the select few
who knew about it as the most advanced high-technology research and
development center within the Third Reich. It was totally independent
of the Skoda Works' own R&D division, but used Skoda for cover.
All funding for the programs at the Kammlerstab was channeled
through Voss, who reported alongside Kammler directly to Himmler.
The scientists were culled from research institutes all over the Reich,
chosen for their acumen as engineers and scientists, not for their
allegiance to the party.
"Many scientists, anxious to see their work in print, even if it was kept
top secret, prepared papers for a central office of scientific reports, which
circulated them to specific recipients. Some of these reports were used as
the basis for selecting candidates for employment at Skoda," Agoston
wrote.
Once recruited to the special projects group, whether they liked it or