PROFILE
Eyewitness to History
As a political intelligence officer with the OSS in the 1940s,
Paul Sweet had a firsthand look at Austria after the war.
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Assistant Editor
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ierma in 1933 was a
city of despair.
"I remember the se-
vere winters, the piles of
snow," said Paul Sweet of
East Lansing, who in 1933
was in Vienna to research
information for a book. "We
would come out of the opera
and see men kneeling in the
snow and begging."
Vienna also was a city of
turmoil, he said. The univer-
sity was often closed because
of student disturbances. In
the morning, school
buildings would be found
covered with swastikas.
"And this was five years
before the Anschluss (Nazi
invasion of Austria)," Dr.
Sweet said.
Dr. Sweet, now professor
emeritus of history at Mich-
igan State University, had a
firsthand view of the rise
and fall of Adolph Hitler. As
an undergraduate, he went
on a fellowship in 1929 and
1930 to the universities of
Gottingen and Munich. To
research his book Freidrich
von Gentz: Defender of the
Old Order, he spent 1933 in
Vienna. And in 1943 he
went to London, where he
was one of a handful of polit-
ical intelligence officers for
the Office of Strategic Ser-
vices (OSS).
President Franklin
Roosevelt in 1942 estab-
lished the OSS to collect and
analyze strategic informa-
tion for the war effort. Presi-
dent Harry Truman dissolv-
ed the agency in 1946, and
the OSS was replaced by the
Central Intelligence Agency.
The only OSS department to
be retained was research
and analysis (R&A), where
Dr. Sweet worked, which
was absorbed into the State
Department.
Born in 1907 in Penn-
sylvania, Dr. Sweet never
intended to make German
history his specialty. But he
helped fulfill his father's
fantasy of going to the coun-
try when Dr. Sweet made his
first visit to Germany in
1929.
He stayed for one year,
studying at Gottingen and
Munich and living in the
home of a family friend; back
then, the universities had no
dormitories, he said.
Among his instructors in
Gottingen was a Jewish pro-
fessor. "On one occasion
three uniformed Nazi thugs
came (into the class) and
made a tirade," Dr. Sweet
said. He also remembers a
student hangout where "the
Nazis and the Communists
would be banging each other
over the head until mid-
night."
But he never imagined the
Like participants in
a carnival, German
citizens wore
elaborate masks
that hid their real
faces.
— Paul Sweet
Nazis would come to power
and commit the most
unspeakable atrocities, he
said. Today, he is still
perplexed as to how some of
the men he knew became
Nazis.
He recalls a certain in-
structor who, at the end of
the semester, took a group of
students on a tour of Ger-
man antiquities. Paul Sweet
was among the participants.
"Later, I learned this man
was the leading Nazi on the
faculty," he said. "I had no
idea."
Like participants in a gro-
tesque carnival, German
citizens wore elaborate
masks that hid their real
faces, he said. "You just
couldn't readily spot who
was what."
Soft-spoken, genteel
citizens turned into scream-
ing fanatics when the word
"Jew" was mentioned. One
otherwise "extremely
civilized" man "got so work-
ed up he would actually
weep" when he spoke of the
Nazis, Dr. Sweet said.
At the same time, Dr.
Sweet remembers a friend's
husband who called for the
destruction of all Jews, then
later became an outspoken
critic of the Nazis and work-
ed for the party's downfall.
"I think it was because of
his wife," Dr. Sweet said.
Following his study and
research abroad, Dr. Sweet
returned to complete his
Ph.D. at the University of
Wisconsin. He then accepted
a position in 1934 at Birm-
ingham-Southern College,
where he taught until 1936.
From 1936-1943, he was a
history professor at Bates
College in Maine.
In 1943 the OSS recruited
Dr. Sweet. The OSS War
Report described the resear-
ch and analysis department
as developing "new tech-
niques for determining in-
tentions and capabilities of
other nations" and
operating "in an intelligence
area previously little de-
veloped by the United States
— the complex field of econ-
omic, political and
geographic relationships." _
R&A research was used by
the State Department, the
armed services and the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. By the end of
the war, R&A would produce
more than 3,000 studies in-
cluding a complete analysis
of southern Germany and a
report on the minimum
amount of sabotage needed
to make a factory in-
operative.
Based on his knowledge of
and experiences in Austria
and Germany, Dr. Sweet
was tapped as a political in-
telligence officer with R&A.
After brief training in Wash-
ington, D.C., his first
assignment was London.
Outside, the bombardment
continued day and night. In-
side his London office, Dr.
Sweet faced stacks and
stacks of reports. His
responsibilities included re-
viewing relevant articles in
the European press, keeping
track of German civilian at-
titudes toward the Nazis and
analyzing damage done in
bombing raids.
Finding accurate informa-
tion about the raids was next
to impossible, Dr. Sweet
said. One source on the bom-
bing of Hamburg reported
6,000 casualties; another
said 300,000 had been killed.
Dr. Sweet was surprised
during his 1930s visits to
find little nationalism
among German citizens. He
spoke with printers, factory
workers, actors and Hitler
youth. Most simply did not
know how to fight a
repressive system, he said.
In the spring of 1943, Dr.
Sweet was assigned to the
12th Army Group, the cen-
tral command for all land
forces, where he worked in
the psychological warfare
unit. Among the unit's pro-
Paul Sweet as an OSS
officer in 1944 and, at
left, as he looks today.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
35