The Labor Branch of the Office of Strategic Services: An Academic Study from a Public History Perspective

Abstract

The first chapter of this thesis provides the background of the Labor Branch and the OSS as a whole. From the OSS’s inception in 1942 through its postwar transformation into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), I cover the evolution of the foreign intelligence community in the United States. This includes sections on the politics within the OSS, the reasons the Labor Branch has not been a focal point of OSS research, and quirks about the Labor Branch that make it stand out from the rest of the OSS. The Labor Branch’s specific role in the infiltration of Germany is also discussed in chapter one. Chapter two is an extension of the materials presented in the first chapter. It focuses on a section of the Labor Branch called Bach Section. This section was devoted to making the infiltration of Germany possible by creating cover stories, forging documents, and preparing agents to go to Germany in the midst of Nazism and be able to survive, gather intelligence, and create resistance networks. The bravery, intelligence, and will of the Bach Section are clear in this chapter, and the reader will recognize that, without the Labor Branch and their colleagues at the Bach Section, no one, be they with the OSS or British intelligence, would have had much success in infiltrating Germany during World War II. My third chapter is a bit more complicated than the first two. In it, I discuss the nuances of writing historical fiction responsibly and as a viable means of public history. As guidance, I undertake a discussion of the OSS in published works of fiction. I give an overview of the way different novelists handle the bureaucracy, agents, accomplishments, and failures of the OSS, revealing what I feel each does effectively and poorly. While discussing each of the potential strengths and pitfalls of historical fiction, especially as seen in the OSS novels, I then provide real examples of how historical fiction might work with a case study involving the OSS Labor Branch. One particular OSS mission, known as the Hammer Mission, serves as my example. I detail different parts of the mission, the men who participated, their training, and the mission itself and discuss how to use these details within a novel.