CIA Declassification Center Weekly Report 1- 7 January 2015

Approved for Release: 2021/O4/O5 CO6775939
(U//F9919) From the National Archives
(U//F-O89-) The OSS and Strategic German War Aims
(U//-F-OHS") CIA reviewers at NARA have been working a collection of US Navy records from the period 1942-1945 (Records of the Office of
the Chief of Naval Operations, RG 38) that contain fairly frequent repoits regarding contacts between naval attaches and OSS offices overseas,
as well as OSS intelligence reports. One such report, serial 9558, not dated but circa late July 1942, relates an exchange between Berlin and
Tokyo that show Gem1any’s vastly overblown war aims at the height of its successful summer offensive on the Eastern front:
The following dated July 21, 1942, has been received by this Agency, It is flom a reliable and very delicate
source.
On July 6th the German Foreign Ofiice represented strongly to the Japanese Ambassador, Oshima, that ifJapan cannot declare war on the
U.S.S.R. she should at least adopt more aggressive attitude toward her because Germany is at present making a maximum eflort to:
1. Occupy Caucasus and advance thence through Iran to Iranian Gulf;
2. Occupy and reach Red Sea by Autumn 1942.
A more aggressive attitude ofJapan towards the U.S.S.R. would assist Germany in the realization of these plans.
Up to July 6th, Japan had not agreed to this, and Japan still considers it very difiicult to coordinate her military interests with those of other
Axis powers. The A/lilitaryAttaché said, ‘It is not in Japan ’s interest for Germany to be able to terminate war quickly. ’
(U/AF-OHO) Comment 1 The exchange occurred only a few months before the Gennan defeats at Stalingrad and El Alamein and the
Anglo-American landings in Northwest Africa. It may be humorous to some to leam that the Japanese were actuall worried that Gemiany
might win the war too quickly. The CIA Declassification Team declassified the intelligence report in
(U//59:1-H9) The 31 Dec 2014 Deadline
(U//-AI-H6) CIA meets 31 December 2014 EO deadline. N0 records at risk for automatic declassification.
(U//7$I“U‘O‘) The themiometer chaits below provide a measure of completeness against the CIA records that must be reviewed by 31 December
2014 (records that have reached either their 25-year deadline or their 50-year deadline). Against the 25-year deadline, for example, these
records include hardcopy CIA records dated 1989, special media dated thiu 1984 and CIA Presidential Libraiy (PL) material and extemal
referrals (to CIA) due in 2014. (Referrals for CIA at the National Declassification Center---NDC---are excluded due to the NDC procedures.
NDC now controls the review deadlines at NARA per the EO but has just begun to establish deadlines for this NARA material. NDC also
controls the deadlines for PL material and has explicitly established deadlines for a subset of the material dubbed Priority.) The chaits below
Approved for Release: 2021/O4/O5 CO6775939
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
(b)(3