66th Military Intelligence Brigade
US Army, Europe
Looking for more information from military/civilian personnel assigned to or associated with the U.S. Army in Germany from 1945 to 1989. If you have any stories or thoughts on the subject, please contact me

When I arrived in Stuttgart, in late 1959, I was assigned to a numbered USAREUR Liaison Group, the classified cover designation of the 66th CIC Group.

I was a CPL E4 when I arrived, and was a 1LT when I departed some four years later. All of my service there was in the USAREUR Central Registry (CR), in the Grosse Reiter Kaserne (GRK) (later renamed Wallace Barracks), in Bad Cannstatt/Stuttgart. It was a very interesting assignment.

The CR was composed of divisions/branches, organized around the Central Personality Index (CPI) that consisted of some 5-6 million 5" by 8" cards that indexed all the data in all the files in paper and microfilm that CR maintained. When I arrived, most of the data were in paper files (dossiers), but the CR was engaged in a microfilming project that reduced the paper files to microfilm.

The CPI of the CR was composed of cards from several sources. CPI maintained all cards in alphabetical order, and was composed of a large quantity of GESTAPO files, collected as the German armies was pushed back into native Germany. Personalities who came under attention of CIC Agents were reported to CR, and references were created to the data sent to CR for file.

One small note about CR, during the Cold War, we had to maintain the capability to evacuate all of CR, which included several hundred cabinets of paper files (dossiers) and CPI cards. Many hours were spent trying to move cabinets of files and cards down the stairs (from the 3rd floor) of GRK. Later, the CR was relocated to the first floor of the main building. This move substantially improved the ability to evacuate the massive amounts of data.

The CPI was manned by females who were wives and children of the male servicemen, and some civilians living in Germany at the time. We trained them to make "lookups" in the files, having to look in numerous places due to various spelling of Germanic and other European names.

During my assignment in CR, IBM was invited to study our data, files, references, etc., and offer a plan to automate the Registry. They completed the study, made their recommendations, and saw their proposals fall on deaf ears. The Army would not spend money to automate our Registry while the Central Records Facility (CRF), located at Ft Holabird MD, was still a manual operation. CRF was the final home of all data that flowed into CR.

During my last year in CR, I proposed that we code CPI, so that it would be easier and more accurate to perform "lookups". This proposal was approved, and we began the conversion with the smallest letter of the alphabet, "y" I believe. Before I left, we had converted all cards in four letters. I visited the CR several years later, and learned that they had completed the conversion. The CPI was able to produce far more work with less people after the conversion.

CR and CPI processed requests for information from all the allied intelligence agencies in the USAREUR area. We had a backlog at one time, and made a one-time push to reduce the backlog. In this special push, we were able to process more that 44,000 requests for information. We were not able to maintain the rate, but with the advent of the conversion to the modified Soundex code, better and faster intelligence reports were possible from the data in CR.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

I was in the CIC back in the 1950's.  After finishing Language school, I was assigned to the Liaison Group in Offenbach, Germany but after a couple of weeks, I was reassigned to Bad Cannstatt to study German at the 66th Headquarters.

Comments on some of the buildings at Wallace Barracks during that period:
Two things to keep in mind. The CIC was effectively dismantled in 1967 with its duties parceled out to other agencies and commands, so these plans and photos, made in 1973, do not quite represent the kaserne as it existed in the 1950's and 1960's. For instance the complex made up of 4323/4324/4325/4327 and 4320/4321/4322 have been added since then.

Second: while C.J. remembers the very large area behind 4307 and 4308 as a very large motor pool, he does not make any comment about the other buildings 4310/4311/4315/4316) and I tend to think that the post was a multipurpose post, with those buildings being under a separate command.

I think, at the time, the area defined by 4300 around to 4307 and 4308 pretty much was the 66th area.

4300: When you went into 4300 by the door across from the library (Bdlg 4301), you went into the EM Club.

When you walked through the club or came in the far door you were in the mess hall. Neither C.J nor I remember the jutting out portion of the building and perhaps that was a later expansion of the mess hall to facilitate a larger number of people. I do seem to remember a very small area of the mess hall being a place to buy toiletries and etc. but C. J. says that the PX and the movie theater were in a complex a couple of miles up the hill from Wallace. I think he was referring to Robinson Barracks area.

4301: A small portion of this building (neither of us can remember if it was upstairs or down stairs) was the post library, with a very nice young lady named “Elsa” as the librarian. The remainder of the building was occupied by the local CIC field office. I was in the library often but only in the field office one time. Having just graduated from the Army Language School where I studied Polish, I and a classmate were asked to help translate a letter in Polish.

4303: according to C.J., this building was rumored to have been the CIA, so I am assuming it was off limits to everyone else.

4304: was the 66th CIC Headquarters building. C.J. says that among other things there were various offices, a Microfilm Library and, in the basement, was a snack bar and the post office.

4305: Now, the rest of the buildings on post were off limits to me with the exception of 4305, which was the enlisted men's barracks, with a laundry, dry cleaners and barber shop in the basement. The very far end of the building there was a large room. The front part of which was used as billets for temporary personnel coming and going from and to other posts. The end portion of the room was closed off by metal lockers and that is where the students of the German class were billeted.

4307: According to C.J., who had a lot of experience with the transportation functions, 4307 was the Motor Pool Office, Service and repair area. I never knew what was in most of the building but the very far right end of it was a couple of class rooms for training. The German class that I attended was at the end of it.

4308: C.J. seems to think that 4308 contained a handball court or says that it was in that general area. So perhaps that was a gymnasium set-up. As I said, I was only there six months and that was in intense eight hour days of studying German. So, I really did not get exposed to that part of the post.

It is a little confusing about the officer's quarters. C.J. had to drive off post to pick-up and transport officers from a off-post site to bring them back to Wallace for the monthly alert exercise but that might have been for the married officers. If there were on post a BOQ and mess, I do not know and neither does C.J. It is possible that they were billeted at Robinson Barracks

That just about wraps up our knowledge but I think it pretty much pin points things as they were in the 50's and 60's. If you have any questions, however. Feel free to ask them. It may juggle our memories even more.

Both C.J. and I have actually enjoyed this little journey back to Bad Cannstatt.

I was stationed with the 66th INTC Group at the Grosse Reiter - Wallace Barracks and was an Intelligence Coordinator, assigned to work with coordinating and analyzing filed reports from most of the US Army commands along the East German border. Several of us, who were trained at Fort Holabird during the Cuban Missile crisis were assigned to the 66th or the 513th in Frankfurt (Oberursel).

I arrived in January, 1963, via troop ship to Bremerhaven and then transported to Stuttgart/BadCanstadt for assignment. Upon arrival and shown our billets, it was apparent that the Kasserne needed some updating. The shower room window was broken and ice and snow covered the floor. Not a pleasant arrival experience.

This was an ideal location to be able to catch the Strassenbahn to downtown Stuttgart and it was an easy drive to Munich and Nuernberg. We were restricted from travel to Berlin at that time...as well as to Albania....primarily for security reasons.

I was in Bad Cannstadt until April 1965, when I was assigned to the 527th MI Company in Kaiserslautern, working to support field operations.

In June I rotated CONUS as an E-5.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone stationed there during that period....Larry Thrall, Carlos Vannicola, Dal Lane, George Daily, etc.

66th MI Group

Time period for this aerial view of McGraw Ksn, Munich, home of the 66th MI Gp, has not been established yet.

The 18th MI Battalion traces its history back to the closing days of WWII. In the spring of 1945, the U.S. Army took control of DULAG LUFT, just outside of FRANKFURT (OBERURSEL). During the war, this camp was used as a German Interrogation Center for captured Allied Air Force personnel.

On Sep 19 1946, the compound was renamed Camp King in honor of Col. Charles B. King and placed under the control of HQ 7707th EUCOM Intelligence Center.

The Collection and Interrogation Battalion (C&I Bn), one of several units assigned to the camp, was tasked with its first post-war mission: debriefing major German war criminals prior to their trials at NÜRNBERG. Later, the C&I Bn was tasked with debriefing German POW's returning from captivity in the Soviet Union.

In Mar 1966, the unit was redes the 18th MI Battlion. Two years later it was reassigned to the 66th MI Gp and shortly thereafter relocated from OBERURSEL to MUNICH.

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION
18th Military Intelligence Battalion operated the Joint Interrogation Center in Germany. There the unit gathered tactical and strategic information from all border crossers and other human sources.