Col. Curtis L. Williams collection

The collection consists of letters, reports, affidavits, memoranda and other documents compiled by Colonel Curtis L. Williams as a member of the Interrogation Division of Office US Chief of Counsel for the International Military Tribunal in Paris, France and Nuremberg, Germany, August-December 1945. The bulk of the documents regard German anti-partisan activities in Italy, including a massacre of 335 Italian men in Rome on 24 March 1944. Other reports include organizational charts, “The Kesselring file,” and “The development of the German Navy since 1933.” Interrogations, affidavits, reports, and letters involve several high ranking Nazis, including Kurt Schuschnigg, Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, Franz von Papen, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Franz Halder, Erich Raeder, Hermann Reinecke, Fritz Wiedemann, Albert Kesselring, Karl Wolff, Herbert Kappler, Wilhelm Harster, and Franz Hofer. Curtis Lee Williams (1907-1961) was born in 1907 in Stone Bridge, Texas. His father died when he was two. His mother remarried and the family relocated to Oklahoma. Curtis graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Oklahoma A&M. He was also active in ROTC. He then received his law degree from University of Oklahoma. In 1927 he married Harriet Cecilia Scott. In 1936 they moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma where Curtis practiced law and was a captain in the National Guard. Curtis and Cecilia’s son Edwin Arnold Williams was born in March 1940. Their second son, Curtis Scott Williams, was born in January 1942. When the United States entered World War II, Curtis was assigned to General Douglas MacArthur’s staff in Washington, D.C. and then transferred to the Inspector General’s office. After the war, Curtis served as a member of the Interrogation Division of Office US Chief of Counsel for the International Military Tribune in Paris, France and Nuremberg, Germany, August-December 1945. Following his involvement with IMT Curtis continued his law career with the military and in private practice.