Robert E. Matteson

Robert E. Matteson
Personal details
Born	1914
Died	1994
Nativity	United States
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	United States Army
ASN	37575990
Unit / division	80th Infantry Division

Interview Watch Robert E. Matteson on USHMM oral history (video + transcript).

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Robert E. Matteson (1914–1994) was a Camp Ritchie–associated Counter Intelligence Corps officer with Patton’s Third Army (80th Infantry Division) who helped capture Ernst Kaltenbrunner, entered Ebensee after the SS fled, and later handled personnel security at the Nuremberg trials.

Biography

Robert Eliot Matteson (1914–1994) attended Carleton College and served in Europe as head of a Counter Intelligence Corps unit operating under the 80th Infantry Division in General George S. Patton’s Third U.S. Army. The Classes 1–31 / demographics roster associates him with Camp Ritchie.

Near the end of the war his unit met Soviet forces at Steyr, Austria, then pulled back toward the Salzburg–Vienna Autobahn. At Gmunden he and interpreter Sidney Bruskin picked up the first solid lead that SS Obergruppenführer Ernst Kaltenbrunner—head of the Reich Security Main Office—had been in the area days earlier. Pushing south toward the supposed Alpine “national redoubt,” Matteson and Bruskin were among the first Americans into the Ebensee concentration camp after the SS guards fled: they forced the lock, found piles of bodies at the crematorium and a chemical ditch used for executions, and radioed for medics and food for the survivors.

Following further leads through Bad Ischl and Altaussee, Matteson’s party tracked Kaltenbrunner to a remote mountain cabin, arrested him with associates (including adjutant Arthur Scheidler), recovered documents and a Gestapo badge, and delivered the prisoners for higher interrogation. Kaltenbrunner was later held at Britain’s Camp 020 before trial. In November 1945 Matteson was transferred to personnel security for the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg; he tested cell-block security himself and briefly confronted major defendants including Julius Streicher and Hermann Göring.

After the war Matteson directed research for Harold Stassen’s presidential bid and, on 9 April 1947, accompanied Stassen to Moscow for a meeting with Joseph Stalin. He later studied the Kaltenbrunner case at Oxford (1979) with Hugh Trevor-Roper, visited Albert Speer in Heidelberg in 1978, served on the CIA Board of Estimates (1959–1962, overt side, by his account), and in later years worked as a private citizen on U.S.–Cuba cultural contacts while accredited to the Ashland Daily Press in northern Wisconsin. In June 1982 he recorded a video oral history at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls that is held by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Technical record

Field	Imported value
row_source	demographics

Timeline

• 1914 — Born (Robert Eliot Matteson).
• Attended Carleton College.
• WWII — Head of a CIC unit under the 80th Infantry Division, Third U.S. Army; Camp Ritchie association on roster.
• Spring 1945 — Met Soviet forces at Steyr, Austria; first lead on Kaltenbrunner at Gmunden (with Sidney Bruskin).
• Spring 1945 — Entered Ebensee concentration camp after SS withdrawal; radioed for relief.
• Spring 1945 — Tracked and arrested Ernst Kaltenbrunner near Altaussee; recovered documents and badge.
• November 1945 — Assigned to personnel security, Palace of Justice, Nuremberg trials.
• 9 April 1947 — In Moscow with Harold Stassen; meeting with Joseph Stalin.
• 1959–1962 — CIA Board of Estimates (overt estimates work, by his later account).
• 1978 — Visited Albert Speer in Heidelberg.
• 1979 — Research term at Oxford on the Kaltenbrunner story (Trevor-Roper / Michael Howard).
• June 1982 — Oral-history interview, University of Wisconsin–River Falls (USHMM RG-50.043.0005).
• 1994 — Died.

Sources

• Robert E. Matteson oral-history English transcript (USHMM RG-50.043.0005)
• Oral history interview with Robert E. Matteson — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
• Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
• NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
• 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)