The Hoover Institution Library & Archives has acquired and digitized the papers of Donald Wayne Richardson, an ice-climbing mountaineer and US Army soldier during World War II. In May of 1945, Richardson led a patrol that searched the hunting lodge of top-ranking Nazi leader Hermann Göring. The collection, now fully digitized and available to the public through the Library & Archives’ Digital Collections website, contains dozens of candid photographs taken at the hunting lodge and another truly unique item: a pair of leather lederhosen worn by Göring himself while enjoying his country home in the Alps.
Donald Wayne Richardson was born in North Gorham, Maine July 12, 1923. At age five, his parents divorced and he went to live with his grandparents in Sebago Lake, Maine. He attended Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg, Maine, where he was part of the ski team coached by Austrian ski racing legends Hannes Schneider and Toni Matt. With advanced ski training, he volunteered with the US Army -10th Mountain Division as an instructor in 1943 at Camp Hale, Colorado. He then attended Officer Training School at Fort Benning and left for Germany in March of 1945. In May of that year, he led a mission to search the Bavarian Alps near the Austrian border. He and his fellow soldiers searched the personal hunting lodge of Hermann Goring, retrieving photographs and a pair of Göring’s lederhosen.
After returning home from WWII, Richardson married and attended the University of Denver School of Architecture, graduating in 1950. He settled in Oregon and became an architect known for church design. During his career, he drafted 170 churches throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Wyoming. He was chosen to create the Chapel Addition to the 1853 First United Methodist Church, the first Methodist church west of the Mississippi river. He also designed The Salem Civic Library and the Inn at Spanish Head in Lincoln City, Oregon. When not drafting buildings, he enjoyed watercolor painting, sailing, skiing, fishing, and serving as a leader in civic groups such as The Rotary Club and The National Board of Architecture Examiners. He was known as a gifted artist and a diplomat with a wry sense of humor.
