Browne was the author of a 1946 U.S. Army Report: "Covering the locating, safeguarding, collecting and disposition of NSDAP records during period 19 September 1945 to 21 January 1946, by the Office of Military Government for Regierungsbezirk Oberbayern."
The report, which is lodged in the U.S. National Archives, describes the discovery of the Nazi Party's worldwide membership card files in May 1945 by U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps personnel.
The report states, "An estimated 68,000 kilos of Party records and documents of Reichsleitung SA were discovered by agents of the 45th CIC Det in a paper mill at Freimann (X-8763).
The files subsequently became the heart of the collections of the Berlin Document Center (BDC), and were instrumental in the Allied Denazification of Germany, and in the Nuremberg War Crimes trials.
In 2006, Gregory Gordon, a career prosecutor at the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, wrote an article that also credited Thomas with the rescue of the files.