By May 1945, Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler were dead. The war with Nazi Germany was over, but the threat of the Communist Soviets remained. “The future of war and weapons hung in the balance. What would happen to the Nazi scientists? Who would be hired and who would be hanged?” (Paperclip 84).
As WWII came to a close, American and British organizations worked together to search Germany for as much military, scientific, and technological research as they could find. They began confiscating war-related documents, interrogating scientists, and searching German research facilities. The Osenberg List, recovered from a toilet at Bonn University, was a list of scientists and engineers who had worked for the Third Reich.
The aim was to find and preserve German weapons, including biological and chemical agents, but American scientific intelligence officers quickly realized the weapons themselves were not enough. They decided the United States needed to bring the Nazi scientists to the U.S. Thus began a mission to recruit top Nazi doctors, physicists, and chemists--including Wernher von Braun, who went on to design the rockets that took man to the moon” (Rath, 2014). |
Ironically, it seemed that the U.S. valued the Nazi scientists more than Germany did. Hitler distrusted intellectuals and it was not until 1943, when the invasion of the USSR failed, that Hitler recalled all the scientists and engineers.
Overnight, Ph.D.s were liberated from K.P. (Kitchen Patrol) duty, masters of science were recalled from orderly service, mathematicians were hauled out of bakeries, and precision mechanics ceased to be truck drivers” (Peenemünde, Huzel). |
Operation Paperclip was a secret U.S. government program in which 1,600 German scientists, along with their families were brought to the U.S. The goal of the program was to use German intellectual resources to help develop America’s arsenal of rockets and ensure that the information did not fall into Soviet hands.
Although President Harry Truman sanctioned the operation, he forbade the agency from recruiting any Nazi members. The Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) eliminated or whitewashed incriminating evidence of possible war crimes from the scientists’ records. They believed that the scientists’ intelligence was crucial to the U.S.’s postwar efforts.
Although President Harry Truman sanctioned the operation, he forbade the agency from recruiting any Nazi members. The Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) eliminated or whitewashed incriminating evidence of possible war crimes from the scientists’ records. They believed that the scientists’ intelligence was crucial to the U.S.’s postwar efforts.
Annie Jacobsen's Book Tour [C-SPAN.org, n.d.]
Book TV: https://www.c-span.org/video/?317955-1/operation-paperclip The blockhouse team (Apollo team) was a mixture of German rocket scientists, former Army technicians, and booster contractors. The Germans were most often found talking in their native language, huddled over their displays and praying for things to go right” (Kranz, 27). |
The Soviets also recruited German scientists because they did not want America to have them. However, the Soviets loathed the Germans because they had invaded Russia. The Soviets refused to put the German scientists in positions of power or importance. Meanwhile, the Germans became an integral part of the U.S. space program.
As Apollo 7 lifted off in October 1968, a voice from the spacecraft came crackling through the static: “I vunder vere Guenter Vendt?” (Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin, 51). |
Guenter Wendt was a German Air Force flight engineer during WWII who became the launch pad leader of the Apollo team. The astronauts affectionately called him, “the fuhrer of the pad,” a nickname given to him by John Glenn.
Notable Operation Paperclip Scientists