Operation Paperclip scientists pose together.

Operation Paperclip was the code name under which the US intelligence and military services extricated Nazi scientists from Germany, during and after the final stages of World War II. The project was originally called Operation Overcast, and is sometimes also known as Project Paperclip. [1] Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (3000x1310, 2880 KB) [edit] Summary The German Rocket Team, also known as the Von Braun Rocket Team, poses for a group photograph at Fort Bliss, Texas. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (3000x1310, 2880 KB) [edit] Summary The German Rocket Team, also known as the Von Braun Rocket Team, poses for a group photograph at Fort Bliss, Texas. ... A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word. ... National Socialism redirects here. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

Overview

When the Allies entered Germany in 1945 their scientific intelligence experts were astounded by the sheer scope of the German technical and scientific accomplishments. The original unnamed plan to only interview scientists changed after Major Robert Staver, staff officer of the Ordnance Corps Rocket Branch, sent a cable (signed by Colonel Joel Holmes)^[1] to the Pentagon on May 22 1945 of the urgency to evacuate the German technicians and their families as "important for Pacific war."^[2] Branch insignia of Ordnance Corps The Ordnance Corps is a combat service support branch of the United States Army. ...

Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years the U.S. pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents in Germany. John Gimbel comes to the conclusion, in his book Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany, that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to $10 billion.^[3][4][5] For other uses, see United States (disambiguation) and US (disambiguation). ... One thousand million (1,000,000,000) is the natural number following 999,999,999 and preceding 1,000,000,001. ...

The program of acquiring German scientists and technicians for the U.S. was not only founded in profit interests, however; an equally strong motivator was the desire to deny the expertise of German scientists to the Soviet Union.^[6] The case for finding and holding Nobel laurate Werner Heisenberg was summed up thus "…he was worth more to us than ten divisions of Germans. Heisenberg was in charge of the German secret atomic bomb program code-named "Virus House". Had he fallen into Russian hands, he would have proven invaluable to them."^[7] The Nobel Prizes (Swedish: ) are awards in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. ... Werner Karl Heisenberg (December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976) was a celebrated German physicist and Nobel laureate, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, and acknowledged to be one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century. ... Symbol of the Polish 1st Legions Infantry Division in NATO code A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of around ten to twenty thousand soldiers. ... The German experimental nuclear pile at Haigerloch The German nuclear energy project was an endeavor by scientists during World War II in Nazi Germany to develop nuclear energy and an atomic bomb for practical use. ...

Of particular interest to the U.S. were scientists specialising in aerodynamics and rocketry (such as those involved in the V-1 and V-2 projects), chemical weapons, chemical reaction technology and medicine. These scientists and their families were secretly brought to the United States, without State Department review and approval; their service for Hitler's Third Reich, NSDAP and SS memberships as well as the classification of many as war criminals or security threats would have disqualified them from officially obtaining visas. This article does not cite its references or sources. ... A rocket is a vehicle, missile or aircraft which obtains thrust by the reaction to the ejection of fast moving exhaust from within a rocket engine. ... The Vergeltungswaffe 1 Fi 103 / FZG-76 (V-1), known as the Flying bomb, Buzz bomb or Doodlebug, was the first modern guided missile used in wartime and the first cruise missile. ... The Vergeltungswaffe 2 (Reprisal weapon 2) (V-2), also known as the A4 (Aggregat 4), was the first ballistic missile. ... Early detection of chemical agents Sociopolitical climate of chemical warfare While the study of chemicals and their military uses was widespread in China, the use of toxic materials has historically been viewed with mixed emotions and some disdain in the West (especially when the enemy were doing it). ... A chemical reaction occurs when vapours of hydrogen chloride in a beaker and ammonia in a test tube meet to form a cloud of a new substance, ammonium chloride A chemical reaction is a process that results in the interconversion of chemical substances. ... The United States Department of State, often referred to as the State Department, is the Cabinet-level foreign affairs agency of the United States government, equivalent to foreign ministries in other countries. ... The Nazi swastika symbol The National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), better known as the NSDAP or the Nazi Party was a political party that was led to power in Germany by Adolf Hitler in 1933. ... SS or ss or Ss may be: The Schutzstaffel, a Nazi paramilitary force Steamship (SS) (ship prefix) The United States Secret Service A submarine not powered by nuclear energy (SS) (United States Navy designator), see SSN A Soviet/Russian surface-to-surface missile, as listed by NATO reporting name Shortstop... Image of an entry visa valid in Schengen treaty countries. ...

Another aim of the operation was capturing German equipment before the Soviets came in. Where that was not possible, the US Army destroyed some of the equipment to prevent its capture by the advancing Red Army. For example, a prototype Horton Ho-229 jet-powered, flying wing fighter/bomber was captured by the Americans and sent to the Northrop Corporation for evaluation, while several more partial Ho-229 airframes were destroyed. The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ... Red Army flag The Workers and Peasants Red Army (Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия, Raboche-Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya; RKKA or usually simply the Red Army) were the armed forces first organized by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918 and that in 1922 became the army of the Soviet Union. ... The Horten Ho 229 (often erroneously called Gotha Go 229 due to the identity of the chosen manufacturer of the aircraft) was a late-World War II prototype flying wing fighter/bomber, designed by Reimar and Walter Horten and built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik. ... The Northrop Corporation was a leading aircraft manufacturer of the United States. ...

The majority of the scientists, numbering almost 500, were deployed at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico; Fort Bliss, Texas; and Huntsville, Alabama to work on guided missile and ballistic missile technology. In September 1945, the first group of seven rocket scientists arrived from Germany at Fort Strong in the US: Wernher von Braun, Erich W. Neubert, Theodor A. Poppel, August Schultze, Eberhard Rees, Wilhelm Jungert and Walter Schwidetzky.^[8]. White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), formerly known as the White Sands Proving Grounds, is located in Otero County, New Mexico, mostly in the Tularosa Basin, a valley between the Organ Mountains, San Andres Mountains and the Sacramento Mountains of the U.S. state of New Mexico, it includes the northern... Capital Santa Fe Largest city Albuquerque Area  Ranked 5th  - Total 121,665 sq mi (315,194 km²)  - Width 342 miles (550 km)  - Length 370 miles (595 km)  - % water 0. ... Fort Bliss is a census-designated place and US Army post located in El Paso County, Texas. ... Official language(s) English (de facto) See also languages of Texas Capital Austin Largest city Houston Area  Ranked 2nd  - Total 261,797 sq mi (261,797 km²)  - Width 773 miles (1,244 km)  - Length 790 miles (1,270 km)  - % water 2. ... Nickname: Rocket City Watercress Capital of the World Coordinates: Country United States State Alabama County Madison, Limestone Mayor Loretta Spencer Area    - City 174. ... A guided missile is a military rocket that can be directed in flight to change its flight path. ... Diagram of V-2, the first ballistic missile. ... Wernher von Braun stands at his desk in the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama in May 1964, with models of rockets developed and in progress. ...

The United States Bureau of Mines employed seven German synthetic fuel scientists in a Fischer-Tropsch chemical plant in Louisiana, Missouri in 1946. [2] For most of the 20th century, the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) was the primary United States Government agency conducting scientific research and disseminating information on the extraction, processing, use, and conservation of mineral resources. ... Synthetic fuel or synfuel is any liquid fuel obtained from coal or from natural gas. ... Fischer-Tropsch Process for Synthetic Diesel Fuel The Fischer-Tropsch process is a catalyzed chemical reaction in which carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane are converted into liquid hydrocarbons of various forms. ... Louisiana is a city located in Pike County, Missouri. ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

In total the U.S. brought home 3,500 German scientists, while 20,000 went to Russia.[3]

Related Operations

• Special Mission V-2 - US operation commanded by Major William Bromley to recover V-2 rocket parts and equipment. Major James P. Hamill, with the aid of the 144th Motor Vehicle Assembly Company, coordinated the shipment of the first trainload of V-2 equipment from Nordhausen to Erfurt.^[9]

• Operation Backfire (WWII) - Rocket experiments in the area of Cuxhaven

• ECLIPSE - unimplimented 1944 plan for post-war operations in Europe^[10] that would destroy V-1 and V-2 missiles found by the Air Disarmament Wing.^[11]

• JCS Directive 1067/14 - modified U.S. occupation directive stating that German scientist should be detained as needed for intelligence purposes, except for war-criminals.^[12]

• Field Information Agency; Technical (FIAT) - US Army agency in the search for information to use against WWII Japan.^[13] The project greatly benefited U.S. commercial interests.^[14] FIAT was dissolved in 1947 when operation PAPERCLIP began large scale operations.

• DUSTBIN (counterpart of ASHCAN) - US Army detention center established first in Paris and later in Kransberg Castle outside Frankfurt.^[15]

• Project 63 - "Project to help former Nazis obtain jobs with Lockheed, Martin Marietta, North American Aviation or other defense contractors during a time when many American engineers in the aircraft industry were being laid off."^[16] (see also National Interest)

• Operation Alsos - US effort to capture German nuclear secrets, equipment and personnel

• Target Intelligence Committee (TICOM) - US project to gather German experts in cryptography.

• Operation Surgeon - UK operation to deny German aeronautical expertise to the Soviet Union and instead exploit the scientists in order to further British research. ^[17]

The Vergeltungswaffe 2 (Reprisal weapon 2) (V-2), also known as the A4 (Aggregat 4), was the first ballistic missile. ... Roland statue in Nordhausen Twinning The city is twinned with Bet Shemesh in Israel Charleville-Mézières in France Bochum Ostrów Wielkopolski in Poland Nordhausen is a city of about 45,000 people at the southern border of the Harz mountains, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. ... Operation Backfire was a military scientific operation during and after World War II, which was performed mainly by British staff. ... Between 1933 and 1964 numerous rocket experiments were carried out in the area of Cuxhaven, Germany. ... The Morgenthau Plan showing the planned partitioning of Germany into a North State, a South State, and an International zone. ... Project ALSOS, also called Operation Alsos, was an effort at the end of World War II by the Allies (principally Great Britain and the United States), branched off from the Manhattan Project, to investigate the German nuclear energy project, seize German nuclear resources, materials and personnel to further American research... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 kilometers (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ... TICOM (Target Intelligence Committee) was a project formed in World War II by the United States to find and seize German intelligence assets, particularly cryptographic ones. ... Operation Surgeon was a U.K post-World War II program to exploit German aeronautics and deny German technical skills to the Soviet Union. ... Aeronautics is the mathematics and mechanics of flying objects, in particular airplanes. ...

Popular Culture

• In the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the title character is an expatriate Nazi and nuclear physicist (based at least partially on Wernher von Braun).

• In the film Ice Station Zebra, a character describes the tactical situation: "The Russians put our camera made by our German scientists and your film made by your German scientists into their satellite made by their German scientists."

• The The X-Files episode Paper Clip has several fictional surviving scientists.

• The novel Space has a segment with a fictionalized account of Operation Paperclip.

• In the comic book Astro City, the title city was engineered by a Nazi Scientist.

• In the movie The Good German, an American journalist discovers some aspects of Operation Overcast.

For the hit 1987 single by Depeche Mode, see the album Music for the Masses Film poster for Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a 1964 satirical film directed by Stanley Kubrick. ... Wernher von Braun stands at his desk in the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama in May 1964, with models of rockets developed and in progress. ... The cover of the 1965 UK paperback edition of: Ice Station Zebra Ice Station Zebra is a 1963 novel written by Alistair MacLean and a 1968 film made from that novel. ... For other uses, see The X-Files (disambiguation). ... Metal paperclip A paperclip is a device which holds several sheets of paper together by means of pressure: it leaves the paper intact and can be easily removed. ... Space is a novel by James A. Michener published in 1982. ... Astro City, vol. ... The Good German is a 2006 feature film adaptation of a novel by Joseph Kanon. ...

Key Figures

• ROCKETRY: Wernher von Braun, Walter Dornberger, Ernst R. G. Eckert, Bernhard Tessmann, Arthur Rudolph, Ernst Stuhlinger, Konrad Dannenberg, Kurt Debus, Krafft Arnold Ehricke, Gerhard Reisig, Rudi Beichel, Fritz Mueller, Werner Dahm, Otto Hirschler, Werner Rosinski
• AERONAUTICS: Alexander Martin Lippisch, Hans von Ohain, Hans Multhopp
• MEDICINE: Walter Schreiber, Kurt Blome, Hubertus Strughold
• ELECTRONICS: Hans Ziegler, Kurt Lehovec
• INTELLIGENCE: Reinhard Gehlen

Wernher von Braun stands at his desk in the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama in May 1964, with models of rockets developed and in progress. ... Major-General Dr Walter Robert Dornberger (September 6, 1895 - June 27, 1980) was a German army officer whose career spanned World Wars I and II. During the 1930s and 40s, he directed Germanys rocket and missile programmes, which culminated in the V-2. ... Ernst R.G. Eckert (1904-2004) Ernst R. G. Eckert (ERG) (1904-2004) was a scientist who worked in the area of heat and mass transfer. ... Bernhard Tessmann was a German expert in guided missiles during World War II. He was born on August 15th, 1912. ... Rudolph managed the Marshall Space Flight Center Saturn V Program Office. ... Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger is an American atomic, electrical and rocket scientist born in Niederrimbach, Germany, on December 19, 1913. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Alexander Martin Lippisch (1894-1976) Alexander Martin Lippisch (November 2, 1894 – February 11, 1976) was a German pioneer of aerodynamics. ... Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain (December 14, 1911 – March 13, 1998) was one of the inventors of jet propulsion. ... Hans Multhopp was a German aerospace engineer during the Second World War. ... Dr Walter Paul Emil Schreiber (21 March 1893–?) was a German military officer and Brigadier General (Generalarzt) of the Medical Service of Wehrmacht. ... Kurt Blome was a high-ranking Nazi scientist before and during the Second World War. ... Hubertus Strughold (1898-1987) was a German pioneer of space medicine and the author of over 180 papers in the field. ... Dr. Hans K. Ziegler was responsible for the first application of photovoltaic solar cells as a power source for satellites. ... Kurt Lehovec was involved with the invention of the integrated circuit in 1959. ... Reinhard Gehlen (April 3, 1902 – June 8, 1979) was a Major General in the Nazi Wehrmacht during World War II, with the position of chief of intelligence-gathering on the Eastern Front. ...

Key locations

• Nordhausen
• Mittelwerk/Dora Concentration Camp
• Peenemünde
• White Sands Missile Range
• Nieves
• Fort Bliss
• Fort Monmouth, NJ

Roland statue in Nordhausen Twinning The city is twinned with Bet Shemesh in Israel Charleville-Mézières in France Bochum Ostrów Wielkopolski in Poland Nordhausen is a city of about 45,000 people at the southern border of the Harz mountains, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. ... Categories: Stub | Nazi concentration camps ... Peenemündes position in Germany Peenemünde is a village in the northeast of the German island of Usedom. ... White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), formerly known as the White Sands Proving Grounds, is located in Otero County, New Mexico, mostly in the Tularosa Basin, a valley between the Organ Mountains, San Andres Mountains and the Sacramento Mountains of the U.S. state of New Mexico, it includes the northern... Fort Bliss is a census-designated place and US Army post located in El Paso County, Texas. ... Ft. ...

See also

• ODESSA
• Nazi medical experiments
• Zippe-type centrifuge
• Camp Evans
• Allen Welsh Dulles

For other uses, see Odessa (disambiguation). ... Nazi human experimentation was medical experimentation on large numbers of people by the German Nazi regime in its concentration camps during World War II. // Two Nazi doctors at the Dachau concentration camp preside over a cold water immersion experiment on a prisoner. ... The Zippe-type centrifuge is a device designed to collect Uranium-235. ... // Camp Evans Camp Evans, New Jersey is a former military base associated with Fort Monmouth. ... Allen W. Dulles Allen Welsh Dulles (April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and also the longest serving director (1953-1961) of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and a member of the Warren Commission. ...

References

• Joint Intelligence Objectives

Agency (2). Objective List of German and Austrian Scientists (Microsoft Word), p176.  The current BBC News logo BBC News and Current Affairs is a major arm of the BBC responsible for the corporations newsgathering and production of news programmes on BBC television, radio and online. ...

• Linda Hunt, "U.S. Coverup of Nazi Scientists" Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. April 1985; "Arthur Rudolph of Dora and NASA". 1987; "NASA's Nazis". May 23, 1987

• Norman M. Naimark The Russians in Germany; A History of the Soviet Zone of occupation, 1945-1949 Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-78406-5

• Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988)

Further reading

• John Gimbel, "Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany" Stanford University Press, 1990 ISBN 0804717613
• Matthias Judt; Burghard Ciesla, "Technology Transfer Out of Germany After 1945" Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996. ISBN 3718658224
• John Gimbel "U.S. Policy and German Scientists: The Early Cold War", Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 101, No. 3 (1986), pp. 433-451
• Clarence G., Lasby "Project Paperclip: German Scientists and the Cold War" Scribner (February 1975) ISBN 0689705247
• Koerner, Steven T. "Technology Transfer from Germany to Canada after 1945: A Study in Failure?" Comparative Technology Transfer and Society - Volume 2, Number 1, April 2004, pp. 99-124
• C. Lester Walker "Secrets By The Thousands", Harper's Magazine. October 1946
• John Farquharson "Governed or Exploited? The British Acquisition of German Technology, 1945-48" Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Jan., 1997), pp. 23-42

Political Science Quarterly (PSQ) is an American scholarly journal covering government, politics and policy, published continuously since 1886. ... An issue of Harpers Magazine from 1905 Another issue, from November 2004 Harpers Magazine (or simply Harpers) is a monthly general-interest magazine covering literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts from a progressive, moderate left perspective in a fashion often not found in the ordinary news...

External links

• An overview at the National Security Archive
• A description of further V-2 development at White Sands
• Paperclip Scientists
• Radar and communications engineers and scientists invited to join US Army Signal Corps
• Operation Paperclip Casefile
• Project Paperclip: Dark side of the Moon BBC article.
• The Hunt for German patents
• SS members employed by the CIA
• "UK 'fears' over German scientists" BBC NewsUK 31 March 2006
• Employment of German scientists and technicians: denial policy UK National archives releases March 2006.
• Apollo's Rocketeers
• Scientists and friends
• Making the modern world