Originally called Operation Overcast, Operation Paperclip was the codename for the operation by the US intelligence services and military to extract scientists specialising in rocketry (e.g. V-1, V-2), chemical weapons (e.g. Zyklon-B) and medicine from Germany after the collapse of the Nazi government during World War II. These scientists and their families were secretly brought to the United States, without State Department review and approval. None of them qualified for visas because they had all served to further the cause of Hitler's Third Reich in World War II.
Over 700 members of the Nazi scientific community were brought to the US as a direct result of Operation Paperclip, many of whom were still ardent Nazi supporters.
Although PresidentHarry S. Truman gave explicit orders not to allow any scientists who were thought to have strong Nazi leanings to enter the US under Operation Paperclip, many dossiers were re-written to "clean-up" the histories of many of the scientists involved, to prevent them and their expertise falling into the hands of the Soviet Union.
Much of the information surrounding Operation Paperclip is still classified.
Separate from Paperclip was an even-more-secret effort to capture German nuclear secrets, equipment and personnel. See Operation Alsos. Another American project (TICOM) gathered German experts in cryptography.
The PaperClipsProject is a project by middle school students from the small southeastern Tennessee city of Whitwell who created a monument for the Holocaust victims in Nazi Germany.
Having difficulty in comprehending the massive scale of the Holocaust, students decided to collect 6,000,000 paperclips to represent the estimated 6,000,000 Jews killed between 1939 and 1945 under the authority of the Nazi government of Adolf Hitler.
Paperclips were chosen in part because some people from Norway wore them on their lapels as a symbol of resistance against Nazi occupation during the World War II.
Feeds |
Contact