Operation Paperclip

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Operation Paperclip was the code name for the 1945 Office of Strategic Services, Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency^[1] recruitment of German scientists from Nazi Germany to the U.S. after VE Day.

President Truman authorized Operation Paperclip in August 1945; however he expressly ordered that anyone found "to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazi militarism" would be excluded.

Under this criterion many of the scientists recruited would have been ineligible. These included Wernher von Braun, Arthur Rudolph and Hubertus Strughold, who were all officially on record as Nazis and listed as a "menace to the security of the Allied Forces." All were cleared to work in the U.S. after having their backgrounds "bleached" by the military; false employment histories were provided, and their previous Nazi affiliations were expunged from the record. The paperclips that secured newly-minted background details to their personnel files gave the operation its name.^[2]

Group of 104 Operation Paperclip rocket scientists in 1946 at Fort Bliss (35 were at White Sands Proving Grounds).^[3]
(An imagemap with the name of the subjects is available here.)

[edit] Osenberg List

Following the failure of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Germany was at a disadvantage since its military industries were unprepared for a long war. As a result, Germany began efforts in Spring 1943 to recall scientists and technical personnel from combat units for use in research and development,^[4] including 4000 to rocket work:^[5]

The recall first required identifying the men, then finding them and ascertaining their political correctness and reliability, before their names were recorded on the Osenberg List, kept by Werner Osenberg, a University of Hannover engineer–scientist, head of the Wehrforschungsgemeinschaft (English: Military Research Association).^[6] In March 1945, a Polish laboratory technician found the pieces of the Osenberg List in an improperly flushed toilet.^[7] Major Robert B. Staver, Chief of the Jet Propulsion Section of the Research and Intelligence Branch of the U.S. Army Ordnance, London, used the Osenberg List to compile his blacklist of scientists to be interrogated, headed by rocket scientist Wernher von Braun.^[8]

[edit] Operation Overcast

The original, unnamed plan to only interview the rocket scientists changed after Major Staver sent Colonel Joel Holmes's cable to the Pentagon, on 22 May 1945, about the urgency of evacuating the German technicians and their families as "important for [the] Pacific war." ^[7] Most of the scientists were at Army Research Center Peenemünde which developed the V-2 rocket and were initially housed with their families in Landshut, Bavaria.

On 19 July 1945, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff designated the handling of the Nazi scientists and their families as Operation Overcast,^[8] but when their housing's nickname, "Camp Overcast," became common usage, Operation Overcast was renamed Operation Paperclip^[7][8] in March 1946.^[9]

An equally strong reason for these scientific rescues was to deny German expertise to the Soviets. For example, in Operation Alsos, nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg—principal scientist in the German nuclear energy project—was said by Allied intelligence to be "...worth more to us than ten divisions of Germans." ^[10] Besides rocketeers and nuclear physicists, Allied teams also searched for chemists, medical doctors, and naval weaponeers. Von Braun was for a time held in P. O. Box 1142, a facility that violated the Geneva convention, but according to the surviving wardens torture was not used.^[11] However, at least one of those interrogated, U-boat captain Werner Henke, committed suicide.

[edit] Capturing and Detention

The Allied zones of occupation in post-war Germany, highlighting the Soviet zone (red), the inner German border (heavy black line) and the zone from which British and American troops withdrew in July 1945 (purple). The provincial boundaries are those of pre-Nazi Weimar Germany, before the present Länder (federal states) were established.

Early on the U.S. created the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (CIOS). This provided the information on targets for the T-Forces that went in and targeted scientific, military and industrial installations (and their employees) for their know-how. Initial priorities were advanced technology such as infrared that could be used in the war against Japan, finding out what technology had been passed on to Japan, and finally to halt the research. The latter was codenamed "Project Safehaven", and was initially not targeted against the Soviet Union, instead it was feared that German scientists might emigrate and continue their research in countries such as Spain, Argentina or Egypt.

Much U.S. effort was focused in Saxony and Thuringia, in what per agreement on July 1, 1945 would be part of the Soviet Occupation zone. To these areas much of German research and facilities had been evacuated during the war, particularly from the Berlin area.

Fearing that the Soviet takeover would limit the ability to exploit scientific and technical know-how the U.S. instigated an evacuation, issuing orders such as:

On orders of Military Government you are to report with your family and baggage as much as you can carry tomorrow noon at 1300 hours (Friday, 22 June 1945) at the town square in Bitterfeld. There is no need to bring winter clothing. Easily carried possessions, such as family documents, jewelry, and the like should be taken along. You will be transported by motor vehicle to the nearest railway station. From there you will travel on to the West. Please tell the bearer of this letter how large your family is.

By 1947 it was estimated that this "evacuation" operation had netted 1,800 technicians and scientists, and 3,700 family-members. Those with special skills or knowledge were taken to detention and interrogation centers such as the one code-named DUSTBIN^[12], to be held and interrogated in some cases for months.

A few were taken up in Operation Overcast, but most were left in villages in the countryside where there were no facilities nor work for them, and were forced to report two times a week to police in order to stop them from leaving. The JCS directive on research and teaching stated that technicians and scientists such as them should be released "only after all interested agencies were satisfied that all desired intelligence information had been obtained from them".

On 5 November 1947 OMGUS held a conference regarding the monetary claims that the evacuees had filed against the U.S., their status, and the "possible violation by the U.S. of laws of war or Rules of Land Warfare". The OMGUS director of Intelligence R. L. Walsh initiated a program to resettle the evacuees into the Third world, which apparently came to nothing. It was by the Germans referred to as "General Walsh's Urwald-Programm" (Jungle program). In mid 1948 the evacuees received settlements of 69.5 million Reich Marks from the U.S., a settlement which immediately thereafter became severely devalued in the currency reform that introduced the Deutsche Mark.

John Gimbel concludes that some of Germany's most brilliant minds were simply put on ice for three years by the U.S. and therefore could not contribute to the German recovery.^[13]

[edit] Groups of scientists

In May 1945, the U.S. Navy acquired Dr. Herbert A. Wagner, a highly regarded expert in aerodynamics, controls and guidance. The inventor of the Hs 293 missile, Wagner worked for the first two years at the Special Devices Center located at the Castle Gould and Hempstead House in Long Island. In 1947, Wagner moved his operation to the Naval Air Station Point Mugu.^[14]

In early August 1945, Colonel Holger Toftoy, chief of the Rocket Branch in the Research and Development Division of Army Ordnance, offered initial one-year contracts to the rocket scientists. After Toftoy agreed to take care of their families, 127 scientists accepted the offer. 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 Schulze, Eberhard Rees, Wilhelm Jungert and Walter Schwidetzky.^[7] In November, December, and February, three subsequent groups of rocket scientists arrived in the US for duty at Fort Bliss and White Sands Proving Grounds as "War Department Special Employees."^[4]:27

In early 1950, U.S. legal residence for some "Paperclip Specialists" was effected ^[8] through the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, from which the scientists legally entered the U.S.^[4]:226 In later decades, the World War II activities of some scientists were investigated—Arthur Rudolph was exiled in 1984^[15] and then exonerated by Germany, Georg Rickhey was acquitted of war crimes, and Hubertus Strughold was implicated^[16] in Nazi human experimentation.

Eighty-six aeronautical engineers were transferred to Wright Field, which had acquired Luftwaffe aircraft and equipment under Operation Lusty (Luftwaffe Secret Technology).^[17]

The 'United States Army Signal Corps' employed 24 specialists—including physicists Drs. Georg Goubau, Gunter Guttwein, Georg Hass, Horst Kedesdy, and Kurt Levovec; physical chemists Professor Rudolf Brill and Drs. Ernst Baars and Eberhard Both; geophysicist Dr. Helmut Weickmann; technical optician Dr. Gerhard Schwesinger; and electronics engineers Drs. Eduard Gerber, Richard Guenther and Hans Ziegler^[18]

The 'United States Bureau of Mines' employed seven German synthetic fuel scientists in a Fischer-Tropsch chemical plant in Louisiana, Missouri in 1946.^[19]

In 1959, ninety-four Operation Paperclip men went to the U.S., including Friedwardt Winterberg, and Friedrich Wigand.^[14] Through 1990, the operation immigrated 1,600 personnel,^[14] with the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the U.K. (patents and industrial processes) valued at some $10 billion.^[20]

[edit] Related operations

February, 1958. Return of German scientists from the Soviet Union. (see also Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union)

• APPLEPIE: Project to locate and interrogate key German personnel of RSHA AMT VI and members of the German Army Staff who were knowledgeable about Soviet industrial and economic matters.^[21]

• DUSTBIN (counterpart of ASHCAN): British-American operation^[22] established first in Paris and later in Kransberg Castle outside Frankfurt.^[23]:314

• ECLIPSE: unimplemented 1944 plan for post-war operations in Europe^[23] that would destroy V-1 and V-2 missiles found by the Air Disarmament Wing.^[24]:44
  • Safehaven: US project under ECLIPSE to prevent German researchers from escaping to other countries (e.g., Latin America).^[8]

• Field Information Agency; Technical (FIAT): US Army agency for securing the "major, and perhaps only, material reward of victory, namely, the advancement of science and the improvement of production and standards of living in the United Nations by proper exploitation of German methods in these fields."^[23]:316 FIAT was dissolved in 1947 when operation PAPERCLIP began large scale operations.

• JCS Directive 1067/14: On April 26, 1946, Joint Chiefs of Staff Order 1067 had been issued to General Eisenhower to "preserve from destruction and take under your control records, plans, books, documents, papers, files and scientific, industrial and other information and data belonging to … German organizations engaged in military research."^[7]:185 The U.S. occupation directive stated that German scientists should be detained as needed for intelligence purposes, except for war-criminals.^[25]

• National Interest/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."^[14]

• Operation Alsos, Operation Big, Russian Alsos: US and USSR efforts to capture German nuclear secrets, equipment and personnel

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

• Operation Lusty: US efforts to capture German aeronautical secrets, equipment and personnel

• Operation Surgeon: British operation to deny German aeronautical expertise to the USSR and instead exploit the scientists in order to further British research.^[26]

• 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.^[8][1] (see also Operation Blossom, Broomstick Scientists, Hermes project, Operations Sandy and Pushover)

• Target Intelligence Committee: US project to gather German experts in cryptography.

[edit] In popular culture

• Former Nazi Germany scientists working for the US are featured in the films Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and The Right Stuff; in an X-Files TV episode; in the Astro City and Ministry of Space comic books; and in the Area 51 novels.
• An episode of The X-Files, entitled Paper Clip, which first aired on Friday September 29, 1995, references Operation Paperclip.^[27]
• The 2006 film The Good Shepherd depicts the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union for German scientists.
• The novel Space contains a fictionalized account of Operation Paperclip.
• In the film The Good German, an American war correspondent discovers aspects of Operation Overcast.
• Operation Paperclip is mentioned in the Chuck Palahniuk novel Rant.
• The second season of Twin Peaks reveals character Garland Briggs worked on Operation Paperclip.
• Operation Paperclip is explained in the Discovery Channel's special entitled "Nazi/UFO Conspiracy".^[28]
• The novel Fall on Your Knees by Canadian author Ann-Marie MacDonald features Operation Paperclip as a subplot.

[edit] Key figures

• Rocketry: (see also List of German rocket scientists in the US): Rudi Beichel, Magnus von Braun, Wernher von Braun, Walter Dornberger, Werner Dahm, Konrad Dannenberg, Kurt H. Debus, Ernst R. G. Eckert, Krafft Arnold Ehricke, Otto Hirschler, Hermann H. Kurzweg, Fritz Mueller, Gerhard Reisig, Georg Rickhey, Arthur Rudolph, Ernst Stuhlinger, Werner Rosinski, Eberhard Rees, Ludwig Roth, Bernhard Tessmann
• Aeronautics: Alexander Martin Lippisch, Hans von Ohain, Hans Multhopp, Kurt Tank
• Medicine: Walter Schreiber, Kurt Blome, Hubertus Strughold, Hans Antmann (Human factors)^[17]
• Electronics: Hans Ziegler, Kurt Lehovec, Hans Hollmann, Johannes Plendl, Heinz Schlicke
• Intelligence: Reinhard Gehlen

[edit] See also

• Ex-Nazis, ODESSA, Nazi human experimentation, Gernot Zippe
• Locations in Germany: Peenemünde, Mittelwerk, Mittelbau-Dora, Landshut
• Locations in the US: Fort Bliss, White Sands Missile Range, Fort Monmouth, Camp Evans, Fort Strong
• Allen Welsh Dulles
• Upper Atmosphere Research Panel

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Notes