'' (also credited as '''Project Paperclip''') was the Code Name under which the U.S. intelligence and military services extracted German scientists from Nazi Germany , during and after the final stages of World War II . In 1945 the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was established and given direct responsibility for Operation ''Paperclip''.
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Following the German failure of Operation ''Barbarossa'' and the entry of the US into WWII, the strategic position of Germany was at a disadvantage since German 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 where their skills could be used in research and development:
The recall effort first required identifying such personnel and then tracking them (particularly for loyalty), which culminated in the by Werner Osenberg, a 's name at the top.3
The original unnamed plan to only interview the rocket scientists changed after Major Staver sent a cable (signed by Colonel Joel Holmes)4 to the Pentagon on May 22 1945 of the urgency to evacuate the German technicians and their families as "important for Pacific war." Likewise, an equally strong desire was to deny German expertise to the Soviet Union.5 In the s of Germans."
In addition to scientists specialising in , who was initially employed at a Long Island NY mansion6 and then at Naval Air Station Point Mugu in 1947.
The majority of the scientists were involved with the V-2 Rocket , and the rocket group was initially housed with their families at a housing project in Landshut Bavaria. '' was designated by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff on July 19, 1945, but when the nickname "Camp Overcast" was being openly used for the housing, the code name was changed to ''Paperclip''.
By 1958, many aspects of ''Paperclip'' had become common knowledge. It was openly mentioned in a Time Magazine article about von Braun.7
In early August 1945, Colonel Holger N. Toftoy , chief of the Rocket Branch in the Research and Development Division of Army , Erich W. Neubert, Theodor A. Poppel, August Schultze, Eberhard F. M. Rees, Wilhelm Jungert and Walter Schwidetzky. Eventually the rocket scientists arrived at Fort Bliss , Texas for rocket testing at White Sands Proving Grounds as "War Department Special Employees." 8 >
In early 1950, legal status for some "''Paperclip'' Specialists" was obtained when visas were issued at the US consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico; from which the scientists legally entered the US.9 In later decades, some scientists' WWII wartime activities were investigated -- Arthur Rudolph was linked to the Mittelbau-Dora slave labor, and Hubertus Strughold was implicated in Nazi Human Experimentation .
Eighty-six aeronautical experts were transferred to Wright Field , which had also acquired aircraft and other equipment under Operation ''Lusty'' .
The 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 . {Link without Title}
The employed seven German Synthetic Fuel scientists in a Fischer-Tropsch chemical plant in Louisiana, Missouri in 1946 . {Link without Title}
In 1959, 94 ''Paperclip'' individuals went to the US, including Friedwardt Winterberg , Hans Dolezalek, and Friedrich Wigand. Through 1990, ''Paperclip'' acquired a total of 1,600 personnel, with the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK (mainly German patents and industrial processes) valued at close to $10 Billion .Naimark. 206 (Naimark cites Gimbel, John ''Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany'') NOTE:The $10 billion compares to the U.S. annual GDP of $258 billion in 1948 and to the total Marshall plan expenditure (1948-1952) of $13 billion, of which Germany received $1.4 billion (partly as loans).
- '' - unimplemented 1944 plan for post-war operations in Europe10 that would destroy V-1 and V-2 missiles found by the Air Disarmament Wing.11
- ---'' - US project under ''ECLIPSE'' to prevent German researchers from escaping to other countries (e.g., Latin America).
- - 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." .Ziemke. pg 316 NOTE: So much of the FIAT information was used for commercial purposes that the office of the Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied Areas let it be known that they wanted the future peace treaty with Germany be phrased so that U.S. industry that made use of the information would be protected from lawsuits.(Beyerchen. 289-299) FIAT was dissolved in 1947 when operation ''PAPERCLIP'' began large scale operations.
- '' (counterpart of '''''ASHCAN''''') - US Army detention center established first in Paris and later in Kransberg Castle outside Frankfurt.Ziemke pg 314 13
- /'''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."
- Operation ''Lusty'' - US efforts to capture German aeronautical secrets, equipment and personnel
- Target Intelligence Committee ( TICOM ) - US project to gather German experts in cryptography.
- The title character in the film '''' is an expatriate Nazi working for the U.S.
- Arthur C. Clarke alluded to Operation ''Paperclip'', although not by name, in the opening chapter of his Science Fiction novel '' Childhood's End ,'' as a German rocket scientist working for the U.S. thinks about another German rocketeer, his old friend, who went east to help the Soviets in the final days of World War II.
- In the film '' Ice Station Zebra '', a British character states: "The Russians put our camera made by German scientists and your film made by '''your''' German scientists into their satellite made by '''their''' German scientists."
- The novel '' Space '' contains a fictionalized account of Operation ''Paperclip''.
- In the comic book Astro City , the title city was engineered by a former Nazi scientist.
- In the film '' The Good German '', an American war correspondent discovers aspects of Operation ''Overcast''.
- The comic book " Ministry Of Space " depicts an alternate history in which the British extracted various Nazi rocket scientists before the Americans and used them to create a powerful British space program.
- ROCKETRY: (see also , Kurt Debus , Georg Rickhey , Rudi Beichel , Fritz Mueller , Werner Dahm , Otto Hirschler , Werner Rosinski , Eberhard F. M. Rees , Hermann H. Kurzweg
- AERONAUTICS: Alexander Martin Lippisch , Hans Von Ohain , Hans Multhopp
- MEDICINE: Walter Schreiber , Kurt Blome , Hubertus Strughold , Hans Antmann ( Human Factors )14
- ELECTRONICS: Hans Ziegler , Kurt Lehovec , Hans Hollmann , Johannes Plendl
- INTELLIGENCE: Reinhard Gehlen
- 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
- AFA Air Force Magazine, ''Project Paperclip'' by Walter J. Boyne, pp.70-74
- Studs Terkel : "The Good War", Ballantine Books, New York, 1984 P.472-479
- Yves Béon.''Planet Dora''. Westview Press, 1997. ISBN 0813332729
- John Gimbel, "''Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany''" Stanford University Press, 1990 ISBN 0804717613
- Mike Gruntman, ''Blazing the Trail: The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry'', AIAA, Reston, Va., 2004, ISBN 978-1-56347-705-8
- Linda Hunt, "U.S. Coverup of Nazi Scientists" ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists''. April, 1985. {Link without Title}
- Linda Hunt, '' Arthur Rudolph of Dora and NASA '', Moment 4, 1987 (Yorkshire Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament)
- Linda Hunt, '' NASA's Nazis '', Nation, May 23, 1987 Literature of the Holocaust website.
- 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
- Christopher Simpson, ''Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War'' (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988)
- Wolfgang W. E. Samuel ''American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffe’s Secrets'' (University Press of Mississippi, 2004)
- 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
- 1995 Human Radiation Experiments Memorandum: Post-World War II Reccruitment of German Scientists--Project ''Paperclip''
- Operation ''Paperclip'' Casefile
- Project Paperclip: Dark side of the Moon BBC article.
- Employment of German scientists and technicians: denial policy UK National Archives releases March 2006.
- Aftermath: Operation ''Paperclip''
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