Operation Paperclip

Project Paperclip is a project mentioned quite a bit in conspiracy theories, however there is very little to no evidence that it ever happened or existed as the conspiracy theorists would have you think. Never the less, I will try to put into the place the information that seems to keep reappearing in the different documents I have read referring to it.

After World War II ended in 1945, allied intelligence troups began to search for military and scientific information, prototypes, etc. What they found however was much more valuable: the scientists whose work had nearly won the war for Germany. The engineers and intelligence officers of the Nazi War Machines.

The allied forces collected the Nazi scientists and brought them to US. The scientists at first were only meant to be debriefed, however on interrogation they soon discovered that the scientists knew more than they showed. The US government had found scientists that aided in the work of FF (Foo Fighters, or flying discs to you and me) Craft, laser technology, and soldier engineering.

The US wanted their goods, and they wanted it bad - they made a deal with the scientists; they could (a) Help them and when there work is done become one Joe. Q. Average or (b) Suffer at the hands of there already committed war crimes (I'll touch a bit on this later). Most scientists, needless to say, went with A.

According to most sources the acts against humanity that the Nazi scientists committed were so horrid they are evil to even imagine, killing hundreds of "test subjects" - the majority of who were Jewish.

Its at this point details get quite fuzzy - some say they did there jobs and the US now has (for quite awhile mind you) the technology listed above. Others say they died trying to finish their work. Never the less the events in question, be them fact or fallacy are quite fascinating.

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Editor's Note: The fact that Project Paperclip existed is a matter of public record.

Operation Paperclip was not a fantasy. It wasn't nearly as sinister as the conspiracy wonks make it out to be; rather, it was a determined effort on the part of the U.S. Military to gain a lead in the field of military and civil rocketry by nabbing as many German scientists and engineers as possible who'd worked on such projects in Nazi Germany and relocating them to the U.S. Their task was made easier by the fact that very few of the German scientists wanted to be 'liberated' and thus captured by the Soviet Union, advancing from the East, and thus were generally eager to head West.

A movie was made (sort of) about this, starring Kelly McGillis and Jeff Daniels, called The House on Carroll Street. It conflated McCarthyism and Nazi relocation, but ah well.

Werner von Braun and his staff and colleagues were Paperclip visa recipients. They went on to build the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle programs for NASA as well as much of the ICBM tech that went with those. The only real grey area seems to be whether or not any of these scientists avoided trials at Nuremberg by being part of Paperclip. It's unlikely the rocketry crew would have been charged, as many of them were essentially prisoners, and all had essentially worked as researchers and engineers. While slave labor was used to assemble finished products based on their designs (as well as prototypes), those laborers were under the direction of the Wermacht and SS, just as the scientists were.

When the allies and the Soviets were closing in on Germany, the SS attempted to destroy the work of the rocket scientists and disperse them so as to prevent either opposing nation from capturing them and their work. However, fortunately for the U.S., the local SS idea of 'destruction' was to toss all papers, notes, and other materials down a deep mine shaft near the rocketry center at Peenemunde. The scientists, captured by the U.S., assisted in the recovery of these materials in exchange for their relocation and protection. Their first job for the U.S. was sorting and reconstructing all of this work; that task was the official reason for (and end result of) Operation Paperclip. The name was chosen to represent the work - re-sorting and compiling scattered materials recovered from around Germany.

An American project to bring former Nazi scientists to the United States after World War II, particularly those involved in the development of the V-2 rocket, including Wernher Von Braun. This was despite the fact that U.S law explicitly prohibited former Nazi officials from immigrating into America.

By 1955 more than 760 Geman scientists (the total number of people was 1600 including dependents) had been granted U.S citizenship and had their records purged of any trace of their Nazi past, including membership of the Nazi party, their use of slave labour and the fact that some of them had experimented on humans in the concentration camps.

Many worked initally on the Manhattan Project and went on to join various parts of the US space/missile program including NASA. The earliest batches being based at The White Sands Missile Ground.

After World War II the United States tried to find German scientists who had been involved in "psychological warfare" and rocketry development areas to take advantage of their past researchs. However the US agents couldn’t find them because they had already scattered out to various places like USSR, Italy and South America. Then the CIA convinced Congress to perform a legal means of importing these people into the US and introducing them into its military industrial complex, including colleges and universities.

Thus arose the Project Paperclip, as a government sanctioned CIA procedure that was approved by Congress in 1946.

Such a project, at its formal definition, was nothing more than a transport operation. In such a concern, the airline Capital International Airways (C.I.A.) was created to be a large contributor to this. The company brought into the United States nearly 800 psychiatrists and engineers that were actively engaged in mind control, behaviour research, and military rocketry applications.

In 1947, to put an end to the scandal and controversy that ensued, President Truman told the Congress that he had made a mistake signing this project into law, " because no person that was a part of the NAZI party could be brought into this country. " In such a way, it was established the National Security Act which took over the rules on matters of foreign and military policies.

Many of the "immigrants", however, have been working in the US space program and Propaganda Department of Defense. It is well known that Wernher von Braun was put out front, as the pretty boy in charge of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The Manhattan Project had already ended by the time Operation Paperclip was implemented. In fact, very few of the German scientists and engineers recruited as part of it were nuclear scientists; by far the majority were involved in aeronautics and rocket science.

Operation Paperclip was aimed at recovering all or substantially all of the research and development conducted by Nazi Germany during WWII, and in this was massively successful. The amount of paper recovered filled several large warehouses at the National Archives. A key component of Operation Paperclip, controversial at the time, was to bring the key engineering and scientific personnel as well.

The truth is that a large percentage of the scientists and engineers were not in fact ardent Nazis themselves, but had joined the party in order to continue their careers. Among this number was Werner von Braun, who joined the party only when it became necessary to continue his rocket work.

The White Sands group was not in fact involved in nuclear work; they were working with captured V2 missiles, launching them for research and scientific purposes. These were the first sounding rockets, and formed the basis for the US missile and space programs.