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Operation Paperclip was the code name for the 1945 Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency^[1] O.S.S.^{[citation needed]} recruitment of scientists from Nazi Germany to the U.S. after Victory in Europe Day.^[2]

Contents 1 Osenberg List 2 Operation Overcast 3 Groups of scientists 4 Related operations 5 Cultural references 6 Key figures 7 See also 8 References and footnotes 9 Further reading

[edit] Osenberg List

Following the failure of the German invasion of the Soviet Union (codenamed Operation Barbarossa), 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 for use in research and development,^[4] including 4000 to Peenemünde:^[5]

‘Overnight, Ph.D.s were liberated from KP duty, masters of science were recalled from orderly service, mathematicians were hauled out of bakeries, and precision mechanics ceased to be truck drivers.’

— Dieter K. Huzel

The recalling first required identifying the men, then tracking them and ascertaining their political correctness and reliability, before being recorded to the Osenberg List, by Werner Osenberg, a University of Hannover engineer-scientist, head of the Wehrforschungsgemeinschaft (English: Military Research Association).^{[6][verification needed]} In March 1945, a Polish laboratory technician found the pieces of the Osenberg List in an improperly flushed toilet. ^[7] Major Robert B. Staver, U.S.A., 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 Black List 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 Col. 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, conversational usage, Operation Overcast was renamed Operation Paperclip^[7][8] in March 1946.^[9]

An equally strong reason for these scientific rescues was denying German expertise to the Soviets. For example, in Operation Alsos, nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg — principal scientist in the German nuclear energy project — was appreciated by Allied intelligence as: " . . . he was 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.

[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.^[11]

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; 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^[12] and then exonerated by Germany, Georg Rickhey was acquitted of war crimes, and Hubertus Strughold was implicated^[13] 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).^[14]

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.[1]

The United States Bureau of Mines employed seven German synthetic fuel scientists in a Fischer-Tropsch chemical plant in Louisiana, Missouri in 1946.[2]

In 1959, ninety-four Operation Paperclip men went to the U.S., including Friedwardt Winterberg, Hans Dolezalek, and Friedrich Wigand. ^[11] Through 1990, the operation immigrated 1,600 personnel,^[11] with the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the U.K. (patents and industrial processes) valued at some $10 billion dollars.^[15]

[edit] Related operations

• 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.^[16]

• DUSTBIN (counterpart of ASHCAN) - British-American operation^[17] established first in Paris and later in Kransberg Castle outside Frankfurt.^[18]:314

• ECLIPSE - unimplemented 1944 plan for post-war operations in Europe^[18] that would destroy V-1 and V-2 missiles found by the Air Disarmament Wing.^[19]: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." .^[18]: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.^[20]

• 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."^[11]

• 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 - UK operation to deny German aeronautical expertise to the USSR and instead exploit the scientists in order to further British research. ^[21]

• 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][3] (see also Operation Blossom, Broomstick Scientists, Hermes project, Operations Sandy and Pushover)

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

[edit] Cultural references

• Former Nazi Germany scientists working for the US are featured in the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, an X-Files TV episode, the Astro City and Ministry of Space comic books, and the Area 51 novels.

• The 2006 film The Good Shepherd depicts the USA/Soviet Union competition 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.

• The 1996 Carl Craig music album The Secret Tapes Of Doctor Eich uses the alias "Paperclip People".

• Operation Paperclip is mentioned in the Chuck Palahniuk novel Rant.

• The second series of Twin Peaks reveals character Garland Briggs worked on Operation Paperclip.

[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)^[14]
• Electronics: Hans Ziegler, Kurt Lehovec, Hans Hollmann, Johannes Plendl
• 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

[edit] References and footnotes

[edit] Further reading