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Operation Paperclip 17

Operation Paperclip: The

Secret Intelligence

Program to Bring Nazi

Scientists to America

Operation Paperclip was the United States
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) program in
which more than 1,500 Germans, primarily
scientists but also engineers and technicians,
were brought to the United States from post-
Nazi Germany for government employment
starting in 1945 and increasing in the aftermath
of World War II. It was conducted by the Joint
Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) and in
the context of the burgeoning Cold War. One
purpose of Operation Paperclip was to deny
German scientific expertise and knowledge to
the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, as
well as to inhibit post-war Germany from
redeveloping its military research capabilities.
By comparison, the Soviet Union were even
more aggressive in recruiting Germans: during
Operation Osoaviakhim, Soviet military units
forcibly (at gunpoint) recruited 2,000+ German
specialists to the Soviet Union during one night.
The JIOA's recruitment of German
scientists began after the Allied victory in
Europe on May 8, 1945, but U.S. President
Harry Truman did not formally order the
execution of Operation Paperclip until August Reich) against the Red Army's westward In Operation Overcast, Major Staver's original
1945. Truman's order expressly excluded counterattack. By early 1943, the German intent was only to interview the scientists, but
anyone found "to have been a member of the government began recalling from combat a what he learned changed the operation's
Nazi Party, and more than a nominal participant number of scientists, engineers, and purpose. On May 22, 1945, he transmitted to
in its activities, or an active supporter of Nazi technicians; they returned to work in research U.S. Pentagon headquarters Colonel Joel
militarism." However, those restrictions would and development to bolster German defense for Holmes's telegram urging the evacuation of
have rendered ineligible most of the leading a protracted war with the USSR. The recall from German scientists and their families, as most
scientists whom the JIOA had identified for frontline combat included 4,000 rocketeers "important for [the] Pacific war" effort. Most of
recruitment, among them rocket scientists returned to Peenemünde, in northeast coastal the Osenberg List engineers worked at the Baltic
Wernher von Braun, Kurt H. Debus, and Arthur Germany. coast German Army Research Center
Peenemünde, developing the V-2 rocket. After
Rudolph, as well as physician Hubertus
Strughold, each earlier classified as a "menace Overnight, Ph.D.s were liberated from KP capturing them, the Allies initially housed them
to the security of the Allied Forces." duty, masters of science were recalled from and their families in Landshut, Bavaria, in
The JIOA worked independently to orderly service, mathematicians were hauled southern Germany.
circumvent President Truman's anti-Nazi order out of bakeries, and precision mechanics Beginning on July 19, 1945, the U.S.
and the Allied Potsdam and Yalta agreements, ceased to be truck drivers. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) managed the
creating false employment and political — Dieter K. Huzel, Peenemünde to Canaveral captured ARC rocketeers under Operation
biographies for the scientists. The JIOA also Overcast. However, when the "Camp Overcast"
expunged the scientists' Nazi Party The Nazi government's recall of their now- name of the scientists' quarters became locally-
memberships and regime affiliations from the useful intellectuals for scientific work first known, the program was renamed Operation
public record. Once "bleached" of their Nazism, required identifying and locating the scientists, Paperclip in November 1945. Despite these
the scientists were granted security clearances engineers, and technicians, then ascertaining attempts at secrecy, later that year the press
by the U.S. government to work in the United their political and ideological reliability. Werner interviewed several of the scientists.
States. The project's operational name of Osenberg, the engineer-scientist heading the Regarding Operation Alsos, Allied
Paperclip was derived from the paperclips used Wehrforschungsgemeinschaft (Military Intelligence described nuclear physicist Werner
to attach the scientists' new political personae to Research Association), recorded the names of Heisenberg, the German nuclear energy project
their "US Government Scientist" JIOA the politically cleared men to the Osenberg List, principal, as "worth more to us than ten
personnel files. thus reinstating them to scientific work. divisions of Germans." In addition to rocketeers
In March 1945, at Bonn University, a and nuclear physicists, the Allies also sought
Osenberg List Polish laboratory technician found pieces of the chemists, physicians, and naval weaponeers.
Osenberg List stuffed in a toilet; the list
subsequently reached MI6, who transmitted it to (Continued on Page 18)
Nazi Germany found itself at a logistical
U.S. Intelligence. Then U.S. Army Major
disadvantage, having failed to conquer the
Robert B. Staver, Chief of the Jet Propulsion
USSR with Operation Barbarossa (June–
Section of the Research and Intelligence Branch
December 1941), the Siege of Leningrad
of the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps, used the
(September 1941 – January 1944), Operation
Osenberg List to compile his list of German
Nordlicht ("Northern Light", August–October
scientists to be captured and interrogated;
1942), and the Battle of Stalingrad (July 1942 –
Wernher von Braun, Germany's premier rocket
February 1943). The failed conquest had
scientist, headed Major Staver's list.
depleted German resources, and its military-
industrial complex was unprepared to defend
Identification
the Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German