Operation Paperclip: how the US recruited Nazis after WW2

We are led to believe that at the end of the Second World War in 1945, all of the Nazis were either killed in battle or captured by the heroic Allies.

We are led to believe that in the years following the war, the surviving Nazis were all tried for their crimes during the war against mankind.

We are led to believe that, aside from a few that found safe refuge in far corners of the globe, in places such as Bolivia, Argentina, New Zealand and some less-habitable locations, justice for all Nazis was swift and served as the great equaliser. 

I've seen Schindler's List, The Dirty Dozen, Letters From Iwo Jima, Flags of our Fathers, Empire of the Sun, Stalingrad and many other movies about the war. They all stick to that narrative, the narrative and history as told by the winners of the war. 

What we are not told as part of this narrative is where a group of over 1,500 Nazis disappeared to at the end of the Second World War.

Picture the scene: 

The greatest war in history has come to an end. For the Allies; this war is won. We have seen off the enemy. We gambled and came up trumps. We are about to benefit significantly from this victory. Riches and natural resources are coming our way. The future for the Allies is in the space race. The race to see who will get to space and beyond first. There is a need for great minds, for lateral thinking and new perspectives. 

For the Nazis; the war is lost. Our leader is dead. The cause is gone. We face bleak futures as criminals in our own country. Death/life in prison seem our only destiny. It is here that we find the common incentive. The future for the Nazis, the doctors, the engineers, the scientists and the geniuses is imprisonment. 

What was Operation Paperclip?

Operation Paperclip was the program in which over 1,500 German scientists, technicians and engineers from Nazi Germany were brought to the United States for employment in the aftermath of World War II. Operation Paperclip was to deny German scientific expertise and knowledge to the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, as well as inhibiting post-war Germany from redeveloping its military research capabilities. 

The Soviet Union, Britain and the US circled the flickering embers of the Second World War, looking to swoop in for the greatest of finds - ingenuity. It was Operation Paperclip that allowed the US to pick the bones dry. 

Outwardly, Operation Paperclip would follow two simple rules.

1 - In line with US President Harry S Truman's directive, the operation would not be executed until August 1945, three months after the war had ended.

2 - Truman's order expressly excluded 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".

In actual fact the recruitment of Nazis had begun months before Allied victory on May 8, 1945 and many of the recruited flagrantly broke the second rule as the recruitment included rocket scientists, the very men behind the Nazi effort at building weapons of mass Allied destruction.

Who were they?

The following is a list of German rocket scientists who found employment with the US after the Second World War. These men, with varying levels of importance, were instrumental in the space race and other activities.

• Wernher von Braun
• Werner Dahm
• Konrad Dannenberg
• Kurt H. Debus
• Ernst R. G. Eckert
• Krafft Arnold Ehricke
• Ernst Geissler
• Dieter Grau
• Walter Häussermann
• Heinz-Hermann Koelle
• Fritz Mueller
• Eberhard Rees
• Georg Rickhey
• Ludwig Roth
• Arthur Rudolph
• Ernst Stuhlinger
• Bernhard Tessmann
• Adolf Thiel
• Georg von Tiesenhausen

The investigation

Research carried out by Soviet Russia, the United Kingdom and modern Germany has found that most of the Nazis known for their expertise in rocketeering, engineering and medical science in particular disappeared without a trace.

The following are Nazis who the Germans learned found refuge in the US with the US military but beyond their names, no further information is available, with their files remaining "classified" by US authorities:

• Albin Wittmann
  
• Helmut Zoike
  
• Hans Hosenthie
  
• Andreas Alexandrakis
• Rudi Beichel
  
• Albert Zeiler
  
• Theodor Karl Otto Vowe
  
• Harry Ruppe
  
• Friedrich von Saurma
  
• August Schulze
  
• Walter Schwidetzky
  
• Werner Rosinski
  
• Gerhard Reisig
  
• Willy Mrazek
  
• Erich W. Neubert
  
• Hans R. Palaoro
  
• Theodor A. Poppel
  
• Hermann H. Kurzweg
• Hans Maus
  
• Karl Heimburg
  
• Otto Hirschler
  
• Helmut Hoelzer
  
• Hans Hueter
  
• Wilhelm Jungert
  
• Georg ("George") Emil Knausenberger
  

Where are they now?

Operation Paperclip continued to recruit up until 1990. By this time, many of the original recruits of the 1940s and 1950s had died and continued recruitment facilitated replacements. However, prior to their deaths, the recruits, many of which had served with the SS, went unpunished for their part in the Second World War. Not only were these war criminals given refuge and qualified immunity, they were harboured by the very people who put most effort into chastising their Nazi efforts by way of film and history writing throughout the twentieth century and up to today. 

Many of those recruited in Operation Paperclip continue to enjoy a life away from the legal ramifications of their actions and bask in the freedom of the United States.

Why don't we know about this?

To circumvent President Truman's anti-Nazi order and the Allied Potsdam and Yalta agreements, the Joint Intelligence Operations Agency (JIOA) - who ran the operation - worked independently to create false employment and political biographies for the scientists. The JIOA also expunged from the public record the scientists' Nazi Party memberships and régime affiliations. Once "bleached" of their Nazism, the scientists were granted security clearances by the U.S. government to work in the United States. Paperclip, the project's operational name, derived from the paperclips used to attach the scientists' new political personae to their "US Government Scientist" JIOA personnel files.

The outstanding questions

- Why were the majority of these men not tried?

- Who were the rest of the men?
- What was the fate of the scientists that performed such abhorrent experiments as mutilation and testing on humans during the war?
- Why were these particular files classified?

- Why were war criminals acquitted of their crimes?

- NEVER BELIEVE THE WORLD WITH WHICH YOU ARE PRESENTED -