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Operation Paperclip


LucidElement

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I am reading a book about the the Nazi Scientists that were sparred their war crimes and came to work for the U.S after being tried and found guilty at the Nuremberg Trials. These scientist helped paved the way for major space and weapon accomplishments. I am going to take some lines from this book and i'm curious to know your thoughts about this.

"Operation paperclip, which began in May of 1945, the scientists who helped the Third Reich wage war continued their weapons-related for for the U.S Government, developing rockets, chemical and biological weapons, aviation and space medicine (for enhancing military pilot and astronaut performance), and many other armaments at a feverish and paranoid pace that came to define the Cold War. The men profiled in this book (Operation Paperclip by Annie Jacobsen) were not nominal Nazis. Eight of the Twenty one - Otto Ambros, Theodor Benzinger, Kurt Blome, Walter Dornberger, Siegfried Knemeyer, Walter Schreiber, Walter Schieber, and Wernher Von Braun, each at some point worked side by side with Hitler, Himmler or Hermann Goring. Fifteen of the 21 were dedicated members of the Nazi Party, ten of them also joined the SA or the SS; two wore the Golden Party Badge, indicating favor bestowed by the Fuhrer, one was given an award of one million reichsmaks for scientific advancement. 6 of the 21 stood trial at Nuremberg, a seventh was released without trial under mysterious circumstances, and an 8th stood trial in Dachau for regional war crimes. One was convicted of mass murder and slavery, served sometime in prison, was granted clemency, and then was hired by the U.S Department of Energy. They came to America at the behest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Some officials believed that by endorsing the paperclip program they were accepting the lesser of two evils - that if America didn't recruit these scientists, the Soviet Communists surely would."

Do you guys think that U.S future accomplishments that these men were known for and helped the U.S with our missile, space (NASA) programs ect, cancel out their past crimes against the Allies, Jews, and innocent civilians?

***** Von Braun and Dornberger, each wearing their Knight's Cross from Hitler, watched as their newly constructed V-2 missiles hit Rex Cinema, where 1,200 people were watching a Gary Cooper Film. It was the highest death toll from a single rocket attack during the war - 567 casualties...******

Key People Recruited and Spared from their War Crimes::::

- Major General Dr. Walter Schreiber: The surgeon general of the Third Reich. "the most sinister crime in which Screiber is involved is the introduction of intravenous lethal phenol injections."

- Dr. Kurt Bloome: Was Hitlers biological weapons maker and the deputy surgeon general of the Third Reich. He had nearly completed a bubonic plague weapon when the Red Army captured his research institute in Poland.

- Erich Traub: Was a virologist, microbiologist, and doctor of veterinary medicine. He weaponized rinderpest (cattle plague) at the request of Heinrich Himmler.

- Major General Walter Dornberger: Was in charge of V-weapons development for the Reich. Arrested by the British and held for nearly two years on war crimes charges. Dornberger was released into U.S Custody with the warning that he was a "menace of the first order",

- Arthur Rudolph: Specialized in V - weapons assembly and served as operations director at the slave labor facility in Nordhausen. In America he would become known as the Father of the Saturn Rocket. He Quotes " I read Mein Kampf and agreed with lots of things in it. "Hitler's first six years, until the war started, were really marvelous."

- Otto Ambros: Hitler's most valuable chemist, co-discover of Sarin Gas, and chief of the Reich's Committee for Chemical Warfare. The U.S Army coveted his knowledge, Tried at Nuremberg, Ambros was convicted of mass murder and slavery, then granted clemency.

_____________________________________

ALL THESE INDIVIDUALS (some named) were recruited for operation paperclip.... Thoughts?

Edited by LucidElement
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Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer?

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maybe, i just wanted to share this thread with you guys, hear your thoughts about it. its pretty interesting story that i didnt truly know about. The book i just started its really good. But the whole history of the matter is crazy.

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my thoughts!!!!???? hmmm interesting

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No one is still comfortable enough to talk about it ... many even deny it ~ and many more simply refuses to believe in it ~

Almost the same as Wiki but with just a little addendum ~

In 1959, ninety-four Operation Paperclip men went to the U.S., including Friedwardt Winterberg and Friedrich Wigand. Through 1990, Operation Paperclip immigrated 1,600 Nazi personnel, with the “intellectual reparations” taken by the U.S. and the U.K. (patents and industrial processes) valued at some $10 billion dollars.

  • jewish virtual library link
  • wiki version link

the archives :

Foreign Scientist Case Files 1945-1958 (Entry A1-1B)

Boxes 1-186 location: 230/86/46/5

This series consists of personnel dossiers on over 1,500 German and other foreign scientists, technicians, and engineers who were brought to the United States under Project Paperclip and similar programs. Among the dossiers are those on Georg Rickhey, a former official at the Nordhausen underground V-2 rocket factory who arrived in 1946 but who left the United States in 1947 when he was tried (and acquitted) for war crimes by a U.S. military tribunal; Walter Schreiber, who had been instrumental in medical experiments on concentration camp inmates and who fled the United States to Argentina in 1952 after the appearance of a newspaper column about his activities; and, Arthur Rudolph who had been a V-2 project engineer and who left the United States in 1984 following the Department of Justice's discovery of his role in the persecution of prisoners at the Nordhausen factory. Not included among the dossiers is one for rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. It was never transferred to NARA.

~

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Their accomplishments certainly don't wash the blood on their hands, just as it doesn't wash the blood from our scientists at Los Alamos. With that, I am thankful we were able to turn some of their work into something for the greater good, such as the programs that got us to the moon. An unfortunate side effect of war is a leap in technological progress.

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“intellectual reparations” taken by the U.S. and the U.K. (patents and industrial processes) valued in those days at 10 billion dollars ~

What's that worth in today's roly poly money funny numbers printed waste paper notes ?

Sure wash out a hell of a lot of things to some quarters ~ and more ....

~

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I'm glad the Americans DID take these people under their wing. Otherwise they may have ended up working for the USSR.

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Are any alive today? I think it would be interesting to hear their side of the story.

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It's just another example of governments being governments unfortunately. Had these men been executed or imprisoned for life many would have found THAT unjust as well but if they had been captured by the Russians instead then they certainly would have helped tip the balance technologically in the cold war. Where humanity is concerned it seems the choice is always between the lesser of the two evils.

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I'm glad the Americans DID take these people under their wing. Otherwise they may have ended up working for the USSR.

Did any scientists end up working for the USSR I wonder?

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Did any scientists end up working for the USSR I wonder?

I seem to recall that quite a few did. Not sure how many - whichever were captured by the Russians.
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I think one of the worst examples was Hubertus Strughold who was implicated in the horrific altitude experiments at Dachau Concentration Camp.Once in America he became a professor of Space Medicine

http://www.lucettelagnado.com/news/scientists-nazi-era-past-haunts-prestigious-space-prize

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Can't help but wonder if this little pot of stink is what is driving the US Foreign Affairs Ministries in still trying to appease the Israeli Bloc today ?

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Back in my Air Force days it was a commonplace in survival courses that if we were downed in arctic water, we had only X minutes before we were too chilled to help ourselves. After some of the Nazi experiments with freezing concentration camp inmates to death came to light, it occurred to me that where we got that information from might not bear too much examination.

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Operation Paperclip was one highly charged project that, yes, did net America some great technology.

Von Braun clearly was the father of the American missile program, and that gave the US ICBM's and the

ability to get to the moon.

And although it appears that the US got a lot of highly prized German scientists, the USSR got quite a few more.

"Within the 1st Belorussian Front, P. M. Zernov chaired such commission, which also included A. N. Baranov and N. E. Nosovsky. The commission oversaw 80 engineers and scientists."

http://www.russiansp...sr_germany.html

And the soviets got a big boost to their missile technology, too

"all's fair in love and war"

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Are any alive today? I think it would be interesting to hear their side of the story.

all our dead and have been dead, were talking WW2, they were in their 40s-60s ... but ya all of them are long since dead. In this book im reading there are numerous quotes by them though.
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All these bad scientists that had cause horrible atrocities on humans during WW2 in the concentration camps and some of the worst ones lives a long prosperous life, if you can call it that. Dr. Mengele being one of them, skipped town and vanished, their were theories on where he went but, the fact of the matter he lived much longer then he should have. Im just starting this book but i highly recommend it to everyone. Its written in a narrative and very well researched. These NAZI scientists were brought forth and charged with war crimes against humanity and they got a slap on the wrist and came to the U.S to spread their intelligence, which did in fact help the U.S's space and weapons programs, but still.

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.Just goes to show if your valuable enough no one will kill you

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I'm voting with those who say it was better for the US to grab these guys then for the USSR to have grabbed them.

Does what they accomplished forgive their sins? Nope. They're going to pay in the afterlife, and they paid in this life also, I'll bet. Most of these guys probably didn't live a day where they didn't have an officer or agent monitoring their activities.

I guess the other option would have been to lock them up for life. I'd have been good with that too.

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All these bad scientists that had cause horrible atrocities on humans during WW2 in the concentration camps and some of the worst ones lives a long prosperous life, if you can call it that. Dr. Mengele being one of them, skipped town and vanished, their were theories on where he went but, the fact of the matter he lived much longer then he should have. Im just starting this book but i highly recommend it to everyone. Its written in a narrative and very well researched. These NAZI scientists were brought forth and charged with war crimes against humanity and they got a slap on the wrist and came to the U.S to spread their intelligence, which did in fact help the U.S's space and weapons programs, but still.

What is the name of the book and author? I'm interested in this whole period of history.

Edited by dr no
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Dr no - Annie Jacobson is author and titled "Operation Paperclip" . NY Times Bestseller

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Imo most markant about this is the secrecy and deception of the public, in a so called champion of democracy.

But what has changed?

Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfawitz and consorts are also still walking free after lying to install a war and committing war crimes with false pretexts.

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Did any scientists end up working for the USSR I wonder?

Yes, a few did but the US were faster and catched the elite of the German rocket scientists and captured the most nazi rocket hardware

and construction data. On the other hand, the USSR still had their own Wernher von Braun equivalent, Sergej Koroljow, who was working

on space rocket technology from the 1930s on. Based on that I would say that the knowledge proportion US/USSR was approx 60/40

after WWII.

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Yes, a few did but the US were faster and catched the elite of the German rocket scientists and captured the most nazi rocket hardware

and construction data. On the other hand, the USSR still had their own Wernher von Braun equivalent, Sergej Koroljow, who was working

on space rocket technology from the 1930s on. Based on that I would say that the knowledge proportion US/USSR was approx 60/40

after WWII.

Ahhhh, I disagree. Look at the circumstances.

The USSR lost millions to the Germans, and the US only fought the Germans because the Germany declared war

on the US because the US had declared war on Japan, after Pearl Harbor. Surely, the Soviets were more highly energized to

get into Germany and they were in there first and foremost, with the most troops.

Stalin had told the General in charge of the invasion, "If you don't come home with Hitler, you come home to your death",

or some such encouraging words.

As US troops advanced into Germany, they met up with units of Soviets. Neither fired at eachother (cold war was on hold here)

and occasionally, they would wave their weapons in the air at one another as an expression of solidarity and joyous victory.

But in the end, it was the more highly charged Soviets that won out. They got more principle scientists than the US

Ya know, the Soviets were *so* p!ssed at the Germans, that it was common for German soldiers to beg US troops to

take them captive, as opposed to being taken captive by the Soviets. *that* bad.

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