Operation Paperclip facts for kids

Kurt H. Debus, a former V-2 rocket scientist who became a NASA director, sitting between U.S. President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1962 at a briefing at Blockhouse 34, Cape Canaveral Missile Test Annex.

Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 Nazi German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959. Conducted by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), it was largely carried out by special agents of the U.S. Army's Counterintelligence Corps (CIC). Many of these personnel were former members, and some were former leaders, of the Nazi Party.

The primary purpose for Operation Paperclip was U.S. military advantage in the Soviet–American Cold War, and the Space Race. In a comparable operation, the Soviet Union relocated more than 2,200 German specialists—a total of more than 6,000 people including family members—with Operation Osoaviakhim during one night on October 22, 1946.

In February 1945, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) set up T-Force, or Special Sections Subdivision, which grew to over 2,000 personnel by June. T-Force examined 5,000 German targets with a high priority on synthetic rubber and oil catalysts, new designs in armored equipment, V-2 (rocket) weapons, jet and rocket propelled aircraft, naval equipment, field radios, secret writing chemicals, aero medicine research, gliders, and "scientific and industrial personalities”.

When large numbers of German scientists began to be discovered in late April, Special Sections Subdivision set up the Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section to manage and interrogate them. Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section established a detention center, DUSTBIN, first in Paris and later in Kransberg Castle outside Frankfurt. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) established the first secret recruitment program, called Operation Overcast, on July 20, 1945, initially "to assist in shortening the Japanese war and to aid our postwar military research". The term "Overcast" was the name first given by the German scientists' family members for the housing camp where they were held in Bavaria. In late summer 1945, the JCS established the JIOA, a subcommittee of the Joint Intelligence Community, to directly oversee Operation Overcast and later Operation Paperclip. The JIOA representatives included the army's director of intelligence, the chief of naval intelligence, the assistant chief of Air Staff-2 (air force intelligence), and a representative from the State Department. In November 1945, Operation Overcast was renamed Operation Paperclip by Ordnance Corps officers, who would attach a paperclip to the folders of those rocket experts whom they wished to employ in America.

In a secret directive circulated on September 3, 1946, President Truman officially approved Operation Paperclip and expanded it to include 1,000 German scientists under "temporary, limited military custody".

Scientific accomplishments

Wernher von Braun was chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, which enabled human missions to the moon.

Adolf Busemann was responsible for the swept wing, which improved aircraft performance at high speeds.

Key recruits

Hermann Oberth

Aeronautics and rocketry

Architecture

Heinz Hilten and Hannes Luehrsen.

Electronics - including guidance systems, radar and satellites

Material Science (high temperature)

Klaus Scheufelen and Rudolf Schlidt.

Medicine – including biological weapons, chemical weapons, and space medicine

Theodor Benzinger [de], Rudolf Brill [de], Konrad Johannes Karl Büttner, Fritz Laves, Richard Lindenberg, Ulrich Cameron Luft [de], Walter Schreiber, Hubertus Strughold, Hans Georg Clamann, and Erich Traub.

Physics

Gunter Guttein, Gerhard Schwesinger, Gottfried Wehner, Helmut Weickmann, and Friedwardt Winterberg.

Chemistry and Chemical engineering

Helmut Pichler, Leonard Alberts, Ernst Donath, Josef Guymer, Hans Schappert, Max Josenhaus, Kurt Bretschneider, Erich Frese

See also

In Spanish: Operación Paperclip para niños