Operazione Paperclip.

Una graffetta, e l’anima torna a risplendere. Ma è davvero così? Non si saranno lordate invece anche quelle di chi ricostruì il passato agli scienziati nazisti?

Si possono depennare gli orrori dai verbali, nascondere documenti, sostituire fascicoli compromettenti con altri “immacolati”, ma la verità rimane. Orrenda e indelebile. Non c’è scoperta né grande invenzione che possa cancellare i crimini atroci contro l’umanità. Nemmeno la straordinaria missione spaziale che portò l’uomo sulla Luna nel ’69 grazie a Wernher von Braun, direttore del Marshall Space Flight Center e capo progetto del veicolo di lancio del Saturn V.

Una graffetta sul suo fascicolo e in un baleno si annulla il passato. L’America lo proclamerà il più grande scienziato della tecnica missilistica e aerospaziale della storia. Ma Wernher von Braun era e rimane quell’ufficiale nazista capo dell’ufficio progettazione di Mittelbau-Dora, direttore tecnico dello sviluppo delle armi V per l’esercito tedesco. Mittelbau-Dora. Dora, il campo di concentramento col nome di donna che tolse la vita a circa 20mila anime innocenti.

Von Braun è solo uno dei tanti nazisti “insignito” della cittadinanza americana, solo uno dei i tanti pagato e protetto in nome degli interessi politici e militari.

Cito anche

- Dottor Hubertus Strughold. definito il “padre della medicina aerospaziale” è una delle figure più controverse nella storia dell’operazione Paperclip. Direttore dell’istituto di ricerca in medicina aeronautica al ministero dell’Aria di Berlino per dieci dei dodici anni in cui Hitler rimase al potere. Nonostante comparisse sul Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects, fu reclutato da Harry Armstrong per dirigere un programma di ricerca top secret nella Germania postbellica. Con l’operazione Paperclip lavorò per il centro aeromedico dell’aviazione americana a Heidelberg e alla scuola di medicina aeronautica in Texas.

- Herbert Wagner, capo degli ingegneri progettisti di armi alla Henschel e inventore del missile HS-239. Fu il primo scienziato nazista ad arrivare in America con l’operazione Paperclip e lavorò per l’intelligence tecnica della marina statunitense.

- Theodor Benzinger, capo dipartimento della stazione sperimentale del centro di ricerche della Luftwaffe di Reichlin e capo del lavoro medico nel dipartimento di ricerca della divisione tecnica del ministero dell’Aria del Reich. Fu assunto al centro aeromedico dell’aviazione americana di Heidelberg. Arrestato e imprigionato a Norimberga, fu tra gli imputati del processo ai dottori. Inspiegabilmente rilasciato, grazie all’operazione Paperclip lavorò per il Naval Medical Research Institute di Bethesda, Maryland.

- Richard Kuhn, chimico organico (premio Nobel 1938) che sviluppò l’agente nervino Soman per il Reich. Protetto dall’operazione Paperclip lavorò per il centro aeromedico dell’aviazione americana, a Heidelberg, e privatamente per il gruppo di lavoro del generale Loucks sulla produzione del Sarin.

- Dottor Konrad Schäfer, autore degli esperimenti assassini avvenuti a Dachau per mettere a punto il processo per la desalinizzazione dell’acqua in caso di emergenze in mare dei piloti. Con l’operazione Paperclip lavorò per il centro aeromedico dell’aviazione militare americana di Heidelberg. Imputato e poi prosciolto al processo ai dottori di Norimberga. Lavorò in seguito alla scuola di medicina aeronautica dell’aviazione americana in Texas.

- Otto Ambros, chimico della IG Farben, uno degli scopritori del gas Sarin e della gomma sintetica Buna, ricevette un milione di Reichsmark da Hitler come ricompensa per i suoi risultati scientifici. Servì il Reich in qualità di capo della Commissione-C per la guerra chimica, direttore della fabbrica della IG Farben che usava lavoro schiavo ad Auschwitz e direttore dell’impianto per la produzione di gas velenosi a Dyhernfurth. Fu processato e condannato a Norimberga, e dopo un rilascio anticipato lavorò per l’azienda chimica americana W.R. Grace, il dipartimento dell’Energia statunitense e in altri settori privati e pubblici in Europa.

E così l’America risparmiò processi, salvò la vita ad almeno 2mila scienziati nazisti in cambio della loro collaborazione a progetti militari, scientifici e industriali.

Earlier this year, I attended a book reading by the author Anne Jacobsen about this subject, which was complete with a rather impressive slide presentation. What she said about Operation Paperclip that day not only induced me to buy this book later that week. But more importantly, it forever altered my previous view of Operation Paperclip, which, from the time I first became aware of it sometime in the 1980s, I had regarded as a wholly noble effort on the part of the U.S. government to locate, retrieve, and resettle in the U.S. in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War a remarkable group of talented German scientists, whose managerial and technical expertise played no small part in helping the U.S. forge ahead of the Soviet Union in the space race. In this regard, Wernher von Braun came to mind. As someone with memories of the Apollo space program, I admired him greatly.

Now, having read this rather weighty book, I will never see von Braun in the same light again. Not only had he been a member of the Nazi Party, he had also joined the SS sometime before the Second World War and had risen to the rank of Sturmbannführer (Major), heading the Mittelbau-Dora Planning Office (which was instrumental in the development and building --- with the use of slave labor from the concentration camps --- of the V2 rockets that Hitler unleashed against the Allies in 1944 and 1945). These facts were not only known by the U.S. government, but had either been downplayed by it or classified so that they would never come to light during von Braun's lifetime.

What's more: Operation Paperclip also had its extensions in Germany itself through "feeder programs" such as Artichoke in places like Camp King, where captured Soviet spies were interrogated. A significant number of the scientists, engineers, doctors, and technicians who figured prominently in Operation Paperclip had engaged in wartime activities that, by the standards set at Nuremberg, were war crimes. For example, live medical experiments (whose grisly details I won't go into here) carried out at Auschwitz, Dachau, and the women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück. Whenever possible, the U.S. government availed themselves of the services of these Germans, provided it (i.e. the U.S. government) could help them elude or survive any adverse publicity about their pasts that sometimes surfaced after the war. Cold War pressures and imperatives made these scientists, engineers, doctors, and technicians indispensable to U.S. security interests.

"For Operation Paperclip, moving a scientist from military custody to immigrant status required elaborate and devious preparation, but in the end the procedure proved to be infallible. Scientists in the southwestern or western United States, accompanied by military escort, were driven in an unmarked army jeep out of the country into Mexico either at Nuevo Laredo, Ciudad Juárez, or Tijuana. With him, each scientist carried two forms from the State Department, I-55 and I-255, each bearing a signature from the chief of the visa division and a proviso from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Section 42.323 of Title 22, signifying that the visa holder was 'a person whose admission is highly desirable in the national interest.' The scientist also had with him a photograph of himself and a blood test warranting that the did not have any infectious diseases. After consulate approval, the scientist was then let back into the United States, no longer under military guard but as a legal U.S. immigrant in possession of a legal visa. The pathway toward citizenship had begun. If the scientist lived closer to the East Coast than the West Coast, he went through the same protocols, except that he would exit the United States into Canada instead of Mexico and reeenter through the consulate at Niagara Falls."


Reading this book wasn't easy because it demands that the reader make him/herself fully attentive to its contents. Nevertheless, it's well-worth the effort.

The logic was simple. If we don't get them, the Russians will.

Operation Paperclip (originally Operation Overcast) started in 1945 and was a project in which the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) actively recruited Nazi scientists, engineers, chemists, and doctors to come to America and do research for different areas of the government and military. Some of the scientists, doctors, etc. that performed heinous acts upon innocent people were sought out to help America with its research.

Before reading this I didn't know about Operation Paperclip. There have been other books about it and I would be interested in reading them. Quite frankly I was outraged at the behavior of certain Americans when they actively recruited these men and basically befriended them. I was outraged at the project but not surprised.

Annie Jacobsen spends a lot of the book discussing the research into who the important Nazi scientists, chemists, doctors, etc. were and the efforts by the Americans to track them down and recruit them to the project. She does also cover what those scientists, doctors, etc. did during the war and the work that they did for America after the war but I really wish that there would have been more of this in the book.

I would recommend this if you are interested in learning about Operation Paperclip.

Operation Paperclip is something that all Americans should know about. I found myself outraged but not surprised when reading about it in this book. This isn't the first book about Operation Paperclip and I would be interested in reading others and comparing them to this book. My review of this book will be either posted later tonight or tomorrow. My rating is 3.5 stars.

I have finished part one of this book during which the war against Germany is soon coming to a close and the Americans are trying to find out which doctors, chemists, scientists, etc. were in charge of the German's rocket, medical, and other research programs. In part one readers follow Operation Alsos, the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (CIOS), the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), and other groups as they try to find that information and capture those men.

It was really horrifying to read about what those men had done and it is also horrifying to think that the U.S. desperately wanted to find them so that they could recruit them. This has been really well written so far and absolutely fascinating. I look forward to reading more of this book.