Operation Paperclip Secretly Recruits Nazi Scientists, Whitewashes War Crimes

The Joint Chiefs of Staff authorize Operation Paperclip on September 3, 1945, establishing a secret program to recruit German scientists, engineers, and technicians for American military and intelligence agencies. The program ultimately brings over 1,600 German scientists and their families to the United States, including many with documented Nazi Party membership and involvement in war crimes.

President Truman officially approves the program with the stipulation that 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 Nazism or militarism” should be excluded. However, the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), which administers the program, systematically falsifies security evaluations and sanitizes Nazi records to circumvent this restriction. JIOA Director Bosquet Wev expunges or rewrites files, removing evidence of Nazi affiliations and war crimes involvement.

Among the most prominent recruits is Wernher von Braun, former SS officer and technical director of the Nazi V-2 rocket program. The V-2 program used concentration camp slave labor at Mittelbau-Dora, where an estimated 20,000 prisoners died from starvation, disease, and execution. Von Braun later becomes a central figure in NASA’s Apollo program. Other recruits include aviation pioneer Alexander Lippisch, chemical weapons experts Walter Schreiber and Kurt Blome, and intelligence officers who later work for the CIA.

The program’s existence remains classified for decades. When exposed, it reveals how Cold War imperatives trumped justice and accountability for Nazi crimes. Many Paperclip scientists receive American citizenship and prestigious positions while their victims never receive acknowledgment or justice. The program establishes an early pattern of the national security state prioritizing perceived strategic advantage over ethical considerations and democratic accountability.

Operation Paperclip’s legacy extends beyond the individual scientists recruited. It establishes institutional precedents for secrecy, falsification of records, and presidential directives being systematically circumvented by intelligence agencies pursuing their own operational priorities, a pattern that would recur throughout the Cold War.