End US War Machine: Breaking US law, US recruited 1600 of Hitler’s top scientists including hard core Nazis such as Wernher von Braun who became director of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center-USA Today

“The law stated that no Nazis were allowed into the U.S. after the War, but 1600 German scientists and engineers were given government contracts – many of them hard-core Nazi ideologues.” They were recruited “for U.S. technological advancement, especially in anticipation of the Cold War…They were not held responsible for their war crimes….Wernher von Braun, a rocket engineer, was instrumental in developing the first U.S. ballistic missile…and later the Saturn V rocket while serving as director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.”

Sept. 16, 2020, “Fact check: Nazi scientists were brought to work for U.S. through Operation Paperclip,” USA Today, Miriam Fauzia

“The claim: After World War II, Nazi scientists joined NASA through Operation Paperclip.

Operation Paperclip

In 1945, the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, a subcommittee established by the Joint Intelligence Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

was tasked with retrieving

German scientists, doctors and engineers who were identified as

intellectually vital to the Third Reich.

Journalist Annie Jacobsen states in a 2014 interview that this was prompted by the Allies’ concerns over Hitler’s potential weapons arsenal.

“Fall of 1944, right after the Normandy landings, scattered among the Allies’ troops are these little units of scientific intelligence officers and they’re working to find out Hitler’s biological weapons, his chemical weapons and his atomic weapons,” said Jacobsen, author of “Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program to Bring Nazi Scientists to America.”

[“Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America.” The law stated that no Nazis were allowed into the U.S. after the War, but 1600 German scientists and engineers were given government contracts – many of them hard-core Nazi ideologues. “This was a very complicated, very dark, and at times very nefarious program involving men who were far from “good” German scientists.” –Annie Jacobsen”]

(continuing): “These intelligence officers eventually discovered while the atomic weapons program was not as advanced as initially feared, Hitler’s biochemical weapons were. The hunt “for this scientific treasure and ultimately for the scientists themselves” thus ignited Operation Overcast, renamed Paperclip for the paperclips attached to the files of the most “troublesome cases,” Jacobsen writes in her book.

The U.S. was not alone in this endeavor. Britain, France and especially the Soviet Union sought to enlist these German scientific experts, as well. A U.S.-Soviet technological rivalry marked by the Space Race and Cold War would also serve as a motivation, and justification, for Operation Paperclip’s existence.

By the fall of 1945, German scientists starting arriving on U.S. soil. Not all the men recruited were Nazis or SS officers but the most prominent and valued among them were [Nazis or SS officers], having worked either directly with Hitler or leading members of the Nazi Party, such as Heinrich Himmler and Herman Göring.

Wernher von Braun, a rocket engineer, was instrumental in developing the first U.S. ballistic missile, the Redstone, and later the Saturn V rocket while

serving as director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

As a Nazi ideologue and member of the SS, he traveled to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he “handpicked slaves to work for him as laborers,” said Jacobsen in a 2014 interview with NPR.

Hubertus Strughold, a physiologist and medical researcher, headed the German Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine, known for its torturous medical experiments on inmates from the Dachau concentration camp. Strughold claimed ignorance of any such activity until after the war, yet he appeared among a list of 95 doctors at an October 1942 conference discussing their findings.

In the U.S., he [Strughold] was chief scientist of the aerospace medical division at Brooks Air Force

and has since been credited as the father of space medicine.

Walter Schreiber, a former Nazi general, also oversaw inhumane medical experiments involving bioweapons that resulted in countless of deaths. Following the war, he was captured by the Soviets but defected to the U.S. He worked for various government entities before finally settling in Texas at the Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, Jacobsen writes.

While Schreiber would later serve as a witness during the Nuremberg trials,

he, von Braun, Strughold and the rest of their fellow Nazis brought to the U.S. would never be held accountable for their own atrocities.

Operation Paperclip remained secret throughout much of the Cold War.

Our rating: True

We rate this claim TRUE because it is supported by our research. Operation Paperclip was a secret initiative launched by the U.S. government to recruit German engineers, doctors, physicists, chemists and other scientific experts for U.S. technological advancement, especially in anticipation of the Cold War. Many recruited German scientists did work for NASA and various other government entities. They were not held responsible for their war crimes.”

Our fact-check sources: