Operation Paperclip: The True Story
Operation Paperclip was a secret U.S. intelligence program that brought more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians to the United States between 1945 and 1959, several of whom were confirmed former members of the Nazi Party, the SS, or the SA 1. Run by the newly formed Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), its goal was to harness German expertise for America's Cold War arsenal of rockets and biological and chemical weapons — and to keep that knowledge out of Soviet hands 2. President Harry Truman officially sanctioned the operation but forbade recruiting active Nazis; officials bypassed that order by whitewashing the scientists' records 2. The program's legacy is genuinely double-edged: the same men who built weapons for the Third Reich later helped put American astronauts on the Moon 2.
What Was Operation Paperclip?
Operation Paperclip was a covert U.S. program, active between 1945 and 1959, that relocated more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians to the United States for government employment after World War II 1. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff officially established the effort — first as "Operation Overcast" — on July 20, 1945, with the dual aims of leveraging German expertise against Japan and bolstering postwar U.S. military research 1. It was soon renamed Operation Paperclip 2. The program was administered by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), whose mission was to develop America's arsenal of rockets and other weapons while ensuring that coveted German research did not fall into the hands of the Soviet Union 2.
Where Did the Name "Operation Paperclip" Come From?
The name was bureaucratic, not dramatic. Intelligence officers attached ordinary paperclips to the files of the scientists they most wanted, marking which records would need to be "sanitized" before the individual could be cleared for U.S. entry 3. Those paperclips earmarked candidates whose biographical summaries omitted or minimized Nazi Party membership and wartime activities 3. What began as an internal filing shorthand eventually gave the entire operation its name.
How Did the U.S. Recruit the Scientists?
As World War II entered its final stages, American and British teams raced into occupied Germany to seize military and scientific research before the Soviets could 2. Groups such as the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (CIOS) confiscated documents and interrogated scientists as German facilities fell 2. One pivotal find — recovered from a toilet at Bonn University — was the Osenberg List, a catalogue of scientists who had worked for the Third Reich 2. Although Truman forbade recruiting Nazi members or active supporters, officials within the JIOA and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner to the CIA, bypassed the directive by eliminating or whitewashing incriminating evidence from the scientists' records 2.
Who Was Wernher von Braun?
The most famous Paperclip recruit was Wernher von Braun, the technical director at the Peenemünde Army Research Center who developed the lethal V-2 rocket that struck England during the war 2. Von Braun and fellow rocket scientists were brought to Fort Bliss, Texas, and the White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, as "War Department Special Employees" to assist U.S. Army rocket experimentation 2. He went on to direct NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and served as chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle — the rocket that eventually carried two dozen American astronauts toward the Moon 2. The first U.S. test of a captured German V-2 took place in 1946 3.
Why Is Operation Paperclip So Controversial?
The controversy is not about whether the program worked, but about its moral cost. Defenders argue the Cold War balance of power could have tipped toward the Soviet Union had the United States not recruited these scientists first 2. Opponents counter that the government ignored abhorrent war crimes without accountability, deliberately falsifying records to admit men Truman's own order had banned 2. That the space program that landed astronauts on the Moon in 1969 was built in part by former Nazi Party members captures the uncomfortable duality at the program's core 3.
When Was Operation Paperclip Declassified?
For decades the public knew names like von Braun without knowing the program's full scope. Operation Paperclip ran from 1945 to 1959, but the deliberate falsification of records was not widely documented until the 1990s 1. The most complete picture emerged after Congress passed the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act in 1998, which forced the release of government records related to Nazi war criminals and confirmed that officials had knowingly admitted men with serious wartime histories 1.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many scientists did Operation Paperclip bring to the U.S.? More than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were relocated to the United States between 1945 and 1959 1.
Who authorized Operation Paperclip? President Harry Truman officially sanctioned it, though he forbade the recruitment of active Nazi Party members — a restriction officials circumvented 2.
What was Operation Paperclip originally called? It was first established as "Operation Overcast" on July 20, 1945, before being renamed Operation Paperclip 1.
Did Operation Paperclip help the Moon landing? Yes. Wernher von Braun, a former V-2 rocket engineer recruited under the program, became chief architect of the Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo program 2.
Was there a Soviet equivalent? Yes. The Soviet Union ran its own parallel effort to recruit German scientists and technology after the war 1.