Explain briefly what is Operation Paperclip in 500 words.
please don't copy it from internet.
Answers & Comments
mihirkumar3
As World War II ended, the race was on with the Soviet Union to seize as many German scientists as possible in anticipation of the Cold War. The full story has remained elusive until now. Operation Paperclip, by Annie Jacobsen, provides perhaps the most comprehensive, up-to-date narrative available to the general public. Her book is a detailed and highly readable account of the program. Jacobsen compiled extensive primary and secondary sources, duly annotated in over 100 pages of notes and bibliography. In it are many new sources, among them US government records (President Clinton’s “Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act”), German archival records, first-person accounts, memoirs, and letters. The book also contains a useful index and biographies of the principal players.
Jacobsen offers a detailed chronology of events related to Operation Paperclip. Because of its scope and the introduction of so many characters, the narrative could have been improved if the author had focused on a shorter list than the 89 individuals profiled and maintained more topical continuity. Nevertheless, the book is a compelling work with interesting historical and personal revelations, for example:
One of the most notorious cases of WMD proliferation occurred on 15 May 1945, when the German U-234 submarine, bound for Japan, was captured off Newfoundland by the USS Sutton. The U-boat carried Dr. Heinz Schlicke, Director of Naval Test Fields at Kiel, and the cargo included plans for the Hs293 glider bomb, V-1 glide bomb (forerunner to cruise missiles), V-2 rocket (forerunner to the SCUD missile), Me262 fighter aircraft (the first combat jet fighter), low observable submarine designs, and lead-lined boxes filled with 1,200 lbs. of uranium oxide, a key ingredient of atomic bombs. Schlicke, who claimed to be an electronic warfare expert, became a prisoner at Ft. Meade, MD.Sarin was produced at Dyhernfurth (Dyhernfurth later fell into Russian hands). Its name derives from the initials of its developers: Gerhard Schrader and Otto Ambros from the infamous IG Farben chemical company—maker of the killing gases used at concentration camps—and from the names of two German Army officers.Schrader tells the story of inventing “tabun,” a nerve agent named after the English word “taboo.” The Germans called it 9/91 and, after their defeat at Stalingrad, seriously considered using it on the Russians.
Henry Wallace, former vice president and secretary of commerce, believed the scientists’ ideas could launch new civilian industries and produce jobs. Indeed, German scientists developed synthetic rubber (used in automobile tires), non-running hosiery, the ear thermometer, electromagnetic tape, and miniaturized electrical components, to name a few.
Werner von Braun is well known to those who remember the Apollo moon landing. During the Ford administration, von Braun was almost awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—until one of Ford’s senior advisors, David Gergen, objected to his Nazi past.
Less well known is that another 120 fellow German scientists, engineers, and technicians developed the Saturn V launch vehicle, or that the Launch Operations Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, was headed by Kurt Debus, an ardent Nazi. The Vertical Assembly Building—bigger in volume than the Pentagon and almost as tall as the Washington Monument—was designed by Bernhard Tessmann, former facilities designer at the German missile launch facility at Peenemuende.
Operation Paperclip was a secret program of the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) largely carried out by Special Agents of Army CIC, in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians, such as Wernher von Braun and his V-2 rocket team, were recruited in post-Nazi Germany and taken to the U.S. for government employment, primarily between 1945 and 1959. Many were former members, and some were former leaders, of the Nazi Party.[1][2]
The primary purpose for Operation Paperclip was U.S. military advantage in the Russo–American Cold War, and the Space Race. The Soviet Union were more aggressive in forcibly recruiting (at gunpoint) 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.
Answers & Comments
Jacobsen offers a detailed chronology of events related to Operation Paperclip. Because of its scope and the introduction of so many characters, the narrative could have been improved if the author had focused on a shorter list than the 89 individuals profiled and maintained more topical continuity. Nevertheless, the book is a compelling work with interesting historical and personal revelations, for example:
One of the most notorious cases of WMD proliferation occurred on 15 May 1945, when the German U-234 submarine, bound for Japan, was captured off Newfoundland by the USS Sutton. The U-boat carried Dr. Heinz Schlicke, Director of Naval Test Fields at Kiel, and the cargo included plans for the Hs293 glider bomb, V-1 glide bomb (forerunner to cruise missiles), V-2 rocket (forerunner to the SCUD missile), Me262 fighter aircraft (the first combat jet fighter), low observable submarine designs, and lead-lined boxes filled with 1,200 lbs. of uranium oxide, a key ingredient of atomic bombs. Schlicke, who claimed to be an electronic warfare expert, became a prisoner at Ft. Meade, MD.Sarin was produced at Dyhernfurth (Dyhernfurth later fell into Russian hands). Its name derives from the initials of its developers: Gerhard Schrader and Otto Ambros from the infamous IG Farben chemical company—maker of the killing gases used at concentration camps—and from the names of two German Army officers.Schrader tells the story of inventing “tabun,” a nerve agent named after the English word “taboo.” The Germans called it 9/91 and, after their defeat at Stalingrad, seriously considered using it on the Russians.
Henry Wallace, former vice president and secretary of commerce, believed the scientists’ ideas could launch new civilian industries and produce jobs. Indeed, German scientists developed synthetic rubber (used in automobile tires), non-running hosiery, the ear thermometer, electromagnetic tape, and miniaturized electrical components, to name a few.
Werner von Braun is well known to those who remember the Apollo moon landing. During the Ford administration, von Braun was almost awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—until one of Ford’s senior advisors, David Gergen, objected to his Nazi past.
Less well known is that another 120 fellow German scientists, engineers, and technicians developed the Saturn V launch vehicle, or that the Launch Operations Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, was headed by Kurt Debus, an ardent Nazi. The Vertical Assembly Building—bigger in volume than the Pentagon and almost as tall as the Washington Monument—was designed by Bernhard Tessmann, former facilities designer at the German missile launch facility at Peenemuende.
Operation Paperclip was a secret program of the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) largely carried out by Special Agents of Army CIC, in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians, such as Wernher von Braun and his V-2 rocket team, were recruited in post-Nazi Germany and taken to the U.S. for government employment, primarily between 1945 and 1959. Many were former members, and some were former leaders, of the Nazi Party.[1][2]
The primary purpose for Operation Paperclip was U.S. military advantage in the Russo–American Cold War, and the Space Race. The Soviet Union were more aggressive in forcibly recruiting (at gunpoint) 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.