Any detailed information on Operation Paperclip from WW2?

Question

Please provide bibliographical details - the question is for a Modern History assignment so I need "credible" references. Thank you

Answer 1

Try the sites below, please.

A sample from the first link:

"Operation Paperclip was the codename under which the US intelligence and military services extricated scientists from Germany, during and after the final stages of World War II. The project was originally called Operation Overcast, and is sometimes also known as Project Paperclip.

Of particular interest were scientists specialising in aerodynamics and rocketry (such as those involved in the V-1 and V-2 projects), chemical weapons, chemical reaction technology and medicine. These scientists and their families were secretly brought to the United States, without State Department review and approval; their service for Hitler's Third Reich, NSDAP and SS memberships as well as the classification of many as war criminals or security threats also disqualified them from officially obtaining visas. An aim of the operation was capturing equipment before the Soviets came in. The US Army destroyed some of the German equipment to prevent it from being captured by the advancing Soviet Army.

The majority of the scientists, numbering almost 500, were deployed at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, Fort Bliss, Texas and Huntsville, Alabama to work on guided missile and ballistic missile technology. This in turn led to the foundation of NASA and the US ICBM program.

Much of the information surrounding Operation Paperclip is still classified.

Separate from Paperclip was an even-more-secret effort to capture German nuclear secrets, equipment and personnel (Operation Alsos). Another American project (TICOM) gathered German experts in cryptography.

The United States Bureau of Mines employed seven German synthetic fuel scientists in a Fischer-Tropsch chemical plant in Louisiana, Missouri in 1946."

a sample from the second link:

"ELECTRONS AWAY or Tales of a GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST
Copyright 1968, by Harold A. Zahl
Published by Vantage Press, Inc. NY, NY
Page 107....
On "Project Paperclip" it was not pieces of equipment or missiles which were brought over from Germany, it was people -- scientists, engineers, and families. In the cruel years immediately following the war there were many very able scientists and engineers who wished to leave Western Europe and make a new home in the United States.
"Screening" offices were accordingly set up in Europe, and applications studied very carefully as to ability and previous political interests. Simultaneously military laboratories in this country were asked whether they wished any of these people, and their dossiers were made available for decision purposes. "

Answer 2

John is correct.
It's my understanding that Operation Paperclip will not be available until 2045.
Are you possibly referring to the one the kids did where they collected paperclips - each representing a Jew murdered in the Shoah?

Answer 3

This was the US operation to obtain as much information and key personel from defeated Germany as it could about particular scientific and military projects.
Many top Nazis were prevented from standing trial for war crimes and secretly taken to the USA where they became vital members of various projects.
The most notorious of these was Wernher von Braun who had been in charge of Hitler's rocket research and was responsible for the indisciminate bombing of thousands of British Civilians and for the employment of slave labourers in Germany many of whom were simply worked to death.
He became the head of the US rocket program and led the research to produce space satellites and nuclear missiles.
If you want a good reference for this period read The Good German by Joseph Kanon, it's a novel but he tells me it was very deeply researched. It's also been made into a film starring George Clooney.

Answer 4

hahahha You need credible references and you come here? Whatever happened to people doing their own work and actually learning something from it?