The title of Operation Paperclip, veteran journalist Annie Jacobsen’s latest exposé (she also wrote Area 51), refers to the secret US government program under which 1,600 German experts-many of them committed Nazis closely associated with Third Reich atrocities-were brought to the United States, provided with generous employment contracts, and given a clear path to citizenship. The biggest prizes were the scientists themselves, but among the ashes of the Third Reich, it was impossible to draw a clear distinction between scientist and war criminal because so much of Nazi Germany’s scientific and technical “progress” had hinged on the exploitation of slave labor and experiments inflicted on unwilling human subjects. The German surrender set off a mad scramble among the victorious Allies to capture the fruits of Nazi science. Fortunately, Nazi wonder weapons appeared too late to affect the war’s outcome. They built substantial leads in rocketry and aeronautics, human physiology, and chemical and biological warfare. Although Nazi science failed to produce an atomic bomb during the Second World War- thank God-Hitler’s scientists surged ahead in many other aspects of military technology.
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