As a follow on to my two recent articles – one on Hubertus Strughold and the other on Wernher von Braun – I thought I would share with you the bigger picture of the
Paperclip program that began in the post-Second World War era. It was a project filled with controversy and for a very good reason:
Paperclip was filled with Nazis. Working in the United States. And under a veil of secrecy. Not good. Not good at all. Now, let’s have a look at the history of this grim operation. It was just about immediately after the Second World War came to an end in July 1945, certain elements of the American military and intelligence community clandestinely sought to bring some of the most brilliant figures within the German medical and scientific communities into the United States to continue research – and at times highly controversial research – they had undertaken at the height of the war. It was research that included studies of human anatomy and physiology in relation to aerospace m