Operation Paperclip: America’s Secret Nazi Scientists

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On May 2nd, 1945, a U.S.

Army private stood guard at the base of a remote mountain in Austria.

He was still riding high from the news he'd heard on the radio recently.

German leader Adolf Hitler had committed suicide.

The soldier knew it was just a matter of time until World War II was over and he could go back home to America.

Just then, he noticed someone barreling down the mountain on a bicycle.

The soldier realized it was a young man with blonde hair and civilian clothes, but he couldn't tell if the man was friend or foe.

He pointed his gun at the man as he hurtled toward him.

He wasn't about to risk anything in the last days of the war.

He ordered the man to drop his bike and put up his hands.

The man did as he was told.

Then, in broken English, he said he was one of hundreds of scientists that worked for the Nazi regime who had gone into hiding because Nazi leadership had ordered them to be executed.

The man said the Nazis would rather kill them than risk them being captured by the Allies and revealing their knowledge of Hitler's secret weapons.

The man insisted the scientists wanted to surrender to the Americans.

And not only that, they wanted to help the Americans by sharing with them the secrets of the Nazis' deadly new missile, the V-2 rocket.

The soldier looked the man up and down, taking in his fancy gray leather overcoat.

He was making a very bold claim, and the soldier couldn't tell if he was lying.

He was a Nazi, after all.

But if what the man said was true, it could potentially change the future of the world.

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From Ballin Studios and Wondery, I'm Luke Lamana, and this is Redacted, Declassified Mysteries, where each week we shine a light on the shadowy corners of espionage, covert operations, and misinformation to reveal reveal the dark secrets our governments try to hide.

This week's episode is called Operation Paperclip, America's Secret Nazi Scientists.

Today, I'm going to tell you about one of the greatest secrets and possibly travesties in the history of the U.S.

military.

It's a story that was hidden from the public for decades until 1998, when a government group overseeing Nazi war crimes launched the largest declassification effort in history.

It revealed that after World War II, the U.S.

granted asylum to Nazi scientists through a top-secret program called Operation Paperclip.

Despite their war crimes, these scientists went on to achieve great success in America, including involvement in the Apollo 11 moon landing, with the U.S.

government whitewashing their past.

I believe it speaks to how the United States has managed to lead the world in military might and cutting-edge technology for nearly a century,

but also how it did so at the expense of some of the country's most important values.

In the fall of 1944, the United States was in a tricky situation.

They were fighting the war on two fronts, one in Europe against Nazi Germany and the other in the Pacific against Japan.

And while it seemed like the US and its allies were on their way to victory, the fight was far from over.

That's because the American military was also thinking beyond World War II.

They wanted to ensure that the U.S.

would become a global superpower when the dust settled, even if it meant crossing moral and ethical lines.

In 1945, the U.S.

launched a secret program called Operation Paperclip.

The goal was to capture valuable German scientists before the Soviet Union, Britain, or France could.

The U.S.

recognized that these men had skills beyond developing military weapons.

Some of them were world-renowned experts in rocketry, biology, and chemistry, with scientific knowledge that was 25 years ahead of the U.S.

If the military could bring them to America before the other allies got their hands on them, it could cement America's position as the dominant country in the post-war world.

But who were these men the U.S.

rescued from Germany?

How many of them were war criminals with blood on their hands?

What was the cost of bringing them to America?

And what was the government hiding?

In February 1945, 28-year-old Major Robert B.

Staver sat in his London office.

Stacks of documents covered every inch of Staver's small desk, and hundreds of maps were taped to the walls.

All of it concerned one subject, the Germans' new V-2 rocket, their so-called vengeance weapon that could fly at supersonic speeds and remain virtually silent until it hit hit its target.

Staver, the chief of the jet propulsion section of the U.S.

Army Ordnance Corps, was in charge of compiling intelligence on the V-2, including which German scientists were working on the project and where.

So, Staver pored intently over today's reports, and he was just about to post more recon photos on his crowded wall when he heard a knock on his door.

He shouted that he was in the middle of something, but his assistant replied that it was important.

Staver tried to hide his annoyance as she walked into the tiny office and handed him a thick thick manila envelope.

It was from the joint British and American intelligence group that was investigating German scientific developments.

Staver thanked his assistant and asked her to close the door behind her.

His eyes went wide as he pulled out several pieces of paper from the envelope.

Staver did a double take as he read the first document and realized what he was holding in his hands.

It was a list of 15,000 German scientists and 1,400 Nazi research facilities.

The description on the first page explained that the original list was found half-flushed down a toilet at the German University of Bonn.

Scientists working for the Nazis at the university had dumped it as American troops were approaching the city, but U.S.

soldiers found the list before it could be completely destroyed.

Thanks to the Nazis' meticulous record keeping, U.S.

intelligence was able to reconstruct the complete list.

It was extensive and included each scientist's address, their degree of loyalty to the regime, and personal information that could be used to blackmail them into supporting Hitler.

Staver's hands shook as the profound importance of the list hit him.

He'd been researching these people and places for months, and he had accumulated hundreds of names and places.

But now, he was holding a gold mine of information ten times bigger than his own list and precisely detailed by the Nazis themselves.

Now, the Allies could literally knock on the door of the individual people who were responsible for creating these weapons.

A few months later, in the spring of 1945, Staver arrived in the central German city of Nordhausen.

He was on the hunt for V-2 rocket parts and blueprints.

Supposedly, they were located in an underground weapons facility called Mittelwerk.

Staver tried to focus on the task at hand as he made his way to the facility, but it was difficult.

The stench of death permeated the city streets.

He watched in horror as American soldiers dug mass graves.

They were surrounded by thousands of corpses from the nearby Nordhausen-Dora slave labor concentration camp.

Staber knew these prisoners had been working to assemble rockets like the V-2.

The prisoners were denied food, water, and basic sanitation as they were slowly worked to death.

The people who ran the weapons facility were utterly ruthless.

When quotas weren't met or rockets failed, 12 prisoners at a time were hung for the rest of the workers to see.

Their bodies were left dangling above the production lines.

The rest of the prisoners died from starvation, dysentery, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.

In the first six months that the concentration camp operated, 2,882 people died.

Staver shuddered at the thought of the atrocities that took place here, but he had a job to do, one that he hoped would right some of the wrongs that were committed by the Nazis.

Staver shook off his nausea and waved his unit over to the entrance of the facility.

As soon as they descended into the underground tunnel at Middelverk, Staver found it difficult to breathe.

There was rubble everywhere.

Staver took a step forward and a cloud of dust enveloped him.

He cleared his throat and rubbed the dirt from his eyes.

His men followed.

Staver reminded them to keep their eyes peeled for any V2 parts and assembly instructions.

Slowly, they made their way through the dark tunnel.

Staver directed his hefty flashlight along the ground and up the walls.

A shiny object caught his attention.

He inched closer and bent down to get a better look.

As he brushed away debris, a piece of metal came into focus.

Staver cried out in excitement and turned to his unit.

He'd just found a V-2 rocket part.

Staver's men huddled around the machinery.

They pushed aside more rubble to reveal a huge stash of even more rocket parts.

Staver ordered a group of men to collect the materials while he led the others onward.

After a few hours, Staver and his team had collected 400 tons of rocket parts.

With the help of a crane, they loaded the parts onto rail cars bound for Antwerp.

From there, they would be sent to the U.S.

Staver was thrilled with their progress, but he knew they still had to find the blueprints.

Without the documents explaining how to put the parts together, the U.S.

would never have its own V-2 rocket.

On May 12, 1945, Major Robert Staver pulled up to an unassuming house in Nordhausen.

He got out of the car, straightened his uniform, and walked up to the front door.

Staver knocked, and then he waited.

He was at the home of Carl Otto Fleischer, a V-2 rocket scientist who had been an engineer inside the Middelwerk tunnels.

After a moment, Fleischer opened the door.

Staver felt himself stand up a little straighter as Fleischer assessed him.

Staver thought he looked tired, but he knew not to underestimate the scientist.

In a gruff voice, Fleischer asked Staver what he wanted.

Staver had been using cans of spam and packets of cigarettes to bribe locals for information.

He could immediately tell that a petty bribe like that wasn't going to work on Fleischer.

So Staver lied.

He told Fleischer that the Americans had his superiors in custody.

Fleischer's bosses were ordering him to tell Staver where the V-2 rocket plans were.

In the most assertive voice he could muster, Staver told the scientist that he could tell him where the plans were hidden.

or go to jail.

Staver allowed Fleischer to think it over.

He knew the scientist would cave.

What else could he do?

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Fleischer sighed and began to talk.

He told Staver the plans had been buried in an abandoned mine 30 miles away.

It was guarded by an ardent Nazi.

Fleischer knew how to get past the caretaker, but there was another problem.

After the Nazis buried the documents inside, they sealed the entrance to the mine by setting off dynamite.

If they wanted to get in, Staver and his unit would need some pickaxes and about a dozen local miners to clear the way.

Staver quickly agreed.

It was a small price to pay for such important information.

If Staver could locate those V-2 plans before anyone else, the U.S.

could develop their own version of the V-2 and use it against the Japanese, who still had not surrendered.

But Staver knew that the missile could also help the U.S.

after the war, giving them a weapon more powerful than anything the Soviets possessed.

But if the Soviets found those V-2 plans first, Staver shuddered to think how they might use their new power to dominate the world.

A few days later, Robert Staber stood at the entrance to the Dorton mine.

He watched as local miners dug through the huge pile of rubble blocking the door.

Staber had managed to convince the U.S.

Army to pay the men for their help, but now came the true test.

Was Fleischer lying, or were the V-2 blueprints really inside?

Staver stepped aside just as a rock flew by his head.

He held his breath as the men broke through the last of the debris.

The miners dropped their shovels and signaled to Staber that they were done.

He rushed forward and stepped inside the dark tunnel, shining his flashlight all around.

To Staver's delight, he could see crates piled one on top of the other and filled with documents.

Staver picked up a sheet of paper from the top pile, which confirmed his wildest hope.

They had found the plans to build the V-2 rocket.

But he knew he needed to move quickly.

The Soviets weren't the only ones who wanted this information.

British soldiers were set to arrive in Nordhausen on May 27th to oversee the transition of the region from U.S.

to Soviet authority.

The U.S.

had promised the U.K.

that they would share all V-2 knowledge and technology.

If the Brits realized that Staver and the U.S.

Army were trying to smuggle these documents to America without their knowledge, they wouldn't be happy.

The next day, Robert Staver sat hunched over a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft.

The plane was so small that his head brushed the ceiling.

But Staver didn't care.

He'd practically begged the pilot to let him hitch a ride to Paris.

Staver needed to get to Ordnance headquarters to secure transport for the V-2 documents as soon as possible.

He rubbed his temples as he contemplated the other very important task he needed to get done while he was there.

He wasn't sure how well it would go over with his superiors.

But Staver had to try.

U.S.

national security depended on it.

A few hours later, Staver sat across from Colonel Joel Holmes.

Holmes was the chief of the Army's technical division and the only man who could secure the trucks needed to smuggle out the documents from the Dorton mine.

Staver explained the situation to Holmes, who immediately agreed to send trucks to the mine.

Staver thanked him, then hesitated.

He told Holmes there was one more thing he wanted to discuss.

Staver took a deep breath and started talking.

Staver tried to contain his excitement as he told Holmes that the list that was found half flushed down a toilet had led the Army to find over 400 top Nazi scientists.

He explained that these men were directly responsible for developing the V-2 rocket.

Their scientific knowledge was 25 years ahead of the U.S.

And best of all, even though the Americans had little leverage over these brilliant mines, they agreed to help the United States.

The problem was: if these scientists stayed in Germany, the post-Hitler government could use them to launch rockets from Europe all the way to America.

Staver looked into Holmes' eyes and shared the final part of his plan.

He wanted to bring these Nazi scientists to the U.S.

Staver watched Holmes process the shocking information.

He held his breath as he waited for a reply.

Finally, Holmes looked up at Staver.

Holmes told him to write a cable to the Pentagon that he would sign, highlighting the advanced skills of the hundreds of Nazi scientists in custody and recommending that the Pentagon bring them to the United States immediately so they could prevent losing them to rival nations.

But in the midst of all the chaos of the final months of the war, Holmes failed to ask the questions that would come to haunt the U.S.

Who were these 400 top scientists?

And what had they done during the war?

Days later, Staver walked onto the grounds of the Garmish-Partenkirchen ski resort in southern Germany.

Back in 1936, it was the site of the Winter Olympics.

Staver took in the mountains, which had turned a stunning green thanks to the spring rains.

He couldn't help but admire the colorful wildflowers as he made his way to the base of the resort.

There, he found the famed German scientist, Werner von Braun, sunbathing on a lounge chair.

It looked like von Braun was living a life of luxury, especially compared to the death and destruction Staber had witnessed in Nordhausen, where von Braun had been a senior official, as well as a member of the Nazi Party.

But the U.S.

Army had decided that the resort was the safest place to keep von Braun and the other high-ranking Nazi scientists they'd captured.

As Staber approached von Braun, he felt a strong sense of inner conflict.

If he asked von Braun to come back to America and work for U.S.

intelligence, von Braun would escape the upcoming Nuremberg trials for Nazi war criminals.

But Staber knew that if he didn't try to get von Braun on the American side, the Soviets would surely try to recruit him and the other scientists for their own cause.

Staber reminded himself this was the lesser of two evils.

He brushed off his uniform and held his head high.

He walked up to von Braun and introduced himself.

Before Staver could change his mind, he told von Braun he could come back with him to the American base in Nordhausen.

From there, he would be transported to America and set up with a government job.

The U.S.

would also allow von Braun to bring his family.

Or he could continue to sunbathe at the resort until the Soviets came to get him.

Staber watched von Braun weigh his options: go with Staver or be left at the mercy of the Red Army.

After a few minutes, von Braun extended his hand to Staver.

He agreed to follow him.

Back in Nordhausen, Staver and von Braun arrived at the American camp.

The handful of other high-ranking scientists at the resort had also agreed to come, but Staver had a lot more work to do.

There were still hundreds of other scientists he needed to convince to come to the U.S.

Once von Braun was settled at the camp, Staver visited the barracks where he was staying.

He whipped out a stack of note cards from the pocket of his army jacket.

He explained that they contained the names and addresses of the other V-2 engineers.

To Staver's relief, Von Braun agreed to help him track down the men and recruit them to the cause.

Staver rushed out of the barracks and got on the megaphone.

He instructed every available U.S.

soldier to round up any vehicles they could find: trucks, motorcycles, even donkey carts.

They were setting off on a mission through the Hars Mountains to find the remaining scientists and their families.

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In November 1945, Werner von Braun, Nazi Germany's most celebrated scientist, walked through the the front doors of his two-story barracks in Fort Bliss, Texas.

He was exhausted after spending all day in the Army base's lab.

As von Braun made his way through the first level of the building, he took note of the cracked floors and small bedrooms.

He wandered into the kitchen, nearly tripped over himself as a family of cockroaches skittered out from under the sink.

Von Braun sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands.

He let out a deep sigh.

This was nothing like his house back in Germany, and it was certainly a far cry from the Bavarian Bavarian ski resort where he'd spent the last few months.

Although the Americans had saved von Braun from prison or even execution, few of the people he was working with at Fort Bliss knew about his Nazi past.

He was just another one of the 100 or so German scientists who were helping the U.S.

develop intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

But von Braun loved science itself more than he loved the Americans.

In fact, he found their food tasteless, the Texas landscape ugly, and the people themselves hard to work with.

He'd spent most of that day arguing with Army officials about equipment.

It was frustrating to von Braun.

The Americans wanted him to create the world's best missiles, but they refused to provide him with the resources to do so.

In Germany, he was given everything he needed, and more.

Here, in America, the government was counting pennies.

Von Braun ran his hand over the paint-chipped kitchen wall next to him.

He reminded himself it was still better than being captured by the Soviets.

They would have made him face punishment for the thousands of deaths he'd had a hand in during the war.

Here in the United States, all he had to face were cockroaches.

For the next decade, von Braun taught Americans the intricacies of launching rockets and guided missiles, including a few V-2 rockets that had been smuggled out of Germany.

During much of this time, von Braun was not allowed to leave Fort Bliss without an escort.

He and his German colleagues jokingly called themselves POPs.

They were, Von Braun said, prisoners of peace.

Twelve years later, on October 4th, 1957, Werner von Braun sprang up from his desk at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, where he and his team were now based.

His phone rang and he answered it almost immediately.

The voice on the other end made a shocking announcement.

The Soviet Union had launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1.

Von Braun couldn't believe they'd beat him to it.

After years of designing weapons, he was now concentrating on the space program, and he'd been working on the Jupiter-C rocket that could transport American satellites satellites into orbit.

But with the announcement about Sputnik, all that was overshadowed.

Von Braun knew at that moment that he had to talk to Neil Hosier McElroy as soon as possible.

McElroy was about to become the U.S.'s Secretary of Defense.

Von Braun knew he would understand the gravity of the situation.

At a reception at Redstone Arsenal, von Braun approached McElroy and explained that they could still come out on top in the space race.

Jupiter-C was almost ready.

Von Braun's team just needed a few more rocket parts.

If they got those, they could launch a satellite in just 90 days.

Sure enough, McElroy was on board.

After talking it over with his department, McElroy gave Von Braun the go-ahead to kick his work into hyperspeed.

Less than four months later, on January 31st, 1958, at 10.48 p.m., Von Braun watched the Jupiter-C launch from Washington, D.C.

His heart raced as the rocket shot the Explorer 1, America's first satellite, into the air.

Von Braun held his breath as he waited for the satellite to break through the atmosphere and launch into outer space.

Beads of sweat ran down his forehead.

His whole life had been leading up to this.

If the mission failed, von Braun would be back at Square One, and the United States would lose the space race.

Just then, the space station received a call that the satellite was safely orbiting the Earth.

The launch was a success.

It had taken more than the one and a half months von Braun originally estimated, but it was still a huge accomplishment.

Von Braun couldn't contain his excitement.

He pumped his fist in the air and high-fived his team members.

He walked to the window and looked up at the sky, beaming with joy.

The U.S.

had been in a funk ever since the Soviets launched Sputnik.

Many Americans feared that Sputnik showed that the Soviets could build a missile that reached America.

But Explorer One showed the world that America had technology that was just as advanced as the Soviets.

Thanks to Werner von Braun, the U.S.

was truly a global superpower.

On June 16, 1977, 65-year-old Werner von Braun lay in a hospital bed in Alexandria, Virginia.

He was rail-thin, and his once rosy complexion was now a pale yellow.

Four years ago, von Braun was diagnosed with cancer.

He was doing his best to hold on, but his body was tired.

As von Braun stared off into the distance, he thought back on the last last two decades of his life in his adopted country.

After the success of Explorer 1, von Braun was heralded as an American hero who saved the U.S.

in the space race.

In 1960, his reputation as a skilled aerospace engineer led him to the Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, was just created, and von Braun was tapped to be the center's first director.

Von Braun jumped at the opportunity.

As the center's director, von Braun oversaw the development of rockets that led to the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, and in 1970 he became NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Planning.

He'd spent three years in the role before his cancer diagnosis forced him to step down.

A gentle knock on von Braun's hospital room door snapped him out of his journey down memory lane.

He looked on as a nurse approached his bed.

Her voice was full of excitement as she told Von Braun he had a very important phone call.

Vice President Nelson Rockefeller was on the line.

Von Braun was too weak to hold anything, so the nurse put the phone to his ear.

He listened as Vice President Rockefeller told him he was being awarded the Medal of Science in Engineering.

The Vice President would be there tomorrow to present von Braun with the medal.

Later that day, von Braun took his last breath.

He was just a day shy of receiving the medal from Rockefeller himself and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Science in Engineering.

With his death, von Braun narrowly avoided facing justice again.

If von Braun had stayed in Germany back in 1945, chances are he would have been questioned during the Nuremberg trials that took place in November of that year.

Almost 200 former Nazis took the stand, and 37 were sentenced to death.

As other former Nazis went to the gallows, von Braun was at Fort Bliss building rockets for the U.S.

military.

Now, in 1977, von Braun succumbed to cancer, eight years before the truth about him would finally be revealed to the world.

In 1985, CNN reporter Linda Hunt published a bombshell story that completely changed the way Americans viewed Wernher von Braun.

When President Truman first approved Operation Paperclip in 1946, he knew he was fighting an uphill battle.

The U.S.

Army wanted to bring hundreds of German scientists to the United States to develop military and aerospace technology.

Some of those scientists were quote-unquote good Nazis, military officials argued, who had begrudgingly worked for the Hitler regime after the Nazis blackmailed them or their family members.

But others were ardent supporters of the Third Reich.

These people shared Hitler's racist views and even ran their own concentration camps.

U.S.

officials knew the American public would never allow these scientists to come to the United States if they knew the truth about their past.

When newspapers started reporting on Operation Paperclip back in the 1940s, Robert Patterson, who was the Undersecretary of War at the time, came up with a plan.

He assured the public that only the good Nazis would come to the U.S.

Patterson instructed Army intelligence officers to review all the files on the German scientists and attach paperclips to those who were ardent Nazis so that they could be excluded.

Based on his war record, Wernher von Braun was likely one of the people who got a paperclip.

But, of course, a paperclip isn't a bulletproof filing mechanism.

Eventually, most of those paperclips were mysteriously lost.

Without an official list of those ardent Nazis, Patterson and other officials were able to whitewash the scientists' heinous war crimes and grant U.S.

visas to even the most horrible German war criminals.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, CNN reporter Hunt accessed government records that detailed von Braun's involvement with Hitler and the Third Reich.

And it turned out, he was most definitely an ardent Nazi.

In November 1933, von Braun joined the SS, Hitler's brutal paramilitary group, which was most responsible for carrying out the genocide of six million Jews.

Von Braun was part of the SS cavalry and later claimed his only involvement was taking horseback riding lessons.

However, in 1937, von Braun officially joined the Nazi Party.

By the time the Nordhausen-Dora slave labor concentration camp was established in 1943, von Braun had been working on developing the V-2 rocket for years.

Given his importance to the regime, he became the head of the camp.

That year, 1,300 French and Russian prisoners were put to work assembling V-2 machinery.

In the winter of 1943, an estimated 20 prisoners were dying daily under von Braun's leadership.

With the number of skilled technicians running low, von Braun himself traveled to the nearby Buchenwald concentration camp and hand-picked prisoners to bring to Nordhausen-Dora.

By the time Nordhausen-Dora was shut down in April 1945, an estimated 20,000 people had died there through hangings, death marches, or brutal living and working conditions.

After Linda Hunt published her report in 1985, American citizens and government officials were outraged.

40 years had passed since Wernher von Braun and other Nazi scientists were brought to the U.S., and they'd received nothing but a warm welcome and accolades.

Many felt it was high time that they were finally punished for their crimes.

But there was an issue.

Millions of pages of wartime and post-war records that contained information on von Braun and the other scientists were still classified.

In the wake of the CNN report, Congress, government prosecutors, historians, and war crime victims lobbied for access to the records.

It took another 13 years and a whole lot of effort to bring the truth to light.

Finally, in 1998, 8.5 million pages of secret records were made public.

But for many Americans, it felt like too little, too late.

While he was alive, Von Braun escaped justice at the Nuremberg trials and was even lauded as an American hero.

His Medal of Science in Engineering was never rescinded.

In February 2021, NASA employees urged the agency to remove a bust of von Braun from their headquarters.

NASA complied, but his name still adorns a research hall at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where von Braun helped develop the Apollo Moon program.

Another Nazi doctor, Theodor Benzinger, was granted asylum in the U.S.

after the war.

When he died in 1999, he received a glowing obituary in the New York Times.

It failed to mention that he performed horrendous experiments on concentration camp prisoners.

German physiologist and medical researcher Huberta Strughold had an award named after him, which is given annually by the Space Medicine Association to top aviation researchers.

The award did not acknowledge that Strugghold was a Nazi who oversaw torturous experiments involving prisoners who were locked in low-pressure chambers and then submerged in freezing water.

When Strugghold's past finally became public in 2013, the award in his honor was retired.

All these years later, it remains an open question whether the rescue of the Nazi scientists was morally justified by other factors.

Thanks to Operation Paperclip and Wernher von Braun, the United States was able to maintain dominance over the Soviet Union and other communist countries that were seen as huge threats.

Von Braun directly contributed to both military and aerospace advancements, including the Apollo 11 moon landing, which is still widely celebrated as one of America's greatest achievements.

With von Braun's help, the U.S.

became the global superpower that American leaders so desperately wanted it to be.

But, von Braun also played a role in the deaths of thousands of innocent people during World War II, and he actively worked to make Nazi supremacy a reality through his work on the V-2 rocket.

And we can't ignore the fact that von Braun was indirectly responsible for the deaths of at least 5,000 civilians who were killed by V-2 rocket strikes during the war.

So, was Operation Paperclip worth it?

Are advancements in military technology worth enlisting the help of some of the worst people in history?

Odds are, if the U.S.

hadn't recruited these scientists to the American side, one of the other allied powers would have.

And if that ally had been the Soviet Union, they probably would have used those scientists to build the same kinds of weapons and technologies as the U.S.

did.

And they almost certainly could have created a rocket that could reach America from the USSR, a development that instead came many years later.

But, the U.S.

government has a moral responsibility to do right by its citizens.

Granting asylum to war criminals doesn't qualify, especially when they escape all accountability for their crimes.

Neither does lying about Operation Paperclip to hide the worst Nazi abuses.

At the end of the day, government officials may have believed they chose the lesser of two evils by bringing von Braun and his cronies to the U.S.

But Operation Paperclip will always be a stain on America's claim to be a force for justice in the world.

Follow Redacted Declassified Mysteries, hosted by me, Luke Lamana, on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you're looking to dive into more gripping stories from Balin Studios and Wondery, you can also listen to my other podcast, Wartime Stories, early and ad-free with Wondery Plus.

Start your free trial in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify today.

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From Balin Studios and Wondery, this is Redacted, Declassified Mysteries, hosted by me, Luke Lamana.

A quick note about our stories.

We do a lot of research, but some details and scenes are dramatized.

We used many different sources for our show, but we especially recommend Operation Paperclip, the secret intelligence program that brought Nazi scientists to America by Annie Jacobson, Crossbow and Overcast by James McGovern, and articles from NPR and the New York Times.

This episode was written by Natalie Protsovsky, sound design by Andrei Plus.

Our producer is Christopher B.

Dunn.

Our associate producers and researchers are Sarah Vitak, Teja Palakonda, Adam Mellian, and Ruffa Faria.

Fact-checking by Sheila Patterson.

For Balin Studios, our head of production is Zach Levitt.

Script editing by Scott Allen.

Our coordinating producer is Samantha Collins.

Production support by Avery Siegel.

Produced by me, Luke Lamana.

Executive producers are Mr.

Ballin and Nick Witters.

For Wondery, our head of sound is Marcelino Villipando.

Senior producers are Laura Donna Palavota, Dave Schilling, and Rachel Engelman.

Senior managing producer is Nick Ryan.

Managing producers are Olivia Fonte and Sophia Martins.

Executive producers are Aaron O'Flaherty and Marshall Louie for Wondery.

How hard is it to kill a planet?

Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere.

When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

Are we really safe?

Is our water safe?

You destroyed our town.

And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

We call things accidents.

There is no accident.

This was 100%

preventable.

They're the result of choices by people.

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.

These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.

Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it.

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.