Operation Overcast

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
V2 on a launch pad at the White Sands Proving Grounds

The operation Overcast (Engl. Overcast = cloudy, overcast) was a military secret project of the United States in order after the defeat of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II in 1945 German scientists and technicians to recruit and to secure their military technical skills and knowledge.

German prisoners of war and civilian prisoners were transferred to the USA under the code name Operation Paperclip (English paperclip = paper clip), most of them were scientists or worked in industry.

The term Project Paperclip was later used to refer to the naturalization of scientists and the continuation of Operation Overcast , and even today the terms are often mistakenly mixed up.

The appropriation of German patents and reparations (including the dismantling of means of production) were not part of Operation Overcast.

Basis and history

The basis of the operation was a secret document from the Joint Chiefs of Staff , dated July 6, 1945 - shortly after the end of the war in Europe and before the defeat of Japan. The basic considerations began years earlier, however, and can be explained by the fact that in the USA the extensive demobilization and interruption of military research after the end of the First World War was viewed in retrospect by many politicians and the military as a mistake. Many in the General Staff were aware of the growing contrasts with the previously allied Soviet Union under Stalin . Operation Overcast was supposed to shorten its own development work by appropriating German military technology and avoid an arms gap. At the same time, these scientists and technicians should be withdrawn from the access of the USSR and its armaments industry. German military technology was a few steps ahead of the Allies in areas, especially with wing swepts and glide bombs , anti-aircraft missiles and rockets .

Selection criteria

The number of scientists was limited to 450, who were initially to be brought to the USA for six months without relatives in order to distribute them to the various branches of the armed forces ( army , air force , navy ). There should be no convicted war criminals in the contingent . Everyone who would be recognized as such should be sent back to Germany. When it became clear in 1946 that the researchers would stay longer in the USA, some of them would settle here and have their wives and families join them, extremely loose regulations followed, for example to justify Wernher von Braun's membership in the NSDAP and SS . In fact, Nazi exposure did not play a role in the selection; in view of the limited contingent on professional qualifications, careful screening was carried out. This is all the more remarkable because at the same time, for example, the responsible armaments minister Albert Speer was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in the context of the Nuremberg trials - not least because of the forced laborers used en masse in the context of arms production . V2 production in the Dora-Mittelbau production facility also took place under inhumane conditions and forced labor. For the responsible scientists and technicians, this was just as inconsequential as the civilian victims of the V1 and V2 attacks on London, for example . Obviously, the US's self-interest in military engineering predominated. This approach, the immigration of Nazis , was initially controversial within the US public .

Operation paperclip

Under the code name Operation Paperclip , the first group of scientists was brought to the USA in the summer of 1945. The name Paperclip (German: 'paper clip') was derived from the paper clips inserted in the relevant files, which marked the pages with relevant scientists (“Paperclip Boys”) who were to be transferred to the USA.

Originally, 100 rocket experts from Wernher von Braun's group at the Peenemünde Army Research Center were to be selected for the development of the unit 4 (or the V2). In August 1945 US Colonel Holger Toftoy, head of the missile department for research and development in the US Army, offered 127 specialists one-year contracts and temporarily accommodated them in Landshut and Bad Kissingen in the Wittelsbacher Hof hotel. In September 1945, a first group of seven scientists was transferred to Long Island , including Wernher von Braun. From the end of 1945, other groups followed to Fort Bliss with the neighboring test site White Sands . The family members of the German scientists were housed as "V-2-people" for several years in Landshut in a guarded camp, the so-called Camp Overcast . Helmut Gröttrup , specialist in control and representative of Ernst Steinhoff in Peenemünde, declined the offered contract for family reasons.

Likewise, as part of Operation Paperclip, the US government had German engineers and chemists, especially Brabag , IG Farben and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Coal Research , spend most of their time in Louisiana (Missouri) for the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Program , where until 1951 the United States Department of the Army maintained a hydrogenation plant for the production of synthetic fuels for research purposes based on the German model .

The Paperclip team at Fort Bliss, seventh from the right in the first row: Wernher von Braun

By 1946 at the latest it was clear that the originally planned length of stay of six months would not remain, and that the original maximum number of 350 people was no longer sufficient. A joint committee made up of the army, navy and the foreign ministry drew up basic drafts of how the program should be expanded and continued with Great Britain. The number of those affected was increased to a total of 1000 and the reunification of families was regulated up to the point of later naturalization. These principles were set out in a secret document entitled Use of Austrian and German Scientists as part of the Paperclip project . In addition to the term Operation Paperclip , the name Project Paperclip is also introduced for this “sub-project” and is also used generally for Operation Overcast , which can no longer be clearly separated. US President Harry S. Truman signed the document on September 13, 1946 . The "Declaration of Principles" came into effect on October 24th. Only now was the presence of the German Nazi scientists announced to the American public through the mass media , which largely responded with incomprehension and rejection.

With the technicians, all the technology left over after the war was also shipped, provided that it had fallen into the hands of the American units assigned to it. These were essentially V2 rockets that had not yet started and partially completed rocket motors from Peenemünde and from the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp production facility , which otherwise would have fallen to the USSR.

In Fort Bliss (Texas) and White Sands (New Mexico), the engineers were to research the further development of American missile technology . Between April 1946 and October 1951, 66 V2 rockets were launched at White Sands. Some were equipped with plants , some even with laboratory animals , all of which were killed on impacts. From the end of 1951, the launches were relocated to Cape Canaveral (Florida) and from 1958 the Mercury program prepared the manned space flight of the USA, which led to the first moon landing in 1969 .

Recruited scientists and engineers

As part of Operation Paperclip

Wernher von Braun and co-workers in Huntsville, Alabama, in the fall of 1959 . From left: Ernst Stuhlinger , Friedrich von Saurma , Fritz Müller , Hermann Weidner, Erich W. Neubert (partially covered), Willy Mrazek, Karl Heimburg , Arthur Rudolph , Otto Hoberg, von Braun, Oswald Lange , General John Bruce Medaris , Helmut Hölzer , Hans Maus, Ernst Geissler , Hans Hüter and George Constan.
Wernher von Braun with employees in 1961. From left to right: Werner Kuers, Walter Häussermann , Willy Mrazek, von Braun, Dieter Grau , Oswald Lange and Erich W. Neubert.

The scientists named below accepted temporary job offers from the USA between 1945 and 1947, some of them voluntarily or under pressure. Initially, they were interned and closely guarded. The approval for family members to join them did not take place until 1947 in response to the kidnapping of German specialists with their families as part of the Ossawakim campaign to the Soviet Union. Naturalization in the USA as part of the Project Paperclip was delayed for another year due to domestic political difficulties.

A copy from the US National Archives, published as the Harry Brunser Report , contains around 500 names in total.

After the operation paperclip

In the period from 1947 to 1955, other German scientists accepted job offers in the USA, which promised them naturalization as part of the Paperclip project .

Whereabouts and further use

The majority of the above-mentioned scientists stayed in the USA. Some like Heinz Haber, Hermann Oberth, Harry O. Ruppe and Carl Wagner returned to Germany. Even after retiring from active professional life, some scientists moved back to Germany. In individual cases, for example with Arthur Rudolph, there were later investigations into Nazi crimes, expulsions and a revocation of US citizenship.

Competition with other states

Friedland camp , return of the scientists from forced labor in Sukhumi , February 1958

The US was by no means alone in its program to harness the “brains”. All victorious powers had similar programs with different focuses. Great Britain tried to get German naval experts, but - like other victorious powers - had problems with it, since a large part of the population was against the immigration of German scientists due to the poor economic situation in Great Britain. Nevertheless, over 200 German scientists and their families found a new forced home in Australia, for example, as part of "Operation Matchbox". The British were primarily interested in the possibilities of using the huge lignite fields, for example in the Melbourne area, for fuel production. German scientists had successfully developed a corresponding process in the Buna works .

The Soviet Union began immediately after the war with the search for specialists of the German rocket technology of the unit 4 . Under the leadership of General Lev Gaidukov, Boris Tschertok was commissioned to locate Wernher von Braun's employees from the Peenemünde Army Research Center and other German scientists who had not yet been interned by the Western occupying powers or contractually bound. Under the direction of Helmut Gröttrup , Ernst Steinhoff's representative , the central works were set up in Bleicherode in order to completely reconstruct German rocket technology with more than 5000 German employees. Among others, the gyro expert Kurt Magnus and the aerodynamicist Werner Albring worked as chief designer under the direction of Sergei Koroljow . Around 160 German scientists and their families were forcibly deported to the Soviet Union in October 1946 as part of the Ossawakim campaign and detained for further developments on the island of Gorodomlja (today the Solnetschny settlement ) in Lake Seliger , Tver region , in the north-western part of central Russia . Overall, the Soviet Union abducted almost 3,000 German specialists for technical and scientific tasks to the Soviet Union during the Ossawakim operation. Between June 1951 and November 1953 they were able to return to what was then the GDR . Some of the returnees settled in the Federal Republic of Germany . A small group of electronics experts signed five-year contracts and saw the start of the Russian space program in Moscow with the Sputnik's maiden flight .

At the end of the war, the Ju 287 V1 fell into Soviet hands at Junkers in Dessau. It was completed under Soviet supervision and in September personnel and aircraft were relocated to Podberesje near Moscow. The development of the prototype was continued under the direction of Brunolf Baade . The twin-engined Model 150 bomber was also developed under Baade in the USSR .

The great influence of German scientists, engineers and technicians on the military technology of the two superpowers is particularly evident in aircraft and rocket production in the first post-war decade. For example, in the Korean War from 1950, the American F-86 Saber and the Soviet MiG-15 faced each other, two machines that used the wing profile of the Me 262 .

Arrest and internment

Project Safehaven was a US program to stop German research and to prevent German researchers from emigrating to countries like Spain or Argentina. The US armed forces concentrated on Saxony and Thuringia, where many German research institutions had been evacuated from Berlin. By 1947, an estimated 1,800 technicians and scientists along with 3,700 family members had been interned with this operation.

See also

literature

  • Tom Bower: Conspiracy Paperclip. Nazi scientists in the service of the victorious powers. List, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-471-77164-6 .
  • Uwe Obier: Operation Paperclip. The catalog on the occasion of the exhibition "Operation Paperclip" in the museums of the city of Lüdenscheid from January 6th to January 22nd, 1995. City of Lüdenscheid 1994, ISBN 3-929614-15-4 .
  • World premiere of the musical "Mission Apollo - a dream of mankind comes true" on June 26th, 2009 in Trossingen , based on the biography of Eberhard Rees.
  • Annie Jacobsen: Operation Paperclip, The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America. Little, Brown and Company, 2014, ISBN 978-0-316-27744-0 .
  • Franz Kurowski : Allied hunt for German scientists - The company Paperclip. Verlag Kristall bei Langen-Müller, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-607-00049-2 .
  • Volker Neipp : With screws and bolts to the moon - The incredible life's work of Dr. Eberhard FM Rees. With previously unpublished documents, including the private letters from an unknown paperclipper from the USA to the family in Germany, over 200 photos, etc. - From Peenemünde to the last moon mission. Springerverlag, Trossingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-9802675-7-1 .
  • T. Passie, U. Benzenhöfer: MDA, MDMA, and other "mescaline-like" substances in the US military's search for a truth drug (1940s to 1960s). In: Drug testing and analysis. Volume 10, number 1, January 2018, pp. 72-80, doi : 10.1002 / dta.2292 , PMID 28851034 (review).

Web links

Commons : Operation Paperclip  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franz Kurowski : Allied hunt for German scientists - The Paperclip company . Kristall bei Langen-Müller, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-607-00049-2 , p. 115 : “After all, 120 German specialists lived in the Wittelsbacher Hof in Bad Kissingen, some with their families. US guards guarded the hotel from all sides. Nevertheless, two French intelligence officers managed to penetrate the Wittelsbacher Hof and, going from room to room, to discuss things with the researchers. They promised them golden mountains if they came to France. By the time the Americans intervened, it was already too late. Some scientists were convinced and went with the French. "
  2. Jump up ↑ Missiles over New Mexico. (PDF; 262 kB) In: Der Spiegel. January 18, 1947, accessed on October 18, 2019 : “The families of almost all scientists now live in Landshut and receive separation allowances of 2 to 11 dollars every day. You and the men hope to see you again soon, but of course over in the states, whose citizenship they hope to get. "
  3. ↑ Jürgen Herda: From Peenemünde to Huntsville: Konrad Dannenberg developed six rocket aggregates Saturn-V wins "Race to the Moon". In: onetz.de. July 18, 2009, accessed on October 18, 2019 : “The“ V-2-people ”, as the Americans called them, lived in barracks for several years and always had to identify themselves to a military guard after returning“ from the city ” . They no longer had their own valid identification papers and were in fact stateless. Their wives and children lived in a guarded camp in Landshut and were only allowed to travel to the USA after they had signed a declaration to accept US citizenship. "
  4. ↑ Don Bongaards: A Sense of Urgency. Xlibris Corporation, 2009, p. 42.
  5. ^ Anthony N. Stranges: The US Bureau of Mines's synthetic fuel program, 1920–1950s: German connections and American advances. In: Annals of Science. 54, 2006, p. 29, doi : 10.1080 / 00033799700200111 .
  6. ^ Michael J. Neufeld: Wernher von Braun. Visionary of space, engineer of war. Translated from the English by Ilse Strasmann. Siedler, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-88680-912-7 , p. 279 ff.
  7. ↑ a b Researchers of the supersonic wind tunnel in Kochel am See
  8. ↑ Millinger: About Peenemünde into space. Epub 2006 ( Memento from May 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Gerhard Reisig: Rocket research in Germany: How people conquered space . Wissenschaft & Technik Verlag, 1999, ISBN 978-3-89685-506-0 (832 pages).
  10. ^ David DeVorkin, Martin Collins, Gerhard Reisig: Interview. (PDF; 952 kB) In: National Air and Space Museum. June 27, 1985, accessed on October 28, 2019 (English, about his work in Peenemünde, about Wernher von Braun, Helmut Gröttrup, Regener-Tonne, differences between the German and American approaches to developments).
  11. ^ California Committee for Saucer Investigation (CSI). (PDF; 248nbsp; kB) In: Central Intelligence Agency . February 9, 1953, accessed December 10, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Harry Brunser Report
  13. ↑ Foreign Scientist Case Files 1945-1958 (Entry A1-1B) , s. Finding aid on Archive.org
  14. ^ John Gimbel: US Policy and German Scientists. The Early Cold War. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 101, No. 3, 1986, pp. 433-451.