Talk:Operation Paperclip

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[edit] OVERCAST was the actual OSS-sponsored

my sources indicate that OVERCAST was the actual OSS-sponsored movement of captured personnel and families to the USA. Any comments before I make the edit? ---PaulinSaudi (I forgot how to put my signature here.)

signature, 4 tilde
please put sources on page in References , or something.

we need more references. 64.168.30.87 05:05, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Overcast became Paperclip

As best I can figure, Overcast was supposed to sneak the scientists in for a six month period. Truman appoved it on a permanent basis, and it became Paperclip. Arthur Rudolph mentions being held at Camp Overcast near Landshut. --Gadget850 12:09, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Operation Matchbox

Looks like Canada had a similar program called Operation Matchbox [1] --Gadget850 16:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] these were Nazi scientists

Why does it seem like there is a conscious effort to avoid stating that these were Nazi scientists? It's directly implied in the middle of the article, but shouldn't this be somewhere in the first paragraph? After all that's what this article is about. (Louiswaweru 06:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC))

[edit] CIA didn't exist during world war II

Seems someone is being a bit overeager categorizing this as CIA operation. I don't think CIA existed as of yet. CIA migth have inherited the project, though? --131.207.236.198 12:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 10/100/1000/10000/... billion $

I think the value is a bit undervalued if you just look at unit cost of e.g. Minuteman III, from which you can easily derive enormous set of resources that had to be invested in designing just this one unit. 100 billion$ is not even close to the whole sum... --217.72.64.8 07:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

re: the following in the note section. The $10 billion compares to the total Marshall plan expenditure (1948-1952) of $13 billion, of which Germany received $1,4 billion (partly as loans).

is $1,4 billion correct? or should it be $$1.4 billion?

Skywriter 05:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Von Braun

I am surprised to see this rendition of Von Braun's surrender, yet again. I actually know the American soldier who found Von Braun hiding in a wind tunnel and captured him for the US. Von Braun did NOT surrender. Not only that, I have the actual US documents to prove this and copies of the soldier's Occupational area Pass. (Thecufflinkguy 15:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC))

[edit] They are Nazis

The opening paragraph reads "... US intelligence and military services extricated Nazi scientists from Germany ..." Is this accurate in that every scientist extracted was a member of the National Socialist Party, or would it be more accurate to say German scientists, or scientists working under or for the Nazi regime? Icd 04:22, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Your logic of "their not NAZI's unless you can prove otherwise," is a falisy. They are all Nazi's until You can prove otherwise. this is why, These guys did bad things,and used innocent people(including black GI's) in a very bad way to support the National Socialist Party which they should have been tried for,but the U.S. government stepped in and prevented this. If they were only German scientist there would be no need for Operation Paperclip. Read about how the V1 and V2 were developed in Germany using slave labor and what happens to these Romani,Jews and black American GI's when the rockets malfunctioned.There would be group hangings to scare and get the attention of the rest of the consentration camp.Stop your propaganda or Wikipedia will lose its credabitity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.93.109.232 (talk) 19:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


  • If the scientist had not been Nazis, then there would have been no need to extract them in secrecy. -- Petri Krohn 04:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • All were members of the Nazi Party and some were "ardent Nazis" meaning they participated in the activities and programs of the Nazi Party with great enthusiasm. According to Hunt's Secret Agenda, party membership was required. There is some debate about how "ardent" a Nazi was Werner von Braun. Like the others, he later denied enthusiasm yet he is seen in a picture with the highest level officials. Skywriter 05:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I strongly believe that it should be changed to "German scientists" or "German scientists who had worked for the Nazi regime" etc. I see no evidence that von Braun, etc. were adherents to the National Socialist ideology. To recieve funding to continue their work [and to avoid being investigated by the SS] they would probably have to become paper members of the nazi party, and pay some lip service to it, but that does not mean they actually believed in [or were aware of] National Socialist ideology.
  • I'm sure a Russian scientist of the same time period would praise & pledge undying loyalty to Stalin in order to not get purged by the NKVD.This would not make those scientists "Stalinists" or "Stalinist scientists".
  • And just because Braun or others might be in photos with government officials doesn't mean that they like those people, it just means that he was in no position to anger them: if Himmler, head of the SS, decided he wanted to visit von Braun and take a photo with him, do you think von Braun could realistically refuse? Do you expect him to say: "No, Herr Himmler, I can't take a photo with you. I would rather die!"
  • We should seriously avoid treating the words "Nazi" and "German" like synonyms, becasue that would, after all, be racist. --Filippo Argenti 03:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Since no one attempted to refute any of the arguments I made about the inappropriateness of the "Nazi scientists" phrase, I changed the line in the intro from '(extracting)Nazi scientists from Germany' to '(extracting)German scientists from Nazi Germany'. If anyone has any convincing argument that a specific, individual German scientist was a Nazi, then they can present that evidence wherever it would be relevant, either in this article or elsewhere, but the absurd generalization that all those scientists were Nazis simply because they were ethnic Germans or German nationals is racist, inappropriate, and not worthy of a scholarily, encyclopedic article. --Filippo Argenti 20:43, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Albert Einstein

He was brought to the US during this project, was he not? He is not listed under the notable people sections. I may be off, but I'm sure he was brought and then was used in the early stages of the Manhattan Project.Electronic.mayhem 13:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm no expert on Einstein, but I believe he fled to the United States during the Interwar period, in which case he would have aleady been in the US by the time Paperclip got started. --Filippo Argenti 03:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
You might like to read Albert Einstein to grasp that he was not a Nazi scientist and was not brought to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip. He was a scientist, born to Jewish parents, who condemned the rise of the Nazi power in the early 1930s and that regime's attacks on and later extermination of Jews. Skywriter 19:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about Word Doc listing scientists

With regard to this link, would the person who placed it in this article please directly cite the originating agency link, if one exists. I am unable to find a link listing these scientists at the National Archives' electronic listing of the now defunct Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency. Thank you.

*[http://www.scientistsandfriends.com Objective List of German and
Austrian Scientists] (Microsoft Word). Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency. Retrieved on 2007-04-10.

Skywriter 19:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] when did Operation Paperclip end?

re: this edit

(cur) (last) 16:57, July 16, 2007 86.131.196.33 (Talk) (21,062 bytes) (Changed the list of scientists leaving out Hans Dolezalek, he came to the US only in 1961 and not through Operation Paperclip. There is a mistake in the cited source.) (undo)

The above edit lacks reference. The article does not state when O.P. ended so it is not clear that it did not extend into and beyond 1961. (I believe it did.) If there is a citation showing a start and end period, please feel free to add it. thanks.Skywriter 04:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

The JIOA -- which ran Operation Paperclip -- was disbanded in 1962. [2] (sdsds - talk) 04:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Good reference, which suggests what transpired in 1961 is within the scope of O.P. Skywriter 04:54, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] extraction of scientists

during this regime the some group of scientists were doing their research on rockets in inter continental range, but the allied troops were given orders to destroy the whole facility not extract them, only the ones who survived took their goal n worked in other countries for appollo mission r other countries on continuing there research, there's a difference between extraction n termination

[edit] We need an "umbrella" article for all the programmes in Germany

And perhaps also one for Japan?

Operation Paper clip is just one of many operations, albeit one of the larger ones. At the moment is seems to be the hub that is linked to when referring to issues such as taking scientists or technology out from Germany, but it really isn't the right article for it.

We need a general article that collects an overview of all the programmes, the various American programmes, [this book] should be the bible on that, the French activities, the Soviet activities, and most certainly the various British activities, such as this[3]. It should hold info on how extensive the activity was, its duration, consequences, legality (if any) etc, and then point to articles such as paper clip for more detailed info on individual operations. For one thing it should be possible to trim down the "see also" section in this article. Any suggestions for a good name for the new article? I'm partial to the title of Gimbel's book, but perhaps I'm lacking in imagination.--Stor stark7 Speak 03:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)