Project Paperclip

From TinWiki.org

In the year of 1945 Project Paperclip was initiated by the U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA. Recruited Nazi scientists were offered immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects in the United States. The projects were initiated in the last phase of WWII and continued afterwards. This operation was originally called Operation Overcast and was put into play as so the United States could hire German war criminals, scientists and other people that were highly skilled in specific fields to come and work for them.

Contents 1 Specifics 2 Key Personnel 2.1 Wernher von Braun 2.2 Bernhard Tessmann 2.3 Arthur Rudolph 2.4 Kurt Blome 2.5 Walter Schreiber 2.6 Reinhard Gehlen 2.7 Allen Dulles 2.8 Alexander Lippisch 2.9 Hans von Ohain 2.10 Kurt Lehovec 2.11 Hubertus Strughold 3 Mentioned Location Details 3.1 White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) 3.2 Fort Bliss 3.3 Nordhausen 3.4 Peenemünde 3.5 Mittelwerk/Dora Concentration Camp 4 External links 5 Relevant disscusion threads

Specifics

The personnel of the United States particular interests were scientists specializing in aerodynamics and rocketry (Like the people involved in rocket building projects such as the V-1 and V-2 models), chemical weapons, chemical reaction technology and medicines. The scientists involved and their families were discretely brought to the United States, without State Department review and approval; their service for Hitler's Third Reich, NSDAP and SS memberships as well as the classification of many as war criminals or security threats also disqualified them from officially obtaining visas. An aim of the operation was capturing equipment before the Soviets came in. The United States Forces destroyed some of the German equipment to prevent it from being captured by the advancing Soviet front. The majority of the scientists, numbering almost 500, were deployed at New Mexico, Fort Bliss, White Sands Proving Ground, Texas and Huntsville, Alabama to work on guided missile and ballistic missile technology. This led to the fundamental building blocks of NASA and the US ICBM program. A lot of the information surrounding Operation Paperclip is still, to this day highly classified and not available to the general public. A completely different project on the side of Paperclip was an even-more-secret effort to capture German nuclear secrets, equipment and personnel. This was called Operation Alsos. Another American project (TICOM) was responsible for locating and collecting German experts in cryptography. The United States Mining Bureau, employed a high number of German synthetic fuel scientists to assist with the project. This task took place in Louisiana, Missouri 1946 at the Fischer-Tropsch Chemical Plant.

Key Personnel

Some of the scientists and men involved were as follows:

Wernher von Braun

Born March 23, 1912 and died June 16, 1977.

This man was one of the leading experts in rocket technology and its development both in Germany and the United States. He was the leader before and during WWII of the rocket development program. When the war came to an end he gained entry to the United States VIA Operation Paperclip where he worked on the American ICBM program then went on to become a Director at NASA. To this day he is known as "The Father of the United States Space Program".

Bernhard Tessmann

Born August 15, 1912 died December 19, 1998.

Tessmann met with Braun in the year 1935 and had a slight if not small interest in space flight. In 1936 he moved to Peenemünde which is a small village in Germany that contains various rocket sites, rocket pads and testing areas. It was here that he specialized in wind tunnels and the thrust management systems for the V2 rockets. Tessmann was also highly involved with a project called "Projekt Zement" which dealt with subterranean V-2 Launching and production facilities in Ebensee, Austria. Tessmann was sent to the United States after the war VIA Operation Paperclip and from January 1947 was working at Fort Bliss, Texas, White Sands Missile Range and then at Huntsville. Then from 1960 on he became Deputy Director of Test Division at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

Arthur Rudolph

Born 9 November 1906 and died 1 January 1996,

This man was a rocket scientist in Nazi Germany from the year 1934 to 1935. Rudolph played an integral part in developing the V-2 rocket; he was brought to the United States where he helped build some of the most sophisticated Systems of that time such as the Pershing missile for the army in which he was also rewarded the rank of project manager for the missile and an honorary doctorate of science degree from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida on 23 February 1959. He later received the Exceptional Civilian Service Award, the highest Army award for civilians. He also gained a job at NASA where he was a high ranking person in the Saturn 4 Moon Rocket construction and was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal shortly after this though he retired. Though in the year of 1984, Arther Rudolph was investigated for possible war crimes by the Office of Special Investigations and renounced his US citizenship.

Kurt Blome

This man was a high-ranking Nazi scientist before and during the WWII.

He was a deputy of the Reich Health Leader (Reichsgesundheitsführer) and Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research in the Reich Research Council. Blome captured the spirit of his medical identity in an autobiography he released called Arzt im Kampf (Physician in Struggle), in which he constantly related medical and military power in their battle for life and death. Blome had been arrested on 17 May 1945 by an agent of the United States Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC, an army intelligence service) in Munich, and he had no papers except his driving licence. After some weeks of custody, in which the CIC checked on his identity, Blome was taken to the Kransberg Castle (located just north of Frankfurt) VIA escort.

A few days after his arrival at the castle a secret message was transmitted to the ALSOS mission, an Anglo-American team of experts, whose order was to investigate the state of German and Italian weapons technology towards end of war: "In 1943 Blome was studying germ and biological warfare, although officially he was involved in cancer research, which was however only a smoke screen. Blome additionally served as deputy health minister of the Reich. Blome admitted that he had been ordered in 1943 to experiment with plague vaccines on concentration camp prisoners. He was tried at the Doctors' Trial in 1947 on charges of practicing euthanasia, and conducting experiments on living people. Although acquitted, his earlier admissions were well known, and it was generally accepted that he had indeed participated in the gruesome experiments (there is evidence that Blome experimented with Sarin gas on Auschwitz prisoners).

It is believed that American intervention saved Blome from gaol and punishment. In return Blome agreed to provide detailed information to the Americans about his experiments in Dachau and advice in the development of their own germ warfare program. Two months after his Nuremberg acquittal, Blome was transferred to the USA (again, VIA Operation Paperclip) and interviewed at Camp David, Maryland about biological warfare. In 1951, he was hired by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to work on chemical warfare. His personal file did not mention his involvement in Nuremberg. Eventually, Blome was arrested by French authorities, convicted of war crimes, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Walter Schreiber

Born 21 March 1893 date of death is unknown.

A German military officer and Brigadier General of the Medical Service of Wehrmacht. Schreiber was born in Berlin. After completing gymnasium in Berlin, he studied medicine at the university in Berlin, Tübingen und Greifswald. In 1914, he enlisted voluntarily for military service and served with the 42nd Infantry Regiment in France. He was wounded at the First Battle of the Marne. After his recovery, he continued with his studies and served as a temporary doctor on the Western Front until the end of the war in 1918. In 1920, he graduated as a Dr of medicine from the University of Greifswald. In 1945, he was taken prisoner of war by the Red Army in Berlin and taken to the Soviet Union. On 26 August 1946, Schreiber gave detailed evidence at the Nuremburg Trials in support of the USSR Chief Prosecutor, Roman Rudenko.

On 17 October 1948 he made his way to the Soviet Occupation Zone, where the Soviets intended him to assume the position of chief medical officer in the newly formed Eastern German police force, the Volkspolizei. After presenting himself to the Allied military authorities in West Berlin, who interrogated and detained him, he was employed to work with the Counter Intelligence Corps. He was employed at Camp King, a large POW interrogation center in the city of Oberusal, Germany. Schreiber was taken to the United States VIA Operation Paperclip on October 7, 1951, New York Times magazine reported that he was working at the Air Force School of Medicine at Randolph Air Force Base located in Texas.

When journalist Drew Pearson publicized Schreiber's Nuremberg evidence in 1952, which showed he had made fellow doctors experiment on concentration camp prisoners and had made funds available for such experimentation, the negative publicity led the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency to arrange "a visa and employment for Schreiber in Argentina, where his daughter lived." On May 22 1952, he was flown to Buenos Aires. In Argentina, he was employed in an epidemiological laboratory. Some people say he moved to Paraguay and West Germany.

Reinhard Gehlen

Born April 3, 1902 died June 8, 1979.

This man was a Major General in the German Wehrmacht during WWII. He held the position of chief of intel gathering on the Eastern Front and was recruited by the United States military to set up a spy ring aimed at the USSR. He ran the West German intelligence apparatus until 1968, and is considered one of the most legendary Cold War spymasters. He organized the Gehlen Org, axe of Gladio NATO secret structure, and then became President of the FBI. He is supposed to be key figure in the ODESSA organization.

Allen Dulles

Born April 7, 1893 and died January 29, 1969.

Allen Welsh Dulles was the first civilian Director during the years 1953 to 1961, of the CIA and a member of the Warren Commission. Dulles was the younger brother of John Foster Dulles who was President Eisenhower's Secretary of State and the grandson of John W. Foster, another U.S. Secretary of State. Robert Lansing, Allen Dulles's uncle also was a U.S. Secretary of State. Dulles was active in the Office of Strategic Services in Berne, Switzerland during WWII. He worked on intelligence regarding German plans and activities. Dulles's career was jump-started by the information provided by a German diplomat by the name of Fritz Kolbe. Kolbe supplied secret dossiers regarding active German spies and plans for the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. In the 1948 Presidential election, Allen Dulles was Dewey's advisor chief. The Dulles brothers and James Forrestal helped form the Office of Policy Coordination.

In the year 1953 Allen Dulles became the first civilian director of the CIA, which was formed in 1947 as part of the National Security Act, earlier directors had been military officers. The Agency's covert operations were an important part of President Eisenhowers administration's new Cold War national security policy named "New Look". Under Dulles's instruction, the CIA established Project MKULTRA, a top secret mind control research project managed by a man called Sidney Gottlieb. Due to Dulles's request, President Eisenhower demanded that Senator McCarthy stop issuing subpoenas against the CIA. In March, McCarthy had launched a number of investigations into potential communist subversion of the Agency. None of the investigations revealed any wrongdoing but the hearings were still potentially destructive, not only to the reputation of the CIA, but to the security of sensitive information as well. During the time, Dulles was personally overseeing Operation Mockingbird which was a program that influenced American media companies. Dulles was successful with the CIA's first attempts at removing foreign leaders by covert means. Notably, Iran’s elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh was deposed in 1953 (VIA Operation Ajax), and President Arbenz of Guatemala was removed in 1954 apparently by the same operation.

During the Kennedy Administration, Dulles was faced with increasing criticism. The failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and several failed assassination plots utilizing CIA-recruited operatives from the Mafia and anti-Castro Cubans directly against Fidel Castro undermined the CIA's credibility, and pro-American but unpopular regimes in Iran and Guatemala were widely regarded as corrupt and brutal. Dulles's employment was terminated from the CIA by Kennedy in 1961 over Operation Northwoods which was a covert CIA operation aimed at gaining support for a war against Cuba by framing Cuba for staging real or simulated attacks on American citizens.

On November 29, 1963 President Lyndon Johnson gave Dulles the position as one of seven commissioners of the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of the U.S. President JFK. Despite his knowledge of the several assassination plots by the CIA against Fidell Castro, he didn’t mention these plots to any investigating powers at the time of the Warren Commission. Allen Dulles died of influenza, complicated by pneumonia in 1969, at the age of 75.He is now buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland in

Alexander Lippisch

Born November 2, 1894 and died February 11, 1976.

Alexander Martin Lippisch was a German pioneer of aerodynamics. He made important contributions to the understanding of flying wings, delta wings and the ground effect. His most famous model is called The Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket-powered interceptor.

Alex Lippisch was born in Munich, Germany. He says that his interest in aviation branched from a demonstration conducted by Orville Wright, over Tempelhof Field in Berlin, Germany, in September 1909.Nonetheless, he planned to follow in his father’s footsteps and go to art school. The outbreak of WWI intervened. He was called to service with the German Army from 1915–1918, it was during this service Lippisch gained the chance to fly as an aerial photographer and mapper. After the war, Lippisch worked with the Zeppelin Company, and it was at this time that he first became slightly fascinated with tail-less aircraft. In 1921 his first such design would reach production as the Lippisch-Espenlaub E-2 glider, built by Gottlob Espenlaub. This was the starting point of a research program that would result in fifty models throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Lippisch’s growing reputation earned him the opportunity to be appointed the director of the Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft (RRG), which was a glider research group.

Lippisch’s work led to a series of tail-less designs numbered Storch I to Storch IX between the years of 1927 and 1933 (His designs were not related to the Fieseler Storch STOL aircraft of WW2). These models attracted very little interest from the government and private industry. Still, it was at this time that Lippisch’s Duck became the first aircraft to fly under rocket powered propulsion. Experience with the Storch series led Lippisch to focus on delta-winged designs. From this focus emerged five aircraft, numbered Delta I to Delta V, these craft were built between 1931 and 1939. In 1933, RGG had been reorganized into the DFS — German Institute for Sailplane Flight, and the Delta IV and Delta V were designated as the DFS 39 and DFS 40 due to the newly organized company. In early months of 1939, the Reich Aviation Ministry or RAM transferred Lippisch along with his team to work at the Messerschmitt factory, in order to model and design a high-speed fighter aircraft around the rocket engines which were under development at the time by Hellmuth Walter. His team quickly adapted their most recent design, the DFS 194, to a rocket powered craft, the first example successfully flying in early 1940.

This was the direct original of what would become the Messerschmitt Me 163 "Komet". The Komet did not prove to be a successful weapon, and the tension between Lippisch and Messerschmitt was ongoing. In 1943, Lippisch transferred to Vienna’s Luftfahrtforschungsanstalt Wien (LFW), to focus on the problems of high-speed flight. That same year, he was then awarded a doctoral degree in engineering by the University of Heidelberg. His Wind tunnel research in 1939 suggested that the delta wing was a excellent choice for supersonic flight, and Lippisch got to work designing a supersonic, ramjet-powered fighter called the Lippisch P.13a. By the time the war ended, however, the project had only advanced as far as a development glider, the DM-1. Just like many German scientists, Alexander Lippisch was taken to the United States of America after the war VIA Operation Paperclip. technological jumps in jet engine design were making Lippisch's ideas more practical and a group called Convair became interested in a hybrid rocket/jet design which they proposed as the F-92. In order to gain the needed experience with the delta wing, they first built a jet powered test craft, the 7003 which became the first powered delta-wing aircraft to fly. Although the United States Air Force lost interest in the F-92, Convair's experience with the delta-wing design led them to propositioning it for most of their projects through the 1950s and into the 1960s, including the F-102 Delta Dagger, F-106 Delta Dart and B-58 Hustler.

From 1950–1964 he worked for the Collins Radio Company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which had an aeronautics division. It was during this time that his interest shifted toward ground effect craft. The results were an unconventional VTOL aircraft also known as an airodyne and an aerofoil boat. Later on Lippisch contracted cancer resulting in his resignation from Collins. He recovered in the year of 1966 and formed his own research company which he named the Lippisch Research Corporation, and attracted the interest of West German governmental figures. Prototypes for both the aerodyne and the ground-effect craft were built, but no further developments were made. The Kiekhaefer Mercury company was another company interested in his ground-effect craft and tested one of his designs as the Aeroskimmer which was successful, but also eventually lost interest. Lippisch died at Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Hans von Ohain

Born December 14, 1911 and died March 13, 1998.

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain was one of the inventors of jet powered propulsion. His HeS 1 design was the first self-contained jet engine to run, and the later HeS 3 was the first to power an all-jet aircraft. Although none of his designs entered mass production, his contributions to the development of the jet engine in Germany are invaluable. After the war he met his British partner, Frank Whittle, and the two became good friends. Born in Dessau, Germany, he earned a Ph.D. in Physics and Aerodynamics from the University of Göttingen, then one of the major centers for aeronautical research. During studies in 1933 he conceived ideas of an engine that did not require a propeller. After receiving his degree in 1935, von Ohain became the junior assistant of Robert Wichard Pohl, then director of the Physical Institute of the University. In 1936, while working for Pohl, von Ohain earned a patent on his version of jet engines, Process and

Apparatus for Producing Airstreams for Propelling Airplanes. Unlike Frank Whittle's design, von Ohain's engine used a centrifugal compressor and turbine placed very close together, back to back, with the flame cans wrapped around the outside of the assembly. The resulting engine was even larger in diameter than Whittle's, although much shorter along the thrust axis. While working at the University, von Ohain often took his sports car to be serviced at a local garage, Bartles and Becker. Here he met an automotive engineer, Max Hahn, and eventually arranged for him to build a model of his engine, which cost about 1,000 DM. When it was complete he took it to the University for testing, but ran into serious problems with combustion stability. Often the fuel would not burn inside the flame cans, and would instead be blown through the turbine where it would ignite in the air, shooting flames out the back and overheating the electric motor powering the compressor.

In February 1936, Pohl wrote to Ernst Heinkel on behalf of von Ohain, telling him of the design and its possibilities. Heinkel arranged a meeting where his engineers were able to grill von Ohain for hours, during which he flatly stated that the current "garage engine" would never work but there was nothing wrong with the concept as a whole. The engineers were convinced, and in April von Ohain and Hahn were set up at Heinkel's works at the Marienehe airfield outside of Rostock, Germany in Warnemünde. Once moved, a study was made of the airflow in the engine, and several improvements made over a two month period. Much happier with the results, they decided to produce a completely new engine incorporating all of these changes, running on hydrogen gas. The resulting Heinkel-Strahltriebwerk 1 or the HeS 1, German for Heinkel Jet Engine 1, was built by hand-picking some of the best machinists in the company. Hahn, meanwhile, worked on the combustion problem, an area he had some experience in. The engine was extremely simple, made largely of sheet metal. Construction started late in the summer of 1936, and completed in March 1937. It ran two weeks later on hydrogen, but the high temperature exhaust led to considerable "burning" of the metal. The tests were otherwise successful, and in September the combustors were replaced and the engine was run on gasoline for the first time. This proved to clog up the combustors, so Hahn designed a new version based on his soldering torch, which proved to work much better. Although the engine was never intended to be a flight-quality design, it proved beyond a doubt that the basic concept was workable.

While work on the HeS 1 continued, the team had already moved on to the design of a flight-quality design, the HeS 3. The major differences were the use of machined compressor and turbine stages, replacing the bent and folded sheet metal, and a re-arrangement of the layout to reduce the cross-sectional area of the engine as a whole by placing the flame cans in an extended gap between the compressor and turbine. The original design proved to have a turbine area that was simply too small to work efficiently, and increasing the size of the turbine meant the flame cans no longer fit in the gap correctly. A new design, the HeS 3b was proposed, which moved the flame cans out of the gap and modified their shape to allow the widest part of the cans to lie in front of the compressor's outer rim. In the 3b, compressed air was piped forward to the combustion chambers, and from there the now-hot air flowed rearward into the turbine inlet. While not as small as the original HeS 3 design, the 3b was nevertheless fairly compact. The 3b first ran July 1939 (some references say May), and was air-tested under the Heinkel He 118 dive bomber prototype. The original 3b engine soon burned out, but a second one was nearing completion at about the same time as a new test airframe, the Heinkel He 178, which first flew on August 27, 1939, the first jet powered aircraft to fly.

Work started immediately on larger versions, first the HeS 6 which was simply a larger HeS 3b, and then on a new design known as the HeS 8 which once again re-arranged the overall layout. The 8 separated the compressor and turbine, connecting them with a long shaft, placing a single annular combustion chamber between them, replacing the individual flame cans. It was intended to install the engine on the Heinkel He 280 fighter, but the airframe development progressed much more smoothly than the engine, and had to be used in gliding tests while work on the engine continued. A flight-quality HeS 8 was installed in late March 1941, followed by the first flight on 2 April. Three days later the aircraft was demonstrated for a party of Nazi and RLM officials, all of whom were impressed. Full development funds soon followed. By this point there were a number of turbojet developments taking place in Germany. Heinkel was so impressed by the concept that he had brought on Adolph Müller from Junkers, who was developing an axial compressor-powered design, renamed as the Heinkel HeS 30. Müller had left Junkers after they purchased the Junkers Motoren company, who had their own project underway, which by this time was known as the Junkers Jumo 004.

Meanwhile BMW was making good progress with their own design, the BMW 003. By early 1942 the HeS 8, officially the 109-001, was still not progressing well. Meanwhile Müller's HeS 30, officially the 109-006, was developing much more quickly. Both engines were still some time from being ready for production, however, while the 003 and 004 appeared to be ready to go. In early 1942 the director of jet development at the RLM, Helmut Schelp, refused further funding for both designs, and ordered Heinkel to work on a new "pet project" of his own, eventually becoming the Heinkel HeS 011. Although this was the first of Schelp's "Class II" engines to start working well, production had still not started when the war ended. Work continued on the HeS 8 for some time, but it was eventually abandoned in the spring of 1943. In 1947 von Ohain was brought to the United States by Operation Paperclip and went to work for the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In 1956 he was made the Director of the Air Force Aeronautical Research Laboratory and by 1975 he was the Chief Scientist of the Aero Propulsion Laboratory there.

During his work at Wright-Patterson, von Ohain continued his own personal work on various topics. In the early 1960s he did a fair amount of work on the design of gas core reactor rockets which would retain the nuclear fuel while allowing the working mass to be used as exhaust. The engineering needed for this role was also used for a variety of other "down to earth" purposes, including centrifuges and pumps. von Ohain would later use the basic mass-flow techniques of these designs to create a fascinating jet engine with no moving parts, in which the airflow through the engine created a stable vortex that acted as the compressor and turbine. This interest in mass-flow also led von Ohain to research magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) for power generation, noting that the hot gases from a coal-fired plant could be used to extract power from their speed when exiting the combustion chamber, remaining hot enough to then power a conventional steam turbine. Thus a MHD generator could extract further power from the coal, and lead to greater efficiencies. Unfortunately this design has proven difficult to build due to a lack of proper materials.

He also invented the idea of the "jet wing", in which air from the compressor of a jet engine is bled off to large "augmented" vents in the wings to provide lift for VTOL aircraft. The concept was used in the Rockwell XVF-12 experimental aircraft, although the market interest in VTOL aircraft was short-lived. During his careers, von Ohain won many engineering and management awards, including the AIAA's Goddard Award, the US Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Award, Systems Command Award for Exceptional Civilian Service, the Eugene M. Zuckert Management Award, the Air Force Special Achievement Award, and just before he retired, the Citation of Honor. In 1991 von Ohain and Whittle were jointly awarded the Charles Stark Draper Prize for their work on turbojet engines. He retired from Wright-Patterson in 1979 and took up an associate professor position at the nearby University of Dayton. He later moved to Melborne, Florida with his wife Hanny. He died in 1998.

Kurt Lehovec

Kurt Lehovec is one of the inventers of the integrated circuit.

He came up with the concept of p-n junction isolation used in every circuit element with a guard ring: a p-n junction surrounding the planar periphery of that element. This patent was assigned to Sprague Electric. Lehovec was born June 12, 1918 in Ledvice, in northern Bohemia, of the Czech Republic. He was educated there and came to the US in 1947 under the auspices of Operation Paperclip which allowed scientists and engineers to emigrate. With Accardo and Jamgochian, he investigated the first light emitting diodes. Lehovec is a Professor Emeritus at USC, in Los Angeles, California and currently lives in Southern California. After retirement from USC Lehovec has taken to writing poetry.

Hubertus Strughold

Born 1898 and died in 1987.

He was born in Westphalia, Germany. He was educated at Göttingen and received a doctorate in 1922. He is the author of over 180 papers in the field of space medicine. For this reason, he has been called "The father of U.S. space medicine". Strughold was brought to the United States at the end of World War II as part of Operation Paperclip and subsequently played an important role in developing the pressure suit worn by early American astronauts. In 1949 Strughold was made director of the Department of Space Medicine at the School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas (now the School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base). Randolph’s aeromedical library was named after him in 1977, but later renamed because documents from the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal linked Strughold to medical experiments in which inmates from Dachau concentration camp were tortured and killed. As the head of Nazi Germany's Air Force Institute for Aviation Medicine, Strughold participated in a 1942 conference that discussed "experiments" on human beings carried out by the institute. The experiments included subjecting Dachau inmates to torture and death by being immersed in water, placed in air pressure chambers, forced to drink sea water and exposed to freezing temperatures. Strughold had denied approving the experiments and said he learned of them only after WWII. In May 2006 Dr. Strughold's name was removed from the International Space Hall of Fame by unanimous vote of the New Mexico Museum of Space History's board.Strughold's name was also removed from Brooks Air Force Base's aeromedical library in 1995 and his picture was removed from the mural "The World History of Medicine" at Ohio State University in 1993.

Mentioned Location Details

White Sands Missile Range (WSMR)

Formerly known as the White Sands Proving Grounds, is located in Otero County, New Mexico, mostly in the Tularosa Basin, a valley between the Organ Mountains, San Andres Mountains and the Sacramento Mountains of the U.S. state of New Mexico, it includes the northern reaches of the Jornada del Muerto. The area of the range is approximately the same as that of the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island put together. The story of the last annexation of territory by the base was the background for Edward Abbey's novel, Fire on the Mountain. The white sands are composed of gypsum crystals which have leached out of the surrounding mountains. A distinctive ecology survives in this desert. Visitors may explore the dunes in the White Sands National Monument, located in the range. On July 16, 1945 the first test of a nuclear weapon ever, was conducted on the Trinity site in the northwestern part of the range, and part of the Jornada del Muerto. After the V-2 rockets of Peenemünde were captured in World War II, the rockets and the rocket scientists were taken to WSMR for reverse engineering. Today, seventy miles to the south, the US Army Air Defense Center, in Fort Bliss, Texas and WSMR form a contiguous swath of territory devoted to the art. Fort Bliss has an outdoor museum display of rocket-propelled missiles. The German connection lives on as well, in El Paso Deutsche Schule, and Alamogordo Deutsche Schule, established to teach the German children of the soldiers who would later return to Germany after their tours of duty in New Mexico and Texas. At Change of Command ceremonies on November 30, 2005, a civilian, Tom Berard, was named director of WSMR upon the retirement of Brig. Gen. Robert J. Reese from the Army, after 35 years of service. Brig. Gen. Michael J. Combest, Commander of the U.S. Army Developmental Test Command emphasized that Tom Berard is in charge of WSMR.EPTimes. There have been 6 general officers in command at WSMR since 1994; Reese's tenure has been the longest, at 28 months, during that period. Berard had been the highest-ranking civilian at the Range. Officials at the Department of the Army have said that as soon as the Army can get enough generals to staff all the command positions, the Army will appoint a general officer to lead WSMR. The appointment is expected to take at least six months and could take longer. WSMR is located on U.S. 70 between Alamogordo and Las Cruces; the highway is sometimes closed for safety reasons while tests are conducted on the missile range. There have been a number of spies at White Sands over the years, and not all of them were caught. For example, the true identity of the post-WWII Soviet spy code-named Perseus is still unknown.

Fort Bliss

Fort Bliss was staffed in 1849 to guard El Paso. It was originally located along the banks of the Rio Grande, overlooking Mexico, but was later moved northeastward 10 miles (16 km) to its current location. To this day, the walls of the Fort Bliss Officers Club still contain adobe bricks from over a century ago, and the installation has survived, in contrast to Fort Selden, New Mexico (where Arthur MacArthur was posted, when Douglas MacArthur was a boy), 45 miles (72 km) to the northwest, which is crumbling back into desert. There is a replica of the original Fort Bliss on the post simulating the adobe style of construction. The troops at Fort Bliss participated in John J. Pershing's expedition against Pancho Villa's raids on New Mexico; they were housed in buildings which still stand on the post. Other items of interest include the Buffalo Soldier memorial statue on Robert E. Lee Road, and a missile museum on Pleasanton Road.

Fort Bliss trains thousands of U.S. Soldiers. Before 1989, the base was used for Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training (AIT). The 1/56 ADA Regiment, part of 6th ADA Brigade under TRADOC. Before 1989, 1/56 had three basic training companies and two AIT batteries. Now the mission is three Air Defense batteries (AIT, Officer's Basic Course, and Captain's Career Course) and one company that trains army truck drivers (MOS 88M). Fort Bliss is home to a large number of maintenance crews and supply units, and serves as one of the Army's premier bases for test driving tanks and other equipment. The fort also houses thousands of military vehicles, among them all the equipment needed to set up Patriot missile sites. Fort Bliss is the home of the United States Army Air Defense Artillery Center (FBADACEN), and monitors missile launches conducted by White Sands Missile Range, located 70 miles (110 km) to the north, in New Mexico.

The base is the largest maneuver area in the continental United States, encompassing approximately 1,177,000 acres (4,760 km²), almost the size of Rhode Island. In the post 9-11 era, Fort Bliss has served as one of the major deployment centers for troops bound for Iraq and Afghanistan. This mission is accomplished by Biggs Army Airfield, which is included in the installation's supporting areas. Biggs Army Airfield (formerly Biggs AFB), is home to the Army's Command Sergeant Major Academy, and which also was the site for the return of the 507th Maintenance Company, also based at Fort Bliss. The support structure of the Fort Bliss area also includes a large medical installation, William Beaumont Army Medical Center and a Veterans Administration center, both located on a separate campus from the main post, at the eastern base of the Franklin Mountains. Training missions are supported by the McGregor Range Complex, located some 25 miles to the northeast, in the New Mexico desert. All of these supporting missions serve the military and retired-military population here, including having served General Omar N. Bradley in his last days.

The installation is also within close proximity to the El Paso Airport (with easy access from the fort via Robert E. Lee Road), Highway 54, and Interstate 10. On May 13 2005, the Pentagon recommended realigning this base to include approximately 16,000 new troops (and their families) from the U.S. 1st Armored Division currently stationed in Germany. The panel also recommended that the Air Defense Artillery School and its accompaning equipment (including the Patriot Missile Anti-Aircraft/Anti Missile defense system) be moved to Fort Sill. On August 25 officials representing Fort Bliss pleaded their case for maintaining the ADA school and its accompanying equipment at Fort Bliss, citing among other thing the size of Fort Bliss and the history of the ADA school in the region. The BRAC Commission ultimately ruled against Fort Bliss and, pending the approval of President Bush, the roughly 4,500 affected soldiers will be heading for Fort Sill at some point in the near future.

Nordhausen

Nordhausen is a city of about 45,000 people located at the southern border of the Harz Mountains, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Nordhausen. It was once known for its tobacco industry, and is still known for its eponymous brandy, Nordhäuser Doppelkorn. The city is first attested in a 13 May 927 document of Henry the Fowler, but an earlier settlement on the site dates back to around 785. In 1220, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor made it an Imperial Free City, and in 1430 Nordhausen joined the Hanseatic League. From around 1500 the city began producing brandy, which became famous under the name Nordhäuser Doppelkorn. In 1523, a year in which Thomas Müntzer spent some time in the city, the Reformation came to Nordhausen. In 1866 the railway connected Nordhausen to Halle, Saxony-Anhalt. On 3rd and 4th April 1945 three-quarters of the town was destroyed by bombing raids of the Royal Air Force, in which around 8,800 people died. On 11 April the Americans occupied the city, and on 2 July the Red Army took over. It has since been rebuilt, and, primarily since German reunification, had its ancient city center restored.

Peenemünde

Peenemünde is a village in the northeast of the German island of Usedom. It stands near the inlets of the Peene River, on the easternmost part of the German Baltic coast. During World War II, Peenemünde hosted the Heeresversuchsanstalt, an extensive rocket development and test site established in 1937. Prior to that date the team headed by Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger had worked in Kummersdorf, south of Berlin. However, Kummersdorf proved too small for testing. Peenemünde, located on the coast, permitted the launching of rockets and their subsequent monitoring across about 200 miles of open water. Between 1937 and 1945 the Peenemünders developed many of the basics of rocket technology and two weapons, the V-1 and the V-2.

Test-firing of the first V-1 occurred in early 1942 and the first V-2 (then called the A-4) first flew on October 3, 1942, from Prüfstand VII. The German Luftwaffe ran the V-1 cruise missile experiments in Peenemünde west, whereas the Heer (army) ran the ballistic missile development (V-2) project. Peenemunde also served as the development site for many cutting-edge night-navigation and radar systems, under the direction of Dr. Hans Plendl. The Peenemünde establishment also developed other techniques, such as the first closed-circuit television system in the world, installed at Test Stand VII to track the launching rockets. In the course of World War II some heavy air-raids targeted the site, including an attack by almost 500 RAF heavy bombers on the night of 16 - 17 August, 1943 ("Operation Hydra").

This raid killed, according to an official German report, 815 staff, mostly Foreign POWs, and Walter Thiel, the head of engine development. This raid prompted the moving of the production of the V rockets underground. In spite of the raids, many technical installations in Peenemünde remained intact at the end of World War II, because most of the bombs landed on the surrounding woodlands, the housing areas and on the concentration camps for Foreign POWs. Much controversy exists over how the Allies found out about Peenemünde. The official British version states that air reconnaissance collected all the information. However, witnesses (e.g. Danuta Stepniewska and Hanna Szczepkowska-Mickiewicz from Polish intelligence) and documents (e.g. the monthly reports of courier service from 1943) state it was Polish underground army (Armia Krajowa or AK) intelligence (who gave the British complete plans of the facility) unmasked Peenemünde. British intelligence for years denied that it received any information about Peenemünde from Poland, instead underlining importance of other sources, as a Danish pilot who photographed something looking like a V rocket nearby.

However copies of reports emerged after the war in Poland. One of the British intelligence workers who was receiving the information, R. V. Jones contradicted himself: first he denied that fact, and later in his book Most Secret War he wrote that many bombs fell on camps for Foreign POWs who gave the Allies information; he failed to point out that these Polish workers were agents from AK intelligence. Within the last few years Polish politicians and historians have demanded access to British archives (since Britain held archives of most if not all AK reports). So far the British authorities have answered that all AK reports were destroyed. Apart from Peenemünde, other sites in Germany saw noteworthy rocket launches. Some took place between 1957 and 1964 at Cuxhaven and between 1988 and 1992 at Zingst. At the end of World War II von Braun and most of the scientists fled westwards to ensure their capture by the Americans. The Soviets and British captured the site and most of the technicians, who feared trial for war crimes for the V-2 attacks on London.

In accordance with an agreement, the Red Army destroyed the site with explosives. Most destruction of the technical facilities of Peenemünde took place between 1948 and 1961. Only the power station, in what has now become a museum, the airport, and the railway link to Zinnowitz remained functional. The plant for production of liquid oxygen lies in ruins at the entrance to Peenemünde. Very little remains of most of the other buildings and facilities. The Peenemünde Historical and Technical Information Centre, opened in 1992 in the shelter control room and the area of the former power station. It is concerned with history of Peenemuende and in particular with the history of rocket development between 1936 and 1945.

Mittelwerk/Dora Concentration Camp

Mittelbau-Dora, or Mittelbau concentration camp complex was formally established in 1944 near Nordhausen, Germany, south of the Harz mountains from the already existing Buchenwald camps. Eventually it comprised around 40 camps. The main goal of the complex was to establish the underground production of armaments, notably the V-2 rocket. Most of the prisoners were men, but a small contingent of women were held in the Dora Mittelbau camp and in the Gross Werther subcamp. Only one woman guard is known today to have served in Dora, Lagerführerin Erna Petermann. Treatment towards the women prisoners was horrific and the same as the men. Of 60,000 inmates, 12,000 deaths were officially recorded by the Nazis. The total death toll is estimated at around 20,000 and includes deaths from air raids and during the evacuation also called death marches, in 1945.

External links

• General Paperclip data

• Detailed Site About Project Paperclip

• Wikipedia Data On Paperclip

• Operation Paperclip Unofficial Casefile

• General Info on Project Paperclip

Relevant disscusion threads

• Nazi War Criminals - US citizens

• US worse than Nazi Germany, at least in rhetoric (for now... )

• Project Paperclip & Human Experimentation

• questions about Project Paperclip.

• Project Paperclip

• BBC News: Project Paperclip