Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen

To the victor go the spoils. The Allies won World War II. The scientists that helped bring about the atomic bomb are praised. The Germans lost. The scientists that developed weapons there were tried for war crimes. Well at least some of them. Some were clandestinely hired by the US to continue their weapons research.

The book tries to paint hiring Nazi scientists as a violation of principles for America. These were enemies that helped kill Americans. How could we let them off scott free and even employee them in government activities? Well, if we do back away from virtue signaling, the other option would be for them to go to Russia and help develop the weapons to kill Americans. Alas, that is an especially hard concept to grasp, especially looking retrospectively.

The discussion of doctors was also enlightening. At first, the Nazi doctors seemed to be in the ideal position to advance science. If you didn't have to start with all these other lab work and model organisms, then you could much more rapidly make advancements. Then the view flipped. These guys weren't doing real science. They were just sadist, needlessly inflicting cruel harm. This book flipped the narrative again. Maybe they were a bit of both. They did research that did benefit the war effort (such as reviving frozen soldiers and providing immunization from diseases.) They also inflicted harm on unwilling participants. 

This also brings up the weird ethics of war. Killing thousands of people by firebombing cities was considered generally ok. Dropping a nuclear bomb to kill thousand was a little worse. Capturing people for forced labor or experiments and then killing them is considered a war crime. In all cases, there were thousand of peoples who had days and weeks of painful existence before they succumbed to conditions inflicted by enemies. In the first two cases, the enemies are at a distance and gain nothing from the suffering. In the third case, they are close to victims and use them to advance science. In all cases, the victims did not give consent. Many suffered significantly before death. Had Germany won, we likely would have had war crime trials on the instigators of firebombing, while praising scientific advancements.

Weapons researchers pose another conundrum. They were working to create weapons to kill people. The best ones would advance to research positions and get awards from their government. Their skills are not primarily related to their research, not the government in power. However those with the most experience and influence would be closest to the leadership. If you want to jumpstart progress with the best scientists, you will need to get many that were highest in the enemy organization. This process happens all the time in tech companies today, with engineers moving to competing organizations. The best often fully bought into one regime, yet them switched to another without looking back. Would we not expect that to happen with German scientists? This is especially true after their country had been so thoroughly defeated. Had Germany won, there would likely have been many Manhattan project scientists employed in Berlin.

Many of the records for Operation Paperclip remained classified for a good reason. On the surface it seems horrid that the government would employ high-ranking officials of a recent enemy. However it was to the benefit of all involved. Humanity can work together for the long term.