Produced by: Manoj Kumar
After WWII, America quietly welcomed over 1,600 former Nazi scientists—some with SS ties—into its ranks. The same minds behind Hitler’s rockets helped launch the U.S. space age.
Photo: NASA/Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Wernher von Braun built the V-2 rocket that terrorized London. Two decades later, he built the Saturn V rocket that took Americans to the Moon. History’s moral pivot? Or pragmatic betrayal?
Photo: NASA/Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
As Berlin fell, the Cold War began—not with bullets, but with brains. Operation Paperclip was a race for Nazi intellect, and America played to win, even at the cost of justice.
Credit: NASA
The cutting-edge NASA programs of the 1960s? Many were seeded by men once complicit in forced labor and war crimes. Their pasts were whitewashed for the promise of scientific glory.
Credit: NASA
Paperclip wasn’t just about space. These scientists also turbocharged U.S. missile systems, jet engines, and chemical warfare—reshaping the Pentagon’s future.
Credit: NASA
America’s desperation wasn’t just about science—it was about stopping the Soviets. Many scientists were scooped up not for what they’d build, but to deny their brains to Moscow.
Credit: NASA
Some Paperclip recruits had Nazi records so troubling, they were scrubbed or rewritten by U.S. intelligence. Moral lines blurred behind closed doors and sealed files.
Not all research was rockets. Some Paperclip scientists had worked on disturbing medical experiments in Nazi Germany—yet were quietly reassigned to U.S. labs and pharma firms.
The rockets that won the Moon, the weapons that shaped the Cold War—many trace back to Operation Paperclip. It built empires of knowledge, but left an ethical crater that still smolders.
Credit: NASA