Let’s talk about Operation Paperclip and why you have bad men to thank for good things.

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Wernher von Braun and his team in the fall of 1959 in Huntsville, Alabama. Those in the photograph have been identified as Ernst Stuhlinger, Frederick von Saurma, Fritz Mueller, Hermann Weidner, Erich W. Neubert (partially hidden), W.A. Mrazek, Karl Heimburg, Arthur Rudolph, Otto Hoberg, von Braun, Oswald Lange, General Bruce Medaris, Helmut Hoelzer, Hans Maus, E.D. Geissler, Hans Hueter, and George Constan.

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Operation Paperclip wiki

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Operation Paperclip

On July 6, 1945, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a top-secret memorandum that was so explosive it was never even shown to President Truman. Titled “Exploitation of German Specialists in Science and Technology in the United States”, it outlined a program for “procurement, utilization and control of specialists” – in other words, a plan to recruit Nazi weapons scientists and bring them to the United States. The Military Intelligence of the War Department, a unit known as G-2, was given control of the program. The US, as well as Britain, was engaged in an arms race with the Soviet Union.

The Cold War was a terrifying time of escalating arms races, and recruiting Nazi weapons experts instead of bringing them to justice was seen as a key way to gain an edge. Still, the program was seen as morally problematic, and officials were keen to shroud it in secrecy. The program was originally called Operation Overcast. A list called “List 1” included over a hundred German rocket scientists to recruit. Before the Nazi rocket scientists were given permission to move to America, Britain requested access to the scientists to do some rockets experiments of their own with the Nazi experts. One Nazi weapons expert, Arthur Rudolph, later recalled how the Nazis and British weapons experts immeidately formed a friendly bond. One night, a group of British and Nazi rockets experts even got drunk together; Rudolph recalled them standing arm in arm, “apparently comrades now, and lustily singing Wir Fahren gegen England, or ‘We Will March Against England’” (quoted in Operation Paperclip).

Far from condemning these Nazis for their actions, it seems that at an early stage, Allied scientists were willing to overlook their crimes and embrace them as colleagues and even friends. Several of these Nazi rocket scientists who’d worked on that first British experiment were later brought to America. In time, they were joined by hundreds of other weapons experts. Their cases were marked for special consideration by a paperclip in their file. This meant that no matter what crimes they’d committed as Nazis, their cases would be expedited as they were approved for admission to America. Within months, Operation Overcast changed its name to reflect this, becoming Operation Paperclip, that allowed hundreds of ardent Nazis to escape justice and build new lives in the United States.

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Wars make horrible things out of men. They make killers, murderers and madmen, on all sides.
The rich make the war and the poor go off and fight it.
But once the war is over...we make a sort of peace. We have the memorials, we honor those who served, we build monuments for the dead. But it is the survivors that make history.

The eye of history is long. Few remember the men that designed the cannons and bombs and artillery for the wars of which none (or almost) remain alive who fought there.

The truth is that, if you are reading this on cell phone or computer (TD premium members get threads hand delivered by leprechauns on badgers, etched on stone tablets)...it’s the men of operation Paperclip we have to thank.


War is hell, and makes devils of men.

But, thankfully, wars end (much to the chagrin of the political royalty who desire forever wars.) and peace is made, and we move on. We acknowledge that war is a terrible thing and people die and lives are forever ruined, on both sides of the rifle.

This world is filled with men who did evil deeds in war and times of conflict.
If you’re going to condemn them then once the war is done, take every private and politician and shoot them in the head. Because they are all cogs in a machine, not the wheel they turns it.

And if you aren’t ready to hang them, strangle them, put them to death right there...shut up and let them live their lives. Because evil men made the world we enjoy. Or maybe we can grow, change, adapt and repent. But the axe must swing equally.

So if those who participated in the horrors of war are deserving of death, then hunt them all down, no matter the flag they were under, and put them in the ground. You don’t get to pick and choose which horrible war crimes you want to wring your pearls about.

And if you aren’t ready to accept the reality of the world, that we have men with violent pasts to thank for the luxuries we enjoy, then maybe bite your tongue.



Or at least STFU.

TL;DR
Bad men made the world so stop clutching your purse over it.