Karl Höllenrainer: German Roma, or gypsy, arrested during the war for marrying a German woman in violation of the Nuremberg Laws. He was sent to Auschwitz, then Buchenwald, and finally Dachau, where he became a rare survivor of medical murder experiments in Experimental Cell Block Five. During Nuremberg trial testimony, he tried to stab defendant Wilhelm Beiglböck.
Dr. Ernst Holzlöhner: Senior doctor at the University of Berlin who conducted freezing experiments at Dachau with Dr. Sigmund Rascher. He committed suicide in May 1945.
Friedrich “Fritz” Hoffmann: Wartime organic chemist at the chemical warfare laboratories at the University of Würzburg, and for the Luftwaffe. Under Operation Paperclip, he worked at Edgewood in the classified research and development division, the Technical Command, synthesizing tabun gas and later VX. For the CIA, he traveled the world in search of exotic poisons.
Dieter Huzel: Wartime personal aide to Wernher von Braun, he oversaw the V-weapons document stash with Bernhard Tessmann. Under Operation Paperclip, he worked as part of the von Braun team at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Colonel Gordon D. Ingraham: Commander of Camp King from 1949 to 1951, he supervised Paperclip contract employees Dr. Walter Schreiber and Dr. Kurt Blome.
Janina Iwanska: Rare survivor of the Ravensbrück concentration camp medical murder experiments. She came to the U.S. for medical treatment, in 1951, and unexpectedly provided critical testimony to the FBI regarding the alleged war crimes of Operation Paperclip’s Dr. Walter Schreiber.
John Risen Jones Jr.: American soldier with the 104th Infantry Division and one of the first men to enter the slave tunnels at Nordhausen. His iconic photographs documented the horror that had befallen thousands of V-weapon laborers.
Dr. Heinrich Kliewe: Reich chief of counterintelligence for bacterial warfare concerns, he was interned and interrogated at Dustbin with Dr. Blome. Testified as a witness in the Nuremberg doctors’ trial.
Colonel Siegfried Knemeyer: Luftwaffe spy pilot, engineer, and wartime chief of Luftwaffe technical developments under Hermann Göring. Considered one of the Reich’s top ten pilots, he was asked by armaments minister Albert Speer to pilot Speer’s escape to Greenland. Under Operation Paperclip, he worked at Wright Field from 1947 until 1977.
Major General Hugh Knerr: Post-war commanding general at Air Technical Service Command, Wright Field. An early advocate of Operation Paperclip, he sent a memo to the War Department encouraging them to overlook German scientists’ Nazi pasts. “Pride and face saving have no place in national insurance,” he said.
Karl Krauch: Chairman of IG Farben board of directors and Göring’s Plenipotentiary for Special Questions of Chemical Production. Courted for Operation Paperclip while incarcerated at Nuremberg, he was convicted alongside colleague Otto Ambros.
Richard Kuhn: Nobel Prize–winning organic chemist who developed soman nerve agent for the Reich and was known to begin his classes at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute with “Sieg Heil.” Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army Air Forces Aero Medical Center in Heidelberg, and also privately for General Loucks’s Heidelberg working group on sarin production.
Brigadier General Charles E. Loucks: Long-serving U.S. Army chemical warfare officer, he oversaw Operation Paperclip scientists working at Edgewood. He was transferred to Heidelberg, Germany, in June 1948, served as chief of intelligence collection for Chemical Warfare Plans, European Command, and created the Heidelberg working group on sarin production with Hitler’s former chemical weapons experts, including Schieber, Schrader, Kuhn, and von Klenck. Initiated the first U.S. Army interest in the incapacitating agent Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD.
Dr. Ulrich Luft: Luftwaffe respiratory specialist and Dr. Strughold’s deputy director at the Aviation Medical Research Institute in Berlin. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army Air Forces Aero Medical Center, in Heidelberg, and for the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, in Texas.
Gerhard Maschkowski: Auschwitz death camp prisoner No. 117028, he survived the Buna-Monowitz labor-concentration camp, also called IG Auschwitz, and was nineteen years old at liberation.
John J. McCloy: Lawyer, banker, politician, and presidential advisor, as chairman of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee, he played a crucial role in the earliest days of the Nazi scientist program. As U.S. high commissioner in Germany, he championed Accelerated Paperclip, also known as Project 63, and granted clemency to many Nazi war criminals convicted at Nuremberg.
Charles McPherson: Member of the Special Projects Team for Accelerated Paperclip, McPherson recruited Dr. Kurt Blome to work on biological weapons research.
Hermann Nehlsen: Sixty-three-year-old German aircraft engineer working under Operation Paperclip at Wright Field, he turned in Georg Rickhey for war crimes.
Carl Nordstrom: Chief of the Scientific Research Division under U.S. High Commissioner McCloy, he oversaw the Special Projects Team in their recruitment of Nazi scientists under the Accelerated Paperclip program.
Frank Olson: Bacteriologist for the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick and CIA operative involved in the controversial interrogation programs at Camp King, including Operations Bluebird and Artichoke. He was covertly drugged with LSD by CIA colleagues, and later fell, or was pushed, out of a New York City hotel room to his death.
Werner Osenberg: Wartime high-ranking member of the Gestapo and an engineer, he ran the Planning Office inside Goring’s Reich Research Council and was the eponymous creator of the Osenberg List, a “Who’s Who” record of over 15,000 Reich scientists, engineers, and doctors.
Colonel Boris Pash: Commanding officer of the Alsos Mission and later an employee of the CIA.
Albert Patin: Reich businessman whose wartime factories mass-produced aircraft instruments using a 6,000-person workforce that included slave laborers supplied by Himmler. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army at Wright Field.
Colonel William R. Philp: First commander of Camp King in Oberursel, Germany. He was one of the first post-war U.S. Army officers to hire Nazi military intelligence officers to analyze information from Soviet prisoners, an action that metastasized into the Gehlen Organization.
Lieutenant General Donald L. Putt: Accomplished test pilot and engineer. He was one of the first wartime officers to arrive at Hermann Göring’s secret aeronautical research center at Völkenrode, where he recruited dozens of scientists for Operation Paperclip, later supervising them at Wright Field.
Dr. Sigmund Rascher: SS doctor at Dachau who conducted medical murder experiments at Experimental Cell Block Five. His correspondence with Himmler, including a gruesome collection of photographs, was used in the Nuremberg doctors’ trial. He was allegedly murdered on Himmler’s orders shortly before war’s end and became the scapegoat of many Luftwaffe doctors.
Georg Rickhey: General manager of the Mittelwerk slave labor facility in Nordhausen. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey and the U.S. Army Air Forces at Wright Field. Exposed by a fellow Paperclip scientist for alleged war crimes, he was returned to Germany as a defendant in the Dora-Nordhausen labor-concentration camp trial and was acquitted.
Walther Riedel: Engineer with the V-weapons design bureau. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army at Fort Bliss, Texas, before returning to Germany.
Howard Percy “H. P.” Robertson: Physicist, collaborator of Albert Einstein, and ordnance expert who served as an officer with Operation Alsos. He served as General Eisenhower’s post-war chief of the Scientific Intelligence Advisory Section and chief of Field Information Agency, Technical (FIAT). He was vocally opposed to hiring Nazi scientists.
Arthur Rudolph: Operations director at Mittelwerk slave labor facility in Nordhausen, he specialized in V-weapons assembly and oversaw slave laborer allocation. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army at Fort Bliss, Texas, and became project manager for the Saturn V. In 1980 he was investigated by the Department of Justice and left America in 1984 to
avoid prosecution.
Dr. Siegfried Ruff: Director of the Aero Medical Division of the German Experimental Station for Aviation Medicine in Berlin, close colleague and coauthor of Dr. Strughold. As supervisor to Dr. Sigmund Rascher he administrated the medical experiments in Experimental Cell Block Five at Dachau. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army Air Forces Aero Medical Center, in Heidelberg, before being tried at Nuremberg and acquitted.
Emil Salmon: Nazi aircraft engineer implicated in the burning down of a synagogue in Ludwigshafen, Germany. He was hired under Operation Paperclip to build engine test stands for the U.S. Army Air Forces, who found his expertise “difficult, if not impossible, to duplicate.”
Dr. Konrad Schäfer: Luftwaffe physiologist and chemist, he developed the Schäfer Process of desalination in pilot sea emergencies, which became part of the medical murder experiments at Dachau. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army Air Forces Aero Medical Center, in Heidelberg, before being tried in the Nuremberg doctors’ trial and acquitted. His second Paperclip contract was for the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, in Texas.
SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schieber: Chief of the Armaments Supply Office in the Speer Ministry, he acted as liaison to the industrial production of tabun and sarin gas. One of Hitler’s Old Fighters and holder of the Golden Party Badge, First Class, he served on Reichsführer-SS Himmler’s personal staff. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army, in Heidelberg, for General Loucks’s Heidelberg working group on sarin production, and for the CIA.
Heinz Schlicke: Electronic warfare expert and director of the Reich’s Naval Test Fields at Kiel, he was on board the German submarine U-234, headed for Japan with a weapons cache, when captured. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Navy.
Hermann Schmitz: CEO of IG Farben and director of the Deutsches Reichsbank, it was inside a secret wall safe in Schmitz’s Heidelberg home that Major Edmund Tilley discovered the photo album connecting IG Farben to IG Auschwitz.
Gerhard Schrader: IG Farben chemist who discovered tabun nerve agent for the Reich. He repeatedly turned down Operation Paperclip contract offers but worked privately for General Loucks with the Heidelberg working group on sarin production.
Major General Dr. Walter Schreiber: Surgeon general of the Third Reich, wartime chief of medical services, Supreme Command of the German Army, member of the Reich Research Council, and chief of protection against gas and bacteriological warfare. Captured by the Soviets during the Battle for Berlin, he was a surprise witness for the Russian prosecution team at Nuremberg. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army, at Camp King, Oberursel, and for the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, in Texas.
Dr. Oskar Schröder: Chief of staff of the Luftwaffe Medical Corps, he ordered and oversaw medical murder experiments at Dachau. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army Air Forces Aero Medical Center, in Heidelberg, before being tried and convicted at Nuremberg. Sentenced to life in prison, he was granted clemency and released 1954.
Robert Servatius: Nazi defense counsel during the Nuremberg doctor’s trial, he located a 1945 Life magazine story describing how U.S. military doctors experimented on U.S. prisoners during the war and read the article word-for-word in the courtroom, seriously damaging the prosecution’s case.
Major Eugene Smith: U.S. Army officer assigned to investigate Georg Rickhey on war crimes accusations. He took statements from Arthur Rudolph at Fort Bliss, Texas, which later proved instrumental for the Department of Justice.
Albert Speer: Reich minister of armaments and war production, he was responsible for all warfare-related science and technology for the Reich, starting in 1942, and oversaw the placement of millions of people into labor-concentration camps. Convicted at Nuremberg, he served twenty years in Spandau Prison. After his release he wrote several memoirs, always maintaining he knew nothing of the Holocaust.
Vivien Spitz: Youngest court reporter at the Nuremberg doctors’ trial, she authored Doctors from Hell at the age of eighty, after being outraged by a speech given by a Holocaust denier.
Major Robert B. Staver: Officer with the research and intelligence branch of U.S. Army Ordnance, he oversaw Special Mission V-2 and the capture of 100 V-weapons and related documents from Nordhausen. His actions led to the first group of rocket scientists coming to America under Operation Paperclip. He left the Army in December 1945.
Dr. Hubertus Strughold: Wartime director of the Aviation Medical Research Institute of the Reich Air Ministry in Berlin for ten years of Hitler’s twelve-year rule. Despite being listed on the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects, CROWCASS, he was recruited by Harry Armstrong to codirect the Top Secret medical research program in post-war Germany. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army Air Forces Aero Medical Center, in Heidelberg, and the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine, in Texas. Referred to as the Father of Space Medicine, he remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of Operation Paperclip.
Colonel Philip R. Tarr: Wartime chief officer of the Intelligence Division of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service, Europe. Stationed at Dustbin interrogation center, he defied orders to arrest Otto Ambros on war crimes charges and drove him to Heidelberg to meet with Chemical Corps intelligence officers and a civilian with Dow Chemical.
Major Edmund Tilley: British officer in charge of post-war interrogations of Hitler’s chemical weapons experts interned at Dustbin. Fluent in German, he was responsible for locating evidence used to convict Otto Ambros and other Farben chemists at Nuremberg.
General Telford Taylor: Chief prosecutor at Nuremberg. During the doctors’ trial, he described Hitler’s doctors as having become proficient in the “macabre science” of killing. He was a vocal critic of U.S. High Commissioner McCloy’s decision to pardon convicted Nazis and overturn ten of the tribunal’s death sentences.
Bernhard Tessmann: Weapons facilities designer at Nordhausen. With Huzel, and at the direction of von Braun, he hid the V-weapons documents in the Dörnten mine. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Erich Traub: Virologist, microbiologist, and doctor of veterinary medicine, he served as the wartime deputy director of the National Research Institute on the island of Riems, Germany. Sent by Himmler to Turkey in search of rinderpest, he sought to weaponize the virus for the Reich. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He asked to be repatriated to Germany, in 1953.
Wernher von Braun: Technical director of V-weapons development for the German Army and head of the Mittelbau-Dora Planning Office, a division within the SS. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army, Fort Bliss, Texas, and became director of the Marshall Space Flight Center and chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, which propelled Americans to the moon.
Magnus von Braun: Gyroscope engineer at Nordhausen and the younger brother of Wernher von Braun. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for the U.S. Army, at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Robert Ritter von Greim: WWI flying ace who mentored Dr. Strughold in pilot physiology studies between world wars. At war’s end, he was appointed by Hitler to serve as the last chief of the Luftwaffe and committed suicide in May 1945.
Jürgen von Klenck: SS officer, IG Farben chemist, and deputy chief of special Committee-C for chemical warfare under Ambros, he inadvertently led Major Tilley to a document cache that led to the arrest and conviction of many Nazi colleagues. Under Operation Paperclip he worked for General Loucks’s Heidelberg working group on sarin production.
Herbert Wagner: Chief armaments design engineer at Henschel Aircraft Company and inventor of the HS-293 missile. He was the first Nazi scientist to arrive in the U.S. under Operation Paperclip and worked for U.S. Naval Technical Intelligence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AUTHOR INTERVIEWS AND CORRESPONDENCE CONDUCTED 2011–2013
John Dolibois: Interrogator, p
risoners of war, Central Continental Prisoner of War Enclosure Number 32, aka Ashcan. Army Intelligence, G-2
Vivien Spitz: American court reporter, Nuremberg war crimes trial, doctors’ trial
Hugh Iltis: Translator of captured Nazi documents, Case No. 707-Medical Experiments, Himmler Papers
Michael Howard: British Intelligence Office No. 1, T-Force; W. R. Grace employee circa 1958
Ib Melchior: Agent, OSS and U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps
Gerhard Maschkowski: Prisoner at Auschwitz concentration camp, IG Auschwitz, Buna-Monowitz
Herman Shine: Prisoner at Auschwitz concentration camp, IG Auschwitz, Buna-Monowitz
Hanna Marx: Prisoner at Stutthof concentration camp
William Jeffers: Flight engineer, U.S. Army Air Forces, prisoner of war, Luftwaffe-Dulag Luft, Oberursel
Dr. Leonard Kreisler: Post doctor, Camp Detrick (later Fort Detrick), Site “R,” also known as Raven Rock Mountain Complex
Dr. James Ketchum: Edgewood Army Chemical Center
Dr. Götz Blome: Son of Dr. Kurt Blome
Dirk Knemeyer: Grandson of Siegfried Knemeyer
Gabriella Hoffmann: Daughter of Dr. Friedrich “Fritz” Hoffmann
Dr. Dieter Ambros: Son of Dr. Otto Ambros
Dr. Rolf Benzinger: Son of Dr. Theodor Benzinger
Paul-Hermann Schieber: Son of Dr. Walter Schieber
Katrin Himmler: Grandniece of Heinrich Himmler
Eric Olson: Son of Dr. Frank Olson
Hanns-Claudius Scharff: Son of Hanns Scharff
Clarence Lasby: Author and historian
Werner Renz: Director, Fritz Bauer Institute
Dr. Harald Eichinger: Warden, Landsberg Prison
Albert Kroll: Director, Dachau concentration camp, archive and library
Mathias Korn: Police commissioner, Dachau
Anna Naab: Dachau Police Department, historian
Manfred Kopp: Historian, Camp King, Oberursel
Operation Paperclip Page 49