RichardQ Loc: Colorado

On March 5, 1946, America's military occupation policy in Occupied Germany was disrupted in a little Missouri town when Winston Churchill, with President Truman at his side, delivered a speech blasting Russia's belligerent actions in Eastern Europe. Until then, we were officially Allies. A few months later in Stuttgart, on September 6, 1946, Secretary of State James Byrnes addressed the German people to confirm that we were entering a new phase in our Occupation -- rehabilitation and cooperation, whether the Russians liked it or not.

The British and American Occupation forces then jointly formed a new German economic entity, Bizonia. The Soviets and the French were not happy. The American GIs were confused.

The "Cold War' had begun. The U.S. no longer cared if Russia protested about our actions with Nazi scientists. Operation Paperclip had a free hand. Of course, the Nazi war crimes dossiers remained top secret -- from the American public.

Administering the 176 ex-Nazi (we hoped) scientists already in America was the job of the Pentagon's newly-formed Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA). This group was headed by three Military Intelligence officers (a Navy captai, an Army colonel, and an Air Force colonel) plus a civilian State Department lawyer authorized to issue or deny visas for the Nazi immigrants.

Intense disagreements erupted almost immediately between the calm civilian lawyer, Samuel Klaus, and the fiery JIOA chairman, Naval Intelligence Captain Bousquet Wev. Klaus was very familiar with the Nazi organizations and their war crimes, and he was determined to refuse visas to the worst of the worst. He soon had blocked 16 of Wev's scientists. Wev had no such reservations. He contended publicly that Naziism was a "dead issue," that war crimes were "ancient history," and we should "stop beating a dead horse." It was more important to use the Nazi's "rare minds" and shield them from the Russians.

Captain Wev's views appeared to coincide with those of John J. McCloy, assistant Secretary of War and chairman of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC). Reportedly McCloy found that Nazi scientists were not war criminals because they were useful to America. And he had mediation power in conflicts between State and Army.

Capt. Wev returned the visa applications of his blocked scientists to Intelligence (G2) arm of Military Government in the I.G. Farben building in Frankfurt, where forgeries were used to rewrite problem facts. But Klaus repeately rejected the new versions, enraging Wev, who then ordered Klaus to approve visas for everybody on all his lists, without reading them. Klaus remained adament, with State's backing.

This now became political. Wev contacted several sympathetic conservative Congressmen, and Klaus and others were transferred out of the JIOA loop. The visas were now rubber-stamped for Operation Paperclip. There were other changes as well. President Truman's original 1945 mandate, banning "members of the Nazi Party or ardent supporters of Naziism" was replaced with the new Paperclip charter banning "anyone who might plan for the resurgence of German military potential."

All references to Nazis were deleted. It became a non-word,

However, in the American Occupation Zone in Germany, the denazification trials were still in full swing in mid-1946. Washington ordered General Joseph T. McNarney, commander-in-chief of U.S. Occupation Forces, to prepare a list of 1,000 qualified scientists for Paperclip. His staff found 869 scientists, but they had all been sentenced by denazification courts and compelled to work as common laborers. No problem for Paperclip -- all were hired.

In America the Gallop Poll learned of the project (nobody knew about the Paperclip name, though) and ran a national survey. On December 11, 1946, Gallop published the responses to the following question:

"It has been suggested that we bring over to America one thousand German scientists who used to work for the Nazis and have them work with our own scientists on scientific problems. Do you think this is a good or bad idea?"

A substantial majority of more-educated citizens endorsed the plan. People with only elementary schooling strongly opposed it. Cities with populations of 500,000 or more heavily favored the idea. Farming regions and towns of 2,500 or less adamently disapproved. The New England and Pacific Coast regions heartily supported the proposition. The South turned it down, two to one.

Ironically, in the end the South was the biggest beneficiary of Operation Paperclip.

In late December, many informal groups submitted protest letters and telegrams to the President, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of State. They had no effect. One potentially powerful group, the Federation of American Scientists, had 3,000 nuclear physicists who had strong feelings both ways. For months they held contentious meetings, issued competitive resolutions, distributed questionnaires, and conducted study groups, all of which culminated in their National Council Meeting in May, 1947. They voted to drop the issue.

Part 3 will report on my take of the good and bad effects of Operation Paperclip.

Naval Inteligence Capt. Bousquet Wev


State Dept.Visa lawyer Samuel Klaus


I.G. Farben building where Paperclip forgeries were done by Occupation G2

ken hubert Loc: Missouri

What??? You thought the American Government hands were clean after the war? They were almost as bad as the Nazi's themselves. Keep digging and you will find out all kinds of dirty little secrets the government kept hidden both during and after the war!

sr71 Loc: In Col. Juan Seguin Land

Thanks Richard.... patiently awaiting the next installment....

BJW

Just to bring this discussion back to photography: Then there were those good German people who were forced to join the Nazi party or be persecuted for not being sympathetic. One such "righteous gentile" was Ernst Leitz, founder of Leica Camera Co. of Wetzlar, Germany. In the late '30s and early '40s, Leitz hired Jewish apprentices in Wetzlar and arranged to smuggle them out of Nazi Germany on the ruse of tranferring them (with their families) to the company's stores in NYC, London and elsewhere just to help them escape the death camps. To help them evade The Gestapo, he gave each one a Leica camera because it was a thing of value that could be sold or traded to facilitate the "employee's" escape. If you're interested, Google "Leica Freedom Train".
Leitz, a German, has been likened to Oskar Schindler, a Pole, who has been popularized by the film "Schindler's List" as a real hero who saved many innocents from the evils of Nazism.
So, just because one was forced to cooperate with the Nazis, like Leitz or Schindler, does not mean that they did not have other redeeming values, such as their humanity, morality or scientific know how that could benefit mankind.

Treepusher Loc: Kingston, Massachusetts

Interesting, and sadly true. No matter how heinous the crimes, as long as the perpertrators (however reluctant) had something of scientific value to offer, it was no questions asked.

Swamp-Cork Loc: Lanexa, Virginia

Great information, Richard and plan on reading many of your previous posts! Thanks!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks for another good one.

iDoc Loc: Knoxville,Tennessee

An excellent addition to your continuing saga. Thank you. Looking forward to more.

philo Loc: philo, ca

my new t-shirt reads...........trust the goverment/ask an indian.
No goverment has a clean history.

blacks2 Loc: SF. Bay area

Thank you so much for taking your time and inform us what really went on. Stay well Richard.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Ken, I certainly hope you haven't joined the groups that deny the Holocaust? If not, what facts can you cite to support your charge that America's hands "were almost as bad as the Nazi's?" Sure, our field commanders sometimes made fatal mistakes, but reportedly apologies and compensation resulted later, Did the surviving Nazis -- and there were many -- ever apologize for their atrocities?

America has a long history of "digging for dirty little secrets" but the Feds did a good job of hiding Operation Paperclip in plain sight. We could see the scientists but we didn't know the facts about their war crimes, until these investigative reporters and their lawyers pushed their ways into the sealed archives.

Fortunately for today's reporters, President Lyndon Johnson pushed for passage of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1966. At first there were no enforcement provisions, so reporters were often denied access to records. But after Watergate, the Congress enacted "Sunshine" amendments that significantly empowered reporters to gain access to records. The Feds did not give up, so FOIA was frequently changed by various administrations. In the 1980s, a CNN investigative reporter, Linda Hunt, got wind of Paperclip and began a legal odyssey through NASA, Army Intelligence and Security, the Washington National Records Center, the Army Materiel Command, and many other official and unofficial sources. In 1985 her first report of the Paperclip coverup was published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Her full-length book, "Secret Agenda - Project Paperclip 1945 to 1990", was published in 1991. The text is available free on the Internet at https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Secret_Agenda,pdf and it's a fascinating read. Among other authors who followed up her research with their own are Tom Bowers (The Paperclip Conspiracy), Clarence Lasby (Project Paperclip: German Scientists and the Cold War), and the newest (2014) entry, from NY Times investigative reporter Annie Jacobsen (Operation Paperclip : The secret Intelligence program that brought Nazi scientists to America). I guess you have some catch-up reading to do, Ken,

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Thanks for your patience, sr71. I'm working on it.

ken hubert Loc: Missouri

A Holocaust denier??? Are you crazy? 6 million Jews died because of that screwed up midget! I'm talking about the under the table agreement the American govt and the Catholic church made to get Nazi's to S. America and helped some of them to get back to Germany.
Look into the deals American companies made with the Nazis before and DURING the war. The transportation and execution of millions of Jews wouldn't have been as efficient without the help of IBM. Or American chemical companies providing the ingredients to produce Zyclone B gas. There are a lot more I could name!

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Thank you for your comments, BJW. The American press as well as Hollywood have not neglected the German citizens who refused to obey the immoral mandates of their Nazi rulers, as best they could. The New York Times Sunday Magazine of Feb. 13, 2000 ran a lengthy cover story on "The Good Germans," written by Peter Schneider, It detailed the life of a young German jew who lived underground in Berlin through WW II with the help of some 50 kind-hearted German citizens. This man, Konrad Latte, still lived in Berlin with his wife in 2000, where he was the conductor of a baroque orchestra. He was able in the war to earn a living as an organist for a number of churches.

I lived in Germany for 3 years (1945 to 1948) as a GI and as a civilian, and returned for another 3 years (1960 to 1963) as a TV art director in an ad agency, so I had numerous opportunities to discuss life under the Nazis. Not many wanted to talk about helping a Jew or another German because the "help" was usually a very minor thing, like giving a few ration coupons, or an address for an overnight stay, etc. They felt ashamed to even mention it. But Schneider wrote that those little aids were immensely important to the refugee in that time. I visited the Fotokina in Cologne in 1962 and chatted with the owner of Plaubel, a professional camera manufacturer. During the war, he was forced to employ a number of French slave workers to manufacture precision optical devices for the military. He told me he did everything he could to help these workers through those times, and he was gratified when they came back to visit him in the postwar years.

Anyway, thanks, BJW, for the info on Leitz. I didn't know about that.

jmikulas Loc: Czech Rep./USA

Oskar Schindler (1908 - 1974) Born in Svitavy, Czech Republic. In 1936 he joined German Intelligence Service, in 1939 he joined Nazi Party. In 1939 he acquired an Enamelware Factory in Krakow, Poland. Out of 1750 workers - over 1000 were Jews. His German connections, bribes and gifts of luxury items helped Mr. Schindler protect his Jewish workers. In October 1944 - factory was moved from Krakow to Czech Republic - to avoid advancing Russian Army.
1200 Jewish workers moved with the factory. Mr. Schindler spend his entire fortune protecting his workers till the end of war in May 1945. In 1963 Mr. Schindler was named "Righteous Among The Nations" by Israeli Government. He died Oct. 9, 1974. He is buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. The only member of the Nazi Party honored in this way.