Von Braun was one of the top scientists working on the A bomb. Does anyone actually think that we would/should have let all that brain power go to waste?? We and Russia carved up Germany after the war and then both of us began the search for the ultimate weapon. Then it had to be tested. And what better country to test it on than the evil empire of the East? If it had not been Japan, it likely would have been our own country, somehow, someway. Ending the war was the perfect, 'moral' excuse.
There is a vast number of 'alternate history' books. Some of them are based on no facts whatsoever, but some are quite well researched. I found out one important thing from reading them-what we read in our school history text is not necessarily the truth. Better to read historians that are not on the govt. payroll.

Werner Von Braun's research at Peenemunde was in the realm of rocket and guided missile development, not development of an atomic bomb. Germany stopped development of the atomic bomb in late 1942, since there were insufficient funds to continue such an expensive project. The German scientists proved theoretically that a bomb could be built, but the engineering costs were prohibitive. Rockets and guided missiles as weapons were conventional weapons using high explosives. Any thoughts of using missiles to deliver nuclear weapons were strictly theoretical at the time, with no engineering capabilities.

By the time Nazi Germany had surrendered, we had already developed the atomic bomb, so any German contribution would only be theoretical, not practical. We were desperately trying to keep the atomic bomb secrets away from the Soviet Union, but were being sold out Soviet agents within the Manhattan Project itself.

The Pentagon, Navy and Army Air Forces were interested in rocketry for a variety of reasons, and even the U.S. State Department wanted to get German rocket scientists here to continue research and engineering.

In early 1945, a top-secret, unauthorized plot was developed in Washington to gradually bring some 1,700 "elite" Nazi scientists and technicians to America while concealing their hideous histories of gruesome war crimes.

Why? So their advanced knowledge in rocketry, missiles, aeronautics, bionics and chemical warfare could help the U.S. prepare for an anticipated future war with Soviet Russia. The Pentagon plotters were U.S. military intelligence officers who believed their deception was necessary for our national security.

Similar programs were initiated by Britain, France and Russia.

The secret project was first known as Operation Overcast, but was changed to Operation Paperclip in 1946. It remained classified as top secret for decades before it was exposed by investigative reporter Linda Hunt in March, 1985.

When President Harry Truman approved the temporary immigration of the first German scientists in 1945, he was not told of their war crimes histories. He specifically prohibited the entry of "any members of the Nazi Party or ardent supporters of Naziism." That probably amused the plotters.

Many, if not most, German scientists had been Nazi Party members as well as ardent Nazis in the infamous SS Corps. By mid-1945, they were postwar fugitives hiding in Occupied Germany and hunted by American, British, Russian, French - and German - prosecutors.

Their documented crimes iincluded mass murder, torture (in the guise of "experiments"), enslavement, starvation, and prolonged forced labor, all justified by the Nazi "MasterRace" theories. The breathtaking scale of their inhumanity qualified them for the gallows, several times over -- but their technical wizardry was more important to the Paperclip plotters.

The Pentagon underwent a schizophrenic split. Army prosecutors in Nuremberg feverishly searched for the same criminal scientists who were being recruited secretly by combined Army and Navy intelligence units in Washington. All with the blessings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Army prosecutors operated under the authority of the International War Crimes Tribunal Charter. The U.S. Intelligence recruiters were managed by the Pentagon's small but powerful Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (CIOS).

The mediator between these two opposing camps was John J. McCloy, assistant secretary of war and chairman of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC). He saw no conflict in his assignment. To his mind, the Nazi scientists were not war criminals because they were useful to America. Besides, he was determined to prevent the Russians from getting these "rare minds."

In the U.S. Zone of Occupied Germany, the Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), together with Military Government, had the task of finding, shielding and interrogating the designated Nazi scientists. Some were already on trial in German courts, but Military Government intervened, and they "disappeared" into Paperclip.

The chosen Nazis were secretly assembled in Bavaria for interrogation. They proudly described their unethical (often deadly) operations, which often pleased the American scientists, since such criminal experiments yielded valuable data using methods prohibited back home.

Their interrogators recorded all the crimes and then assessed their characters, compiling an incriminating secret dossier for each man. That file followed each scientist for the rest of his American career, but the contents were later changed with forgeries when necessary.

The Pentagon offered short-term employment contracts. In one case, an entire Nazi group of doctors remained in Heidelberg and secretly continued their work as the "AAF Aero Medical Center" under U.S. supervision for two years. Hitler's portraits were replaced with President Truman.

Eventually, small groups of scientists and technicians were shipped to various U.S. ports of entry. No visa, No passports. No questions. In time they were joined by their families.

The War Department's Bureau of Public Relations issued a muted, three-paragraph press release datelined October 1, 1945, and headlined, "Outstanding German Scientists Being Brought to U.S."

The third paragraph played with the truth: "Throughout their temporary stay in the United States these German scientists and technical experts will be utilized for appropriate military projects of the Army and Navy." No mention of "Nazis."

No cries of public outrage. Americans were distracted, preparing for their first postwar Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations. And the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal was headline news.

But a year later, the situation was different, as I'll report in Part 2. Please stay tuned.