By January 1946, 160 Nazi scientists had been brought to America, including 115 rocket specialists at Fort Bliss, Texas, led by Wernher von Braun. Von Braun relished his Western surroundings and began writing science fiction novels. He underwent two personal transformations: becoming a born-again Christian and planning to marry his 18-year-old first cousin, Maria von Quistorp. In April, after a V-2 launch at White Sands reached three miles, von Braun drafted a proposal to fit his missiles with atomic weapons.

At Wright Field, Colonel Putt grew frustrated with the slow pace of recruitment and the idleness of 30 German scientists. Albert Patin presented a list of their grievances, including poor living conditions, lack of challenging work, and distrust of their American hosts. Army intelligence intercepted a letter to Patin discussing offers from French and Russian agents. Brigadier General John A. Samford forwarded the situation to the War Department, warning that valuable scientists might defect.

The Joint Intelligence Committee responded with alarming assessments. A report incorrectly claimed German physicists were helping the Soviets build an atomic bomb (information that actually came from the spy, Klaus Fuchs) and recommended bringing 1,000 additional Germans to America at any cost. Samuel Klaus objected, but the emerging Soviet threat shifted the debate. Secretary of War Robert Patterson, previously skeptical, now championed the program. On March 4, 1946, the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee declared the program to be in the national interest. General Joseph T. McNarney was ordered to identify 1,000 scientists for immediate recruitment, with their families to be housed at a secret facility in Landshut.

The JIOA devised a workaround for scientists with problematic Nazi backgrounds: They would attach a paperclip to these files as a signal to delay State Department review. This gave the program its new code name: Operation Paperclip. In July, however, McNarney reported that many of the identified scientists were former Nazis who could not be employed under current denazification rules. The JIOA responded by changing its guiding principle to exclude only those who might work toward Germany’s military resurgence.

Cold War tensions escalated dramatically. George F. Kennan’s Long Telegram warned that permanent peaceful coexistence with the Soviets was impossible. White House counsel Clark Clifford prepared a report concluding that the United States must prepare to use military power in the inevitable conflict. On August 30, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson urged President Truman to act quickly or risk losing scientists to other nations. Four days later, Truman officially approved expanding the program to 1,000 scientists.

The JIC produced its own assessment, predicting a future war with the Soviet Union would be an apocalyptic total war without humanitarian restraints. This drove interest in Dr. Kurt Blome, Hitler’s biological weapons expert, who remained employed by the US Army in Darmstadt. The public learned about America’s own wartime bioweapons program when the War Department released the Merck Report in January 1946. Written by pharmaceutical executive George W. Merck, the report argued that biological weapons were a poor man’s nuclear option and America must maintain its program. Congress responded with massive funding for Camp Detrick.

In August, the Soviets produced a surprise witness at Nuremberg: Major General Walter Schreiber, who had been in Soviet custody for 16 months. On August 26, Schreiber testified that Hitler ordered preparations for biological warfare and placed Dr. Kurt Blome in charge of an institute in Posen. He claimed Blome panicked when the Red Army advanced, worried they would discover installations for human experiments. During cross-examination, defense lawyer Dr. Hans Laternser caught Schreiber in a lie about a memorandum, but Schreiber was not recalled and was returned to Moscow. Two days later, Blome was arrested and imprisoned at Nuremberg to await trial.

On September 17, military security officers arrived at the Heidelberg facility and arrested five doctors (Benzinger, Ruff, Schäfer, Becker-Freyseng, and Schröder) for war crimes. The arrests threatened to expose Operation Paperclip and create an international scandal. During Benzinger’s pretrial investigation, prosecutors revealed he had attended a private screening of medical murder films for Himmler. Benzinger was announced as a defendant on October 12 but was mysteriously released on October 23 and returned to US Army custody. Medical historian Paul Weindling later suggested that the Army Air Forces valued Benzinger’s expertise on high-altitude aircraft more than prosecuting him. Prosecutor Alexander G. Hardy was outraged by the release. In February 1947, Benzinger became one of the first Heidelberg doctors shipped to America under Operation Paperclip.

The first Nuremberg trial concluded on October 1 with 12 death sentences. Hermann Göring died by suicide with a cyanide vial. On October 16, Master Sergeant John C. Woods hanged 10 Nazi officials. Their bodies were cremated at Dachau and their ashes thrown into a river.

In October 1946, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson and Samuel Klaus encountered a troubling development. The JIOA had issued directive 257/22, effectively seizing control of the visa approval process. Director Colonel Thomas Ford declared that JIOA security reports would be accepted as final, and the program was now officially a denial operation, keeping scientists from the Soviets at any cost.

Three weeks later, the New York Times, reported the program’s existence for the first time. Newsweek revealed the name Operation Paperclip. The War Department responded with a public relations campaign, holding an open house featuring carefully selected scientists like dirigible expert Theodor Knacke, Zeppelin chairman Hugo Eckener, and jet inventor Alexander Lippisch. By mistake, reporters were allowed to speak with Ernst Eckert, a former SS and SA member. More problematic scientists (including aerodynamicist Rudolf Hermann, who wore his SA uniform at work, and engineer Emil Salmon, who allegedly burned down a synagogue) were kept hidden.

Public backlash was swift; polls showed most Americans opposed the program. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Albert Einstein organized protests. Syracuse University professors objected when the Army placed Dr. Heinz Fischer, a former Nazi Party member, in their laboratories. The Federation of American Scientists asked President Truman to end the program. In the winter of 1947, the War Department forbade further information releases about the program.

Meanwhile, at Wright Field, engineer Georg Rickhey’s downfall unfolded. Recruited for his expertise building underground facilities, Rickhey and Albert Patin operated a black-market business at the Hilltop. During a late-night card game in October 1946, after engineer Hermann Nehlsen turned off their lamp to quiet them down, a drunk Rickhey lit a candle and made an antisemitic joke. The incident proved to be a tipping point for Nehlsen, who complained to Colonel Putt, who revealed that Rickhey ordered a mass hanging of prisoners at Nordhausen and that Patin used forced labor. Putt, who relied on Patin as an informant, ignored the complaint and transferred Nehlsen to Mitchel Field. Nehlsen’s letter to a friend describing the incident was intercepted by mail censors and reached Colonel Millard Lewis at Air Force Headquarters. Lewis ordered Major Eugene Smith to investigate. In January 1947, unaware of this probe, Putt recommended Rickhey for a five-year contract, which was approved. Captain Albert Abels dismissed the allegations as petty jealousy, but Smith persisted.

At Mitchel Field, Nehlsen and engineer Werner Voss provided sworn statements about the hangings. Smith traveled to Fort Bliss, where Wernher and Magnus von Braun were conveniently unavailable. Other Nordhausen engineers were evasive but helped draw a tunnel diagram. Arthur Rudolph initially denied seeing abuse but inadvertently revealed he had witnessed the hangings. Smith concluded the scientists were collectively covering up Nordhausen’s crimes.

In May 1947, war crimes investigator William Aalmans spotted Rickhey’s name in Stars and Stripes. An arrest warrant was issued on May 19, and Major George P. Miller escorted Rickhey back to Germany. JIOA deputy director Bosquet N. Wev alerted FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to keep the situation quiet. On August 7, Rickhey appeared as one of 19 defendants in the Dora-Nordhausen trial. The Army refused to let von Braun testify, citing kidnapping risks (though von Braun had recently traveled to Germany to marry). Though 15 defendants were convicted, Rickhey was acquitted. The Army immediately classified the entire trial record for 40 years.

That same month, top Reich pilot Siegfried Knemeyer arrived at Wright Field with his wife, Doris, and seven children. General Walter Dornberger also arrived after his release from British prison, where he had been labeled a menace. Dornberger wrote a classified pitch for the Ordnance Department arguing that missile development should proceed even if it violated American democratic ideals.

The Axster case further damaged the program’s reputation. Herbert Axster, a patent lawyer and former Wehrmacht officer, and his wife Ilse, a leader in a Nazi women’s organization, were exposed after German neighbors reported that Ilse used a horsewhip on the 40 enslaved laborers they kept on their estate. The Department of Justice withdrew Herbert’s application for legal immigration, but the couple was not deported and eventually opened a law firm in Milwaukee.

The Nuremberg doctors’ trial began December 9, 1946, the first of 12 subsequent proceedings prosecuted solely by the United States after Soviet-American cooperation collapsed. Brigadier General Telford Taylor opened by declaring the trial would create an undeniable record proving the crimes were fact, not fable. Leopold Alexander served as the prosecution’s expert consultant and later authored the Nuremberg Code. A crucial fact remained hidden, however, as four defendants—Siegfried Ruff, Konrad Schäfer, Hermann Becker-Freyseng, and Oskar Schröder—had recently worked for the US Army at the Heidelberg facility.

Ruff admitted to overseeing the Dachau medical murders but argued that using condemned prisoners for experiments was not immoral in wartime. Schäfer’s case proved more difficult for prosecutors. Though he developed the seawater desalination process and knew prisoners would be test subjects, no evidence placed him at Dachau. The sole surviving victim, Karl Höllenrainer, provided the most dramatic testimony. Höllenrainer took the stand. A small, nervous man, he explained he was arrested for being a “Gypsy of mixed blood” (268) who married a German woman. After passing through Auschwitz and Buchenwald, he was sent to Dachau for the seawater experiments, during which a doctor removed a piece of his liver without anesthesia. When asked to identify the perpetrator, Höllenrainer leaped over the defense tables, dagger raised, lunging at Dr. Wilhelm Beiglböck, the doctor in charge of the saltwater experiments. Military police subdued him just before he reached his target.

Presiding Judge Walter Beals immediately sentenced Höllenrainer to 90 days in the same prison housing the Nazi doctors. Höllenrainer pleaded that Beiglböck was a murderer who ruined his life, but Beals was unmoved. That night, Alexander, conflicted about having put the traumatized witness on the stand, advocated for his release. Beals showed clemency, releasing Höllenrainer into Alexander’s custody. Four days later, Höllenrainer continued his testimony, describing how his friends foamed at the mouth and suffered fits before dying of thirst. During cross-examination, defense lawyer Herr Steinbauer accused him of lying and made racist remarks about Romani people.

In a private letter to Taylor, Alexander compared the Nazi doctors to Tantalus, the mythical ruler who killed his own child for advancement. In another letter to his wife, Alexander revealed that he and Beiglböck were medical school classmates in Vienna before the war, though Beiglböck did not recognize him.

Dr. Kurt Blome’s case hinged on intent versus action. He admitted planning human experiments for plague research but argued he never conducted them. The prosecution lacked witnesses or documents proving otherwise. His defense counsel, Robert Servatius, read a June 1945 Life magazine article detailing US experiments on 800 prisoners. The article, unknown to the American judges and most prosecutors, suggested both nations conducted wartime human testing and undermined the prosecution’s moral authority.

On August 6, 1947, the verdicts were announced. Seven doctors received death sentences, nine received prison terms—including Beiglböck (15 years), Becker-Freyseng (20 years), and Schröder (life)—and seven were acquitted, including Blome, Schäfer, and Ruff. The judges noted that while Blome may have been preparing for human experiments, the record failed to prove he conducted them.

Schäfer returned to Heidelberg and assumed Strughold’s former position as chief of staff. Strughold was already at the School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Field, serving as professional advisor to Colonel Armstrong. When the FBI encountered difficulty approving Strughold’s visa, Schäfer wrote a recommendation praising his former boss’s ethical principles. The following year, Schäfer himself arrived in America under Operation Paperclip. As for Blome, his high profile initially made his recruitment too difficult but, as Cold War tensions mounted, he would be deemed eligible.