Operation Paperclip
A MORAL DILEMMA STUDY
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Near the end of WWII the US intelligence agency, Office of Strategic Services (OSS) assisted by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency(JIOA) who reported to the Joint Intelligence Committee(JIC) who reported directly to and provided intelligence to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who reported directly to the President of the United States, rounded up 1,600 German scientists many of whom were top Nazi scientists for Hitler himself and were linked to human experimentation/torture in concentration camps and makers of biological weapons which were used to exterminate the Jewish occupants. in the fields of aeronautics, engineering, and biological warfare. The US felt it necessary that its national protection was above the ethical misdeeds that the recruited Nazi scientist had done, and then went on to use the same weapons that were used in the genocide of the Jewish people in the coming Cold War against Russia.
BIOLOGICAL & CHEMICAL WARFARE
KURT BLOME: DEPUTY SURGEON GENERAL OF THE THIRD REICH
The deputy of the Reich Health Leader and Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research, Blome was involved in the experimentation of biological warfare and germ disease warfare on concentration camp prisoners including euthanasia of diseased prisoners, human experimentation, and sarin gas tests on prisoners at Auschwitz as well as working side by side with Hitler to develop and test on prisoners a weaponized bubonic plague. Blome was tried at the Nuremberg war crime trials, which were reserved for only the highest members of the Nazi party, but was acquitted due to the fact that he had information that could benefit the US in their own efforts at biological warfare. He was discreetly allowed access into the US through project paperclip and given a visa to do chemical warfare work with the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. Blome was involved with domestic efforts to weaponize LSD with the US Army Chemical Corps. into an effective truth serum and human behavior manipulator that would give them an advantage over soviet spies conditioning. Blome was able to continue his scientific endeavors with no consequences as to his past actions that included genocide of almost an entire people.
ROCKET ENGINEERING & BALLISTIC MISSILES
WERNHER VON BRAUN: cHIEF ROCKET ENGINEER OF THE THIRD REICH
German rocket engineer and member of the Third Reich’s SS, the death squad of the Nazi’s, who created the A-4, later renamed V-2 rockets, that were used to destroy the city of London during the German air raids. Braun worked side by side with Hitler on the creation of the V-2 rockets as “vengeance weapons” against Germany’s enemies. The creation of these V-2 rockets were directly due to the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp prisoners slave labor. In the building of these rockets over 12,000 deaths occurred which were due to the use of slave labor in the camps. This man who was imported into the United States under operation paperclip later became the Director of NASA and was integral into launching the West’s first satellite Explorer 1 into orbit.
THE MORAL DILEMMA
ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS
These men were given a free pass and pardoned of their crimes because they deemed a vital force of information to use against the soviets in the era that would soon become dominated by the ideals of brinkmanship, weapons of mass destruction, and mutually assured destruction. The US would stop at no mere ethical or moral standings to obtain the information they needed. They completely ignored the ethical boundaries regardless of the evils they were letting into the first democratically free nation in the world. These men who worked beside Hitler at one point in their life were now the Director of NASA, distinguished scientist, rocket engineers for the US Army, and much more. The JIOA allowed the scientific pursuit of rockets, chemical & biological warfare, and space investigation, regardless of the background of the men who were conducting the experiments. Sarin gas cluster bombs and the first rocket sent to the moon were created by the same men who conducted human experimentation on concentration camp prisoners and rockets that destroyed London in the German air raids.