Operation Paperclip

Sixteen hundred Nazi scientists, laundered into the space race and beyond.

Sixteen hundred scientists, files laundered by the JIOA to erase party memberships — the word 'ardent Nazi' literally struck through and rewritten. Von Braun built the Saturn V; Rudolph, Mittelwerk's slave-labor manager, got NASA's Distinguished Service Medal and quietly renounced his citizenship when investigators finally came. The moral arithmetic was stated plainly at the time, in a memo: better us than the Soviets. The remainder was never carried.