The incident was a tipping point for Hermann Nehlsen, and he went to Colonel Putt to file a formal complaint against the two men. There was more to the story, Nehlsen told Colonel Putt. Rickhey was a war criminal. He had been the primary person behind a mass hanging at Nordhausen, the hanging by crane of a dozen prisoners, and had bragged about it on the ship ride coming over to the United States. As for Albert Patin, Hermann Nehlsen told Colonel Putt he was an ardent Nazi as well, a member of the SA. Patin’s companies used slave laborers from concentration camps. What Hermann Nehlsen did not know was that Colonel Putt was not interested in the past histories of the German scientists in the Army Air Forces’ employ. Or that Putt had a gentleman’s agreement with Albert Patin and had been using him to keep an eye on the other Germans at the Hilltop. Colonel Putt said he would look into the allegations. Instead, Putt had Nehlsen watched for future security violations. Hermann Nehlsen remained angry about the incident and wrote so in a letter to a friend in New York City named Erwin Loewy. Perhaps Nehlsen knew that all of his mail was read by military screeners, or maybe he did not. Either way, what Nehlsen wrote to Loewy caught the eye of Wright Field mail censors. Nehlsen’s letter was turned over to the intelligence division to be analyzed. Several weeks later, Hermann Nehlsen violated security and left Wright Field for a weekend visit with a relative in Michigan. Colonel Putt reported the violation to Air Material Command headquarters and arranged to have Nehlsen transferred to Mitchel Field, an air force base in New York.
But Hermann Nehlsen’s letter to Erwin Loewy about Georg Rickhey had a life of its own. It made its way to Army Air Forces Headquarters, in Washington, D.C., where it was read by Colonel Millard Lewis, Executive Assistant Chief of Air Staff-2. The allegations were serious, Colonel Lewis decided. They involved alleged war crimes. Lewis sent a memorandum to the director of intelligence for the War Department General Staff summarizing the situation and advising that an investigating officer be assigned to look into the matter. “Mr. Nehlsen stated that Dr. Georg Rickhey, age 47, specialist in the field of engineering and production of guided missiles, was employed in the underground plant at Nordhausen as a strong Nazi Party member, where in 1944, twelve foreign workers were strung up on a cross beam and raised by a crane in the presence of the group of workers,” and killed, read Colonel Lewis’s memorandum. “One of the group who acted as an observer asserted that Dr. Rickhey was the chief instigator for the execution.” The Pentagon assigned an Air Corps Major named Eugene Smith to look into the Georg Rickhey case.
Back at Wright Field, Colonel Putt likely believed that the allegations against Rickhey had fallen by the wayside. Meanwhile, Hermann Nehlsen had been banished to Mitchel Field. In January 1947 Putt recommended that Rickhey be given a long-term military contract for employment at Wright Field. That request was authorized, and on April 12, 1947, Georg Rickhey signed a new, five-year contract with the War Department. Separately, and without Putt’s knowledge, the Rickhey investigation was moving forward. At Army Air Forces Headquarters in Washington, Major Eugene Smith made preparations to travel to various military bases for interviews. It was Smith’s job to talk to Rickhey’s former colleagues from Nordhausen, to write up his findings, and to file a report. Colonel Putt did not learn about this investigation until Major Smith arrived at Wright Field. Putt suggested Major Smith discuss Rickhey’s case with Captain Albert Abels, the officer in charge of the Paperclip scientists at the Hilltop, so that Abels could clear things up. Abels told Major Smith that the stories were “petty jealousy” between scientists. Just gossip among men. Major Smith was unconvinced. He headed to Mitchel Field to interview Hermann Nehlsen and other German scientists who might have knowledge regarding the Rickhey case.
Hermann Nehlsen stood by his original story. “In 1944, twelve foreign workers were simultaneously hanged by being strung up on a cross beam and raised by a crane in the presence of the workers,” Nehlsen swore in an affidavit. “Dr. Rickhey was the chief instigator for the execution,” meaning it was Rickhey’s idea to hang the men. A second witness emerged at Mitchel Field, a former engineer on the Nordhausen rocket assembly lines named Werner Voss. Voss also testified that Rickhey was involved in the hangings, and he provided important new details that added context to the executions. Shortly before the hangings, Voss said, British airplanes had dropped leaflets urging the Nordhausen slave laborers to revolt. A group of them did revolt, and those men were among the ones hanged. The execution was a public event, Voss said, meant to intimidate other slave workers into subservience. These were serious allegations of war crimes. Major Smith needed corroboration, and for that, he headed to Fort Bliss, Texas. Smith had been told by the army that he would be able interview Wernher von Braun as well as some of the other men who had worked closely with Georg Rickhey inside the Nordhausen tunnels.