Erich Traub was a virologist, microbiologist, and doctor of veterinary medicine. He weaponized rinderpest (cattle plague) at the request of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS, traveling to Turkey to acquire a black market sample of the virus during the war. Paperclip contract: Naval Research Institute, Maryland. (NARA)
Major General Walter Dornberger was in charge of V-weapons development for the Reich. Arrested by the British and held for nearly two years on war crimes charges, Dornberger was released into U.S. custody with the warning that he was a “menace of the first order.” Paperclip contract: U.S. Army Air Forces. (NARA)
Arthur Rudolph specialized in V-weapons assembly and served as operations director at the slave labor facility in Nordhausen. In America he would become known as the Father of the Saturn Rocket. “I read Mein Kampf and agreed with lots of things in it,” Rudolph told journalist John Huber in 1985. “Hitler’s first six years, until the war started, were really marvelous.” Paperclip contract: U.S. Army, Texas. (NARA)
Georg Rickhey oversaw tunnel operations for Hitler’s Führerbunker headquarters in Berlin. On the V-2 program he was general manager of the slave labor facility and appeared as a defendant in the Nordhausen war crimes trial. Paperclip contract: U.S. Army Air Forces, Ohio. (NARA)
Kurt Debus was a V-weapons engineer who oversaw mobile rocket launches as well as those at Peenemünde. An ardent Nazi, he wore the SS uniform to work. In America, Debus became the first director of NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Paperclip contract: U.S. Army, Texas. (NARA)
Otto Ambros was Hitler’s most valuable chemist, codiscover of sarin gas (the “a” in sarin denotes his name), and chief of the Reich’s Committee-C for chemical warfare. The U.S. Army coveted his knowledge. Tried at Nuremberg, Ambros was convicted of mass murder and slavery, then granted clemency by High Commissioner John J. McCloy. Paperclip contracts: U.S. Department of Energy. (NARA)
Friedrich “Fritz” Hoffmann was a chemist and philosopher. When captured by Allied forces he carried a paper signed by a U.S. diplomat stating he was anti-Nazi. In America, Hoffmann synthesized Nazi nerve gas stockpiles and worked in the CIA’s assassination-by-poison program. Paperclip contract: U.S. Army Chemical Corps, Maryland. (NARA)
Jürgen von Klenck was a chemist, SS officer, and deputy chief of the Committee-C for chemical warfare. Surprised by how much information von Klenck provided, his interrogators concluded “that a lesser secret has been admitted to deflect the investigation from a more important secret.” Paperclip contracts: U.S. Army, Heidelberg. (NARA)
Dr. Hubertus Strughold was in charge of the Aviation Medical Research Institute of the Reich Air Ministry in Berlin. Despite being sought for war crimes, he was hired by the U.S. Army Air Forces and became America’s Father of Space Medicine. He went to great lengths to whitewash a dubious past. “Only the janitor and the man who took care of the animals,” were members of the Nazi party, he told a journalist in 1961, referring to his Institute, which was filled with hardcore Nazis. Paperclip contracts: U.S. Army Air Forces, Heidelberg; U.S. Air Force, Texas. (NARA)
Dr. Theodor Benzinger directed the Experimental Station of the Air Force Research Center, Rechlin, under Hermann G?ring and was an officer with the SA (Storm Troopers). While working for the U.S. Army in Heidelberg, Benzinger was arrested, imprisoned at Nuremberg, and listed as one of the defendants in the doctors’ trial. Shortly thereafter he was mysteriously released. Paperclip contracts: U.S. Army Air Forces, Heidelberg; Naval Medical Research Institute, Maryland. (NARA)
Dr. Konrad Sch?fer was a physiologist and chemist who developed a wartime process to separate salt from seawater in sea emergencies. Medical experiments at the Dachau concentration camp were based on the Sch?fer Process. He was tried at Nuremberg and acquitted. Paperclip contracts: U.S. Army Air Forces, Heidelberg; U.S. Air Force, Texas. (NARA)
Dr. Hermann Becker-Freyseng was an aviation physiologist who worked under Dr. Strughold in Berlin and oversaw medical experiments on prisoners at Dachau. He was tried and convicted at Nuremberg, then contributed to Strughold’s U.S. Army work from his prison cell. Paperclip contract: U.S. Army Air Forces, Heidelberg. (NARA)
Dr. Siegfried Ruff directed the Aero Medical Division of the German Experimental Station for Aviation Medicine in Berlin and was a close colleague and coauthor of Dr. Strughold. At Dachau, Ruff supervised medical murder experiments. Tried at Nuremberg and acquitted. Paperclip contract: U.S. Army Air Forces, Heidelberg. (NARA)
Siegfried Knemeyer was chief of German Air Force technical developments under Hermann G?ring. Hailed one of the Reich’s top ten pilots, Albert Speer asked Knemeyer to pilot his escape to Greenland. Paperclip contract: U.S. Army Air Forces, Ohio. (NARA)