Operation paperclip. That's what we'll be talking about this week.

In the final days of World War II and after the war was over, the US government helped hundreds

and hundreds of Nazi scientists whose knowledge and expertise was deemed crucial to the

development of advanced weapons. And our how complicit they were in heinous Nazi activities

to relocate to the states and become integral pieces of the US military industrial complex.

The US wanted them to continue their work on creating atomic bombs, weaponizing plagues,

making chemical weapons and sometimes even experimenting on people in ways that certainly

violate the do not harm oath the doctors take to find out either how enemies would be affected

by weapons, how US soldiers and civilians might best recover from the devastating effects of

their attacks and more. In the US government, a paperclip was affixed to the files of various

scientists who were deemed desirable to recruit. And thus Operation Paperclip received its name.

And many former followers of Hitler were assigned some paperclips, at least around 1600,

based on what we currently know. And these recruits did contribute to the strength of the US military.

Heavily, their research aided both non-military and civilian technical and medical progress. Without

them, we wouldn't have so much of the research now essential to live in our modern world.

Everything from insecticides to weapons of mass destruction to cancer treatments,

developed and or dramatically improved through American-funded Nazi research.

Even some of the technology used in space exploration generated on the backs of human experiments

and labor and concentration camps. And all this begs the age old question,

do the ends justify the means? Did certain Nazis being really, really good at science,

justify them getting away with some really serious crimes against humanity?

The US today is a world leader and medical, military and other sciences in part because of the work

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