Operation Paperclip: America’s Secret Nazi Scientists

REDACTED: Declassified Mysteries with Luke Lamana

Wondery | Ballen Studios

True Crime, History

4.3 • 668 Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2024

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s the end of WWII and the US is on the verge of defeating Germany. That’s when the military launches Operation Paperclip: a plan to bring German scientists to America to turn the country into the ultimate military power. But what these men did during World War II was so horrifying, the secrets of their true nature had to be hidden for decades.

Follow Redacted: Declassified Mysteries with Luke Lamana on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting https://wondery.com/links/redacted/ now.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Wonderry Plus subscribers can listen to Redacted, declassified mysteries early and ad-free right now.
0:07.0	Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:20.0	On May 2, 1945, a U.S. Army private stood guard at the base of a remote mountain in Austria.
0:28.4	He was still riding high from the news he'd heard on the radio recently.
0:32.1	German leader Adolf Hitler had committed suicide.
0:35.6	The soldier knew it was just a matter of time until World War II
0:38.8	was over and he could go back home to America. Just then, he noticed someone barreling down
0:45.2	the mountain on a bicycle. The soldier realized it was a young man with blonde hair and civilian
0:49.7	clothes, but he couldn't tell if the man was friend or foe. He pointed his gun at the man as he
0:55.0	hurtled toward him. He wasn't about to risk anything in the last days of the war. He ordered the man
1:00.4	to drop his bike and put up his hands. The man did as he was told. Then in broken English, he said he
1:06.5	was one of hundreds of scientists that worked for the Nazi regime who had gone into hiding because
1:11.2	Nazi leadership had ordered them to be executed. The man said the Nazis would rather kill them
1:16.5	than risk them being captured by the Allies and revealing their knowledge of Hitler's secret weapons.
1:22.0	The man insisted the scientists wanted to surrender to the Americans. And not only that,
1:26.7	they wanted to help the Americans by sharing
1:28.9	with them the secrets of the Nazi's deadly new missile, the V-2 rocket. The soldier looked the man up and
1:35.1	down, taking in his fancy gray leather overcoat. He was making a very bold claim, and the soldier
1:40.7	couldn't tell if he was lying. He was a Nazi after all.
1:49.1	But if what the man said was true, it could potentially change the future of the world.
2:02.3	When Luigi Mangione was arrested for allegedly shooting the CEO of United Healthcare, He didn't just spark outrage. He ignited a cultural firestorm. Is the system working or is it time for a reckoning?
2:10.6	I'm Jesse Weber. Listen to Law and Crimes Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Wondery | Ballen Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Wondery | Ballen Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.