One by one the Paperclip Germans faded away. Walter Dornberger died in 1980, Kurt Debus in 1983, Ernst Steinhoff in 1987, Magnus von Braun in 2003, Ernst Stuhlinger in 2008, and Konrad Dannenberg in 2009. Arthur Rudolph fled the US in 1984 to avoid prosecution by the OSI, dying in Hamburg, Germany, in 1996, As the Nazi technocrats passed away, they took with them their claims of innocence and their stalwart defense of Wernher’s reputation.
The image of Wernher von Braun as an American hero has continued to be eroded. In 2007, Michael J. Neufeld published what is often cited as the most authoritative account of Wernher’s entire life, Von Braun: Dreamer of Space/Engineer of War. He took pains to present the historical record of events dispassionately and to let the reader evaluate the evidence. In 2009, Michael B. Petersen published a lesser-known volume called Missiles for the Fatherland. Petersen constrained his focus to von Braun’s activities through the end of WWII. He included important details concerning the cultural environment and ethos in Peenemünde at the time. Together, these two books provide both the documented facts and the social motivation and context that shaped Wernher’s attitudes and actions.
Many other books published in that same period took a much harsher view of von Braun.180 In 2008, Aron Ranen released a video documentary called The Lost Von Braun. It included footage from wartime Germany and interviews with Konrad Dannenberg, Ernst Stuhlinger, and other German members of Wernher’s team. These men repeated the false claims made since the end of the war: that there was no connection between Peenemünde and the Mittelwerk, that there were no slave laborers at Peenemünde, that they had been assured that conditions at the Mittelwerk were excellent, and that the SS must have been responsible for any abuses. The video then refuted those assertions by presenting documentary evidence provided by OSI investigators and the graphic testimony of men who had worked as slave laborers at both Peenemünde and the Mittelwerk.
In Germany, von Braun’s complicity in Nazi war crimes is widely acknowledged, and streets and other public facilities given his name at the height of the Cold War have been renamed. Exhibits at the Peenemünde Museum have been revised to highlight the moral failings and the cost in lives, rather than simply to glorify the achievements of the rocketeers. In contrast, von Braun is still revered by the NASA community. The Marshall Space Center has the Von Braun Office Complex, where his birthday is proudly celebrated each year, conventions are booked at the Von Braun Civic Center in Huntsville, and the University of Alabama has a Von Braun Research Hall. Wernher’s past has now been edited to the point where his professional life before coming to the United States is summed up on the Marshall Space Center website in three sentences:
After gaining his Ph.D., von Braun became a civilian employee of the Army and continued with this work. He designed the V-2 rocket that was used so effectively against Britain during World War II. At the end of the war, the von Braun team at Peenemünde on the Baltic Sea headed south and surrendered to U.S. forces rather than risk capture by the Soviet army.181
The epitome of this kind of historical revisionism is NASA’s official history, which includes:
Before the Allied capture of the V-2 rocket complex, von Braun engineered the surrender of 500 of his top rocket scientists, along with plans and test vehicles, to the Americans. For 15 years after World War II, von Braun worked with the U.S. Army in the development of ballistic missiles.182
It is difficult to reconcile this narrative with the fact that Wernher surrendered with six associates, he provided neither documents nor test vehicles, and he was fleeing Bleicherode and the Mittelwerk production facility rather than the Peenemünde rocket complex at the time.
The JIOA would have heartily endorsed these abbreviated and sanitized versions of Wernher’s history. It is ironic that in general, Germany now has a more accurate view of Wernher’s role in WWII than major government agencies in the US.
In many respects, these veterans were victims of “friendly fire,” which can come in many different forms. Betty died in 2014, still hoping that Fred’s story would someday be told and the service of the Buchenwald airmen officially commended. Few of the Buchenwald airmen are alive today, and with the KLB Club inactive, the US government is no longer under pressure to correct the official historical record and give the families a sense of closure. The treatment of these airmen, and the contrast with the treatment of those who had worked hard for Germany to win WWII, remains to be addressed.
Fred Martini and Wernher von Braun were enthusiastic patriots on opposing sides of the war. Their stories first intersected at Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Did Fred see Wernher there, as he believed? There is no way to be certain in the absence of documentation, but Wernher visited Buchenwald at least once, and Fred was held there. In the long run, it hardly matters whether Fred saw Wernher or if it was a case of mistaken identity. The fact remains that Fred, horribly abused by the Nazis during the war, was shabbily treated by his own government after he returned home, while Wernher, the most decorated and popular scientist in the Third Reich, was given a new career, a lavish salary, and further accolades in the US. The same government that accepted, forgave, and concealed Wernher’s history told Fred that he was lying about his past.
Wernher was an opportunist who escaped justice; Fred was a survivor who was denied justice. Both were haunted by their past — Wernher by fear that his wartime activities would be revealed, and Fred by recurring visions of what he had experienced. Their respective fates were determined by decisions made in secret by US intelligence agencies. The JIOA and its predecessor, the CIOS, operated with little oversight and few constraints throughout the war. This fostered a siege mentality. Other agencies and branches of government were seen as potential impediments that could be circumvented without remorse. The decision to classify and withhold information not just from the public, but from Congress and from other government agencies, including the FBI and the VA, for 40 years cannot be forgiven and should not be forgotten.
In the end, who was betrayed? Everyone.
Figure 1: Crewmember positions in a B-17G.
Figure 2: A B-17 crewman outfitted for a high-altitude mission.
Figure 3: Waist gunners in combat positions, viewed looking toward the tail of the plane.
Figure 4: The original Jackson crew during training at Drew Field, Tampa, Florida in February, 1944. Left to right: Lt .Loren E. Jackson, Lt. P. Hite,* Lt. J. Lindquist, Lt. Joseph Haught, Sgt. Armando Marsilii, Sgt. Frederic Martini, Sgt. Ervin Pickrel, Sgt. J. Rood,* Sgt Theodore Dubenic, Sgt. Felipe Musquiz. Asterisks indicate crew replaced before deployment to the ETO. (Lt. Hite was replaced by Lt. Ross Blake, Sgt. Rood was replaced by Sam Pennell.)
Figure 5: Diagram showing recommended bailout procedure from a crippled B-17.
Figure 6: General Walter Dornberger escorting Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler at Peenemünde. SS-Major Wernher von Braun, wearing his black SS uniform, is following closely behind Himmler. This is the only surviving photo of von Braun in uniform, although he wore it to SS meetings, on facility inspections, and at other times when the uniform helped him accomplish his goals.
Figure 7: A V-2 undergoing servomotor testing in one of the large halls in the Mittelwerk.
Figure 8: The Raulins and friends, 1945. Capt. Max Raulin is in the foreground on the left, standing next to his wife, Yvonne, while his son, Lionel, clowns around in the foreground. The names of the other people in the photo are not known.
Figure 9: A restored “40&8” boxcar from the train carrying prisoners from Paris to Germany, which departed on 15 August 1944.
Figure 10: Shaving and disinfecting arriving Polish prisoners at Buchenwald.
Figure 11: A map of Little Camp (Kleines Lager) and the adjacent portions of the main concentration camp at Buchenwald in August 1944. D = Disinfection, S = Shower block, L = Laundry, K = Kitchen, O = Göthe oak, A = Abort, T = Tent area, B = Brothel, C = Cinema, H = SS Hospital.
Figure 12: A corpse wagon photographed at Buchenwald after its liberation
in April 1945.
Figure 13: Barracks shelving in Little Camp.
Figure 14: Fred Martini, photographed on arrival at Stalag Luft III on 20 October 1944.
Figure 15: Wernher von Braun and Army staff being congratulated after a successful V-2 launching at Peenemünde.
Figure 16: A clandestine photo taken early on the march from Stalag Luft III to Spremberg.
Figure 17: POWs using a makeshift “kriegie stove” to heat water and cook meals.
Figure 18: The liberation of Stalag VIIA.
Figure 19: Emaciated bodies that were found in trenches by the entrance to the Mittelwerk and en masse within the Dora concentration camp. Some were killed by Allied bombing, others died of starvation or injuries.
Figure 20: V-2 engines within an assembly hall at the Mittelwerk.
Figure 21: V-2 components loaded for shipment to the US from the Mittelwerk, April/May 1945.
Figure 22: Densely packed tents at Camp Lucky Strike.
Figure 23: Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger at their surrender to the US. Wernher has his cast in place, Dornberger wears his tall hat, and to the left (uncovered) is Herbert Axster.
Figure 24: Betty and Fred at their marriage, 28 December 1946.
Figure 25: Wernher von Braun and Walt Disney.
Figure 26: The von Braun group of Paperclip contractees at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Figure 27: Wernher von Braun with President John F. Kennedy.
Figure 28: Fred Martini in 1965, at the time of his promotion to Director of Operations at Edison Electronics.
Figure 29: KLB Club members (left to right) Bob Johnson, Ed Ritter, Fred Martini, Ed Carter-Edwards, and John Chalot, photographed at a reunion in Venice, Florida, in 1986
Figure 30: Fred Martini with his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson, taken in Sarasota, Florida six weeks before his death.
178 Despite this assertion, the earliest declassification date on documents obtained from the National Archives was 1981.
179 FOIA requests were filed over 2010-2013 to the CIA, FBI, Army, and Air Force. No new information was obtained, and the CIA responded that the agency “can neither confirm nor deny” the presence of classified information.
180 See the reference listing in Appendix 7.
181 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/vonBraun/printall.php, and http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/vonBraun/vonbraun_3.php
182 http://www.history.nasa.gov/SP-4223/ch3.htm, http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/vonbraun/bio.html
Appendices
APPENDIX 1: GLOSSARY, ABBREVIATIONS, AND PERSONNEL
8th Air Force (Army Air Corps): The division of the Army Air Corps tasked with operations in the European Theater of Operations; based in the UK.
ABMA: The Army Ballistic Missile Agency
Abwehr: The German Army Intelligence section
A-4 rocket: The fourth iteration of rockets produced by Gen. Dornberger’s Ordnance group under the direction of Wernher von Braun. See V-2.
CIOS: Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee; a subcommittee of the JIOA, consisting of representatives of the War Department, US Army, US Navy, State Department, Office of Research and Development, and Foreign Economic Administration plus the UK Foreign Office, Admiralty, Air Ministry, and various ministries concerned with the funding and production of war-related materials.
CJA: Command Judge Advocate, the chief legal officer of a military command, part of the JAG Corps
DEFSIP: The Defense Scientists Immigration Program, the name given to Project Paperclip in 1957; discontinued in 1970.
Dora: The concentration camp established to provide slave labor for construction of the Mittelwerk and other underground facilities in the Nordhausen area, and to provide skilled slave labor for the associated assembly lines.
ETO: European Theater of Operations
FFI: French Forces of the Interior, also called the French Resistance
FIAT: The Field Information Agency, Technical; an Army intelligence team working in the ETO searching for technological advances.
G-2: Army Intelligence (aka Military Intelligence)
Gestapo: The Nazi Secret Police, a plainclothes division of the SiPo, a branch of the Reich Security office (RSHA); primarily focused on combatting subversive elements in Germany and removing obstacles to Nazi policies by citizens of the Occupied Territories.
Heer: The German Army
JAG: Judge Advocate General, the legal corps providing advice and legal functions within a particular military service
JCS: Joint Chiefs of Staff, the heads of the various branches of the US military.
JIC: Joint Intelligence Committee, the Intelligence arm of the JCS.
JIOA: The Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, a subcommittee of the JIC with members from branches of the military, the Department of State, and the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, which in 1945-46 became the CIA) tasked with the acquisition and use of German specialists. Disbanded in 1962 with responsibilities for DEFSIP/Paperclip remaining with the Army but oversight transferred to the Director, Defense Research and Engineering (Department of Defense).
Kapo: A trusted prisoner in a German concentration camp.
KLB: Konzentration Lager Buchenwald: the German name for Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
Kommando: A slave labor work group.
KriPo: The division of the SiPo responsible for dealing with domestic crimes.
Luftwaffe: The German Air Force
Milice: The Vichy French secret police who worked with the Gestapo and SD
MIS-X: A section in the US War Department to keep track of and assist American POWs in the ETO.
Mittelwerk: The underground complex where A-4/V-2 production was done.
OMGUS: Office of the Military Government, US; the military administration responsible for governing the American zone of occupation in Germany after the war ended. General Lucius Clay was the head of OMGUS.
Operation Overcast: A plan to sequester German specialists collected by T-forces in a secure location within the American zone of Germany and pay them to work for the US government. The stated goal was to use their knowledge to help defeat Japan.
OSS: Office of Strategic Services, an espionage agency in WWII reporting to the Joint Chiefs. In late 1945, it was reorganized and placed under civilian oversight as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Peenemünde: German military research facility on the coast of the Baltic Sea in a joint venture between Army Ordnance and the Luftwaffe. Peenemünde East was under Army control and involved in rocket development; Peenemünde West was under Luftwaffe control and focused on cruise missile (V-1/Fi-103) and jet engine development.
Project Paperclip: An enhancement of Project Overcast that involved the recruitment of German scientists and technicians and their transport to the US to work in military and civilian corporate research facilities. Done without de-Nazification and in defiance of US government policies regarding the employment and immigration of committed Nazis, SS officers, and suspected war criminals. The stated goal was to prepare for an eventual war with the Soviet Union; for this reason the intelligence services opted to circumvent both the letter and the spirit of the law.
RSHA: The Reichssicherheitshauptampt (Reich Security Central Office).
SD: The Sicherheitsdienst, or Security Service, a division of the SS responsible for counterterrorism and the destruction of resistance networks in the Occupied Territories
SHAEF: Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force
SiPo: The Sicherheitspolizei, or Security Police, a division of the RSHA that was in charge of the KriPo (domestic criminal police) and the Gestapo.
SOE: Special Operations Executive, an intelligence agency of the British military staffed by volunteers.
SS: The Schutzstaffel, the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party, organized parallel to the Army but reporting to Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler instead of the German Military chain of command. There were three main divisions of the SS:
(1) the Waffen-SS, which had units in the Occupied Territories working alongside or replacing Army units, (2) the Allgemeine-SS, which included the administration staff of the RSHA, SD, SiPo, and reserve units, and (3) the Totenkompfverbände, which operated the concentration camps and extermination facilities.
Tiger Teams or T-forces: Groups of intelligence officers traveling with Allied military forces and tasked with finding German specialists and their equipment. There were groups looking for biological weapons, chemical weapons, atomic weapons, rockets, jet engines, aircraft design, and so forth.
V-1: The “buzz-bomb,” a primitive cruise missile launched from rails and able to fly 200 miles before crashing and detonating its 500-pound explosive payload. Slow moving and subject to attack by fighter planes en route, but relatively cheap to produce in large numbers.
V-2: The A-4 rocket, capable of traveling around 200 miles carrying a one-ton explosive payload. It was supersonic and impossible to anticipate or deflect, but its guidance system was poor, and it was impossible to aim with precision.
VA: The Veterans Administration, a branch of the US government intended to deal with veteran support and services.
Vichy Government: The puppet government of occupied France.
Wehrmacht: The German Military, literally “war machine,” consisting of the Army (Heer), the Air Force (Luftwaffe), and the Navy (Kriegsmarine).
Betrayed: Secrecy, Lies, and Consequences Page 40
