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Operation Paperclip - The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America
van Annie Jacobsen.
Een goed geschreven en gedetailleerd verslag over de periode direct na WO2, het begin van de grillige Koude Oorlog en hoe Amerika er alles aan deed om topgeleerden vrij te verklaren van oorlogsmisdaden en onder contract naar de US te helpen emigreren om de wapenwedloop in hun voordeel te beslechten op het gebied van chemische, bacteriologische en psychologische oorlogsvoering. Met natuurlijk heel veel aandacht voor rakettechnologie en Werner von Braun en zijn team.
De oudere leden zullen zich bijvoorbeeld nog wel het drama met het medicijn Softenon herinneren, dat gul aan misselijke, aanstaande moeders werd voorgeschreven eind jaren 50, begin jaren 60 en wat ongeveer 10.000 ernstig misvormde kinderen heeft veroorzaakt. Nooit geweten dat dit middel waarschijnlijk in de oorlog al was uitgevonden als mogelijk middel tegen het zenuwgas Sarin door een geleerde van IG-Farben. Toen het middel in Amerika werd vrijgegeven, hadden de uitvinders aannemelijk kunnen maken dat het uitvoerig en succesvol getest was, ook op mensen maar dat alle officiële rapporten helaas verloren gegaan waren. Al waren ze vergeten te vermelden dat het middel in concentratiekampen getest was en dat het helemaal niet succesvol was, maar levensgevaarlijk.
Als je dit soort tenenkrommende schandalen interessant vindt om te lezen, dan is dit boek een aanrader!
The remarkable story of America's secret post-WWII science programs (The Boston Globe), from the New York Times bestselling author of Area 51.
In the chaos following World War II, the U.S. government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific minds. These were the brains behind the Nazis' once-indomitable war machine. So began Operation Paperclip, a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States.
Many of these men were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder and slavery. They were also directly responsible for major advances in rocketry, medical treatments, and the U.S. space program. Was Operation Paperclip a moral outrage, or did it help America win the Cold War?
Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, colleagues, and interrogators, and with access to German archival documents (including previously unseen papers made available by direct descendants of the Third Reich's ranking members), files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and dossiers discovered in government archives and at Harvard University, Annie Jacobsen follows more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into a startling, complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secret of the twentieth century.
In this definitive, controversial look at one of America's most strategic, and disturbing, government programs, Jacobsen shows just how dark government can get in the name of national security.
En nu meteen verder met:
The SS Dirlewanger Brigade: The History of the Black Hunters Paperback
The Dirlewanger Brigade was an anti-partisan unit of the Nazi army, reporting directly to Heinrich Himmler. The first members of the brigade were mostly poachers who were released from prisons and concentration camps and who were believed to have the skills necessary for hunting down and capturing partisan fighters in their camps in the forests of the Eastern Front. Their numbers were soon increased by others who were eager for a way out of imprisonment--including men who had been convicted of burglary, assault, murder, and rape.
Under the leadership of Oskar Dirlewanger, a convicted rapist and alcoholic, they could do as they pleased: there were no repercussions for even their worst behavior. This was the group used for its special "talents" to help put down the Jewish uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto, killing an estimated 35,000 men, women, and children in a single day. Even by Nazi standards, the brigade was considered unduly violent and an investigation of its activities was opened. The Nazi hierarchy was eager to distance itself from the behavior of the brigade and eventually exiled many of the members to Belarus. Based on the archives from Germany, Poland, and Russia, The SS Dirlewanger Brigade offers an unprecedented look at one of the darkest chapters of World War II.
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