‘Operation Paperclip’: How Nazis Built the US War Machine [Socialist History: S1 Episode 5 Preview]

You may have heard that the US government recruited Nazi scientists to work for NASA, but did you know they also recruited them to experiment on US soldiers? Their recruitment was part of Operation Paperclip, and the scientists were only a fraction of this program. It also recruited Nazi SS spies and unleashed them into the Cold War, installed Nazi generals into top positions in West Germany and NATO, and helped Nazi war criminals flee prosecution. And this story goes even deeper, all the way to the initial rise of Nazi Germany, directly challenging the dominant US narrative about its history.

We’ve compiled it all into an immersive, 1 hour and 20 minute podcast that explores the many facets of this scandal and how they are connected. We’ve combed through tens of hours of oral testimony to bring the story to life with shocking first-hand accounts.

This is part of our new podcast series: ‘Socialist History,’ which uncovers the real story of US imperialism through a socialist lens, told from the perspective of the people who fought back. In this first season each episode unpacks a different Pentagon or CIA operation.

This is a preview, get the full episode at

Archival (within this preview episode) notes: