Not all scientists and technicians who moved to the United States under the auspices of Operation Paperclip found themselves under investigation by the Department of Justice’s Office of Special Investigations. How did they elude scrutiny by the OSI? The focus of this chapter is three prominent scientists who benefited personally and professionally from the Operation Paperclip program. If any of the three were investigated by the OSI, this was not indicated in the final OSI report submitted in 2006. Although others may have avoided detection, these three deserve particular notice because two of the three contributed to the U.S. missile program during the Cold War, while the third conducted experiments for the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. The scientists under scrutiny here are Wernher von Braun, the father of the U.S. space program; Bernhard Tessmann, a guided missile expert; and Kurt Blome, a high-ranking Nazi scientist who conducted cancer and bacteriological warfare research for the Germans. Who were these scientists? Why didn’t the OSI investigate them? Should they have been investigated? Why weren’t they tainted by the work of the OSI?
Numerous scientists and technicians who worked on the German V-2 project traveled to the United States after the war as part of Operation Paperclip. Two of the men who participated in both the German and the American programs were Wernher von Braun and Bernhard Tessmann. Of the two, von Braun gained the most notoriety in both countries. Von Braun and Tessmann worked together in Germany during the war and in the United States after the conflict. The two men entered the United States as government employees under Paperclip, and both eventually worked in Huntsville, Alabama, for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A third man who adds additional layers to this story is Karl Ludwig Heimburg, an engineer who, as a guided missiles expert, was part of von Braun’s team, first in Germany and then later in the United States. The story of these three men, who were inextricably connected, is a complicated one that weaves together dreams, wartime obligations, and Cold War glory.
The dream of planetary spaceflight that had driven [Hermann] Oberth and his disciples [in Germany] was finally shattered on 7 May 1945 by military and social collapse and total surrender. The Peenemünde project was a phenomenon of global importance not only because of its technological success but also because of the distorted purpose to which it was put and the horrific methods used in the process. The development, production, and deployment of AGGREGAT 4, renamed V2 (Retaliation Weapon 2), cannot be separated from the fact that over 30,000 prisoners died in the inhuman working and living conditions of the Dora concentration camp. Each of the 3,200 missiles launched against Belgium, England and France was steeped in their blood.1
The best place to start is with the man who emerged as the leader of the group, was the driving force behind their rocket experiments, and eventually earned the nickname of “Dr. Space,” Wernher von Braun.
Born on 23 March 1912 in Wyrzysk, Poland, Wernher Magnus Maximilian von Braun was the second of three sons born to Emmy von Quistorp and Magnus Alexander Maximilian Freiherr von Braun. Both of his parents were noteworthy in their own rights. A baron, Magnus von Braun, who was from an affluent family, was a conservative civil servant—eventually receiving appointment as the minister of agriculture in the Federal Cabinet. A descendant of medieval European royalty, Emmy von Quistorp was well educated. She was fluent in six languages and dabbled in ornithology and astronomy. She whetted the young von Braun’s appetite for outer space by giving him a telescope after his Lutheran confirmation.
From an early age von Braun distinguished himself. He was able to read newspapers by the age of four, and in school his questions regularly stumped his teachers. Displaying a talent for music, the young von Braun played the piano and demonstrated an ability as a composer, completing three piano pieces by the time he was fifteen. In 1925 he began to study and play the cello. While it seemed he was headed for a musical career, von Braun had another—competing—interest. In 1920, when von Braun’s father received a promotion, the family relocated to Berlin. Four years later he received another promotion—to Reichsminister of agriculture in the Weimar Republic by President Friedrich Ebert—a position that he held until 1932. It was after the family moved to Berlin that Magnus von Braun’s son began to experiment with rockets.
Newspaper headlines announcing experiments with rocket-powered automobiles captured the young von Braun’s attention in 1924. Thus began his first rocket experiment, which garnered him lots of attention, not the least of which was because he involved his brother in his adventure. Wernher von Braun and his older brother, Sigismund, purchased “six large skyrockets.” The boys tied the rockets to Wernher’s newly painted coaster wagon and brought it to Tiergarten Strasse, “Berlin’s most upscale street.” After the boys lit the skyrocket fuses, Wernher jumped into the wagon.2 According to von Braun, “I was ecstatic. The wagon was wholly out of control and trailing a comet’s tail of fire, but my rockets were performing beyond my wildest dreams. Finally they burned themselves out with a magnificent thunderclap and the vehicle rolled to a halt. The police took me into custody very quickly. Fortunately, no one had been injured, so I was released in charge of the Minister of Agriculture—who was my father.”3
Sigismund’s version of events was slightly different from his brother’s: “The wild rocket ride had, in fact, caused a casualty or two. The runaway wagon ‘crashed into the legs of a woman, ruining her stockings,’ and then plowed into a fruit stand.” Needless to say, there was some fallout from the boys’ adventure. The police warned against further experiments. Baron von Braun, displeased with the boys’ antics, which cost him “a fine to cover the damages,” grounded his sons for two days. Von Braun’s mother, on the other hand, advised caution and noted that “the world needs live scientists, not dead ones.”4
Von Braun was hooked! He certainly did not learn the intended lessons from his grounding. Once released from “house arrest,” he repeated the experiment, although he did not involve his brother this time. He did, however, utilize more rockets. Lighting the fuses, he boarded his wagon and flew down the street. The outcome was about the same. Not all of his energy, however, was devoted to these experiments. Around this time von Braun and a friend decided to build an automobile. It is possible that he hoped to make the automobile “rocket-powered.” Between his “flying wagon” experiments and his automobile project, he began to neglect his schoolwork, and his grades suffered—dramatically. When he did not pass mathematics and physics, the von Braun parents made the decision to send their son to boarding school.5
In 1925 von Braun—age thirteen—began his tenure at a progressive Hermann Lietz boarding school located in the Ettersburg Castle (north of the town of Weimar and 124 miles southwest of Berlin). “Famous for their advanced teaching approach,” the Lietz schools paired robust academics with hands-on craft courses in “woodworking, metalworking, carpentry, stonecutting, and masonry.” Although he excelled in his new school, von Braun did not initially set the world on fire with his performances in mathematics and physics; however, that would soon change. A book on space travel—Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen, or The Rocket into Interplanetary Space, by Hermann Oberth—peaked his interest and resulted in his drastic improvement in those academic fields. It also focused his attention on constructing objects that could propel people into space.6
Attending boarding school did not temper von Braun’s fascination with space or his propensity to experiment. Within the first couple of years at Ettersburg Castle, he tried another experiment that did not go as expected—one that a former teacher recalled: “I still remember very well that very first rocket, which blew up in the faces of Edwin May, Jochen Westphal and Ernst August Saalfeld in the farmyard in Ettersburg, while the inventor, Wernher von Braun, was trying to get launch permission from me, and I was trying to tell him that the experiment couldn’t go well, because without controlling the mixture ratio of acetylene and air, there was a constant danger of an explosion.”7 Undeterred, von Braun had caught the space bug that would never lose its hold on him. Although in his early teens he had contemplated a career in music and composition, the pull of space travel won out over his love for music.
In April 1928 a new Lietz school opened its doors on the North Sea island of Spiekeroog, and von Braun transferred there. During his two years at Spiekeroog, he demonstrated an increasing brilliance in science and math and developed a single-minded focus on rockets and space travel. When home on vacation in July 1928, he retried his initial experiment with his wooden wagon and rockets. Modifying his wagon, he again tied fireworks to it—six “of the largest fireworks rockets” he could find.
In a sedate German thoroughfare called the Tiergarten Allee, I aimed the vehicle carefully down the pavement. The day was mild, and many strollers were taking the air. It never occurred to me that they were not prepared to share the sidewalk with my noble experiment.
I got behind the wagon, lighted the fuses, and leaped aside as jets of flame thrust out from the rockets and my wagon began to roll. Unattended, it picked up speed. It swerved this way and that, zigzagging through groups. . . . I yelled a warning and men and women fled in all directions.
I was ecstatic. The wagon was wholly out of control and trailing a comet’s tail of fire.8
The outcome of this experiment was very much the same as it was the first time that von Braun tried it. The wagon stopped when the fireworks had “burned out,” the police arrived on the scene, and von Braun was escorted to the police station. After questioning him about his antics that caused such havoc, the police released him into the custody of his father. Von Braun’s father was less than pleased, to put it mildly. A lecture ensued, followed by “house arrest” for a day. Apparently, von Braun learned his lesson this time. He did not repeat the experiment—at least not on Tiergarten Allee—but from this point on, his career was settled. He was determined to design and launch a rocket that would allow space travel.9
After graduating with honors from high school at seventeen, von Braun received acceptance at the Charlottenburg Institute of Technology in Berlin for the 1930 spring term. In addition to declaring a major, “mechanical and aircraft engineering,” he was accepted as an apprentice to Hermann Oberth—von Braun’s idol and author of The Rocket into Interplanetary Space. Von Braun seemed positioned to pursue an avenue that would result in a choice career. Furthermore, to complete a requirement of his major, von Braun took a “practicum at the Borsig locomotive and heavy machinery factory.” The practicum would last six months. Like the other employees at the factory, von Braun was required to join the union that represented the factory workers—the metalworkers’ union. Despite his aristocratic upbringing, von Braun quickly learned that he was just another worker at the factory. He was treated no differently than the other workers. He was there to learn—and learn he did.10
Von Braun quickly learned that even the best-laid plans occasionally hit bumps in the road. Only a few months into his apprenticeship, Oberth returned to Romania. Unwilling to have his dream derailed, von Braun joined together with other rocketeers who had been working with Oberth to form their own company. The purpose of the company was to continue Oberth’s experiments. Their base of operations was “an abandoned, three-hundred-acre ammunition storage depot and proving ground at Reinickendorf on the outskirts of Berlin,” which they rented for a song.11 To give legitimacy to their venture, the group gave the site a formal designation—Raketenflugplatz Berlin, or Rocket Flight Field Berlin.
Engaging in rocket research and testing was not an inexpensive venture, and money was not easy to acquire. A complicating factor was the overall economically poor conditions in Germany that had been caused by the Stock Market Crash in the United States. Unbeknownst to von Braun, he and the group of rocketeers had a benefactor—Lt. Col. Karl E. Becker—who was connected to army ordnance, specifically “ballistics and munitions.” In fact, Becker had secretly supported Oberth prior to his departure. This had resulted in Oberth and his apprentices giving a public test of their rocket engine for the Chemisch-Technisches Reichsanstalt in July 1930. This would later open doors for von Braun. For the next two years, von Braun and his rocketeers received funding from the military.12
In 1932, at the age of twenty, von Braun graduated from the Charlottenburg Institute. He had a mechanical-engineering degree that acknowledged his focus on aeronautical engineering. Von Braun’s circle continued to expand. In 1932 von Braun met Arthur Rudolph, a fellow rocketeer who had already successfully developed a rocket for the army. Within a couple of years, Rudolph would become an integral member of the von Braun team.13 During the spring of 1932—a year that would bring a lot of change to von Braun’s life—the rocketeers received a visit at Raketenflugplatz from army representatives, who endeavored to circumvent Versailles Treaty restrictions on military strength by investing in rockets. When the framers constructed the treaty in 1919, rockets had not been on their radar. The rocketeers were not in a place to be choosy about the sources of funding. According to von Braun, “the Army was desperate to get back on its feet. We didn’t care about much about that, one way or the other, but we needed money, and the Army seemed willing to help us. In 1932, the idea of war seemed to us an absurdity. The Nazis weren’t yet in power. We felt no moral scruples about the possible future abuse of our brainchild. We were interested solely in exploring outer space. It was simply a question with us of how the golden cow could be milked most successfully.”14 Among the visitors was a junior officer who would play an integral role in von Braun’s future—both immediate and long term. Capt. Walter Dornberger held an advanced degree in mechanical engineering; therefore, their common interest forged a connection between the two men. In time, that connection would evolve into a work-related relationship.15
Although some of his fellow rocketeers were not thrilled with the prospect of working for the military, von Braun was willing to make a deal with the “devil” if it meant that he could conduct research that would result in putting man into space. Before the end of the year, his new connection with Dornberger and the military would bring von Braun great dividends such as “secret doctoral dissertation” work for the army, but it also meant that he had to join the army officially. Within a couple of years, based on his research for the army, he successfully launched rockets—the result of which was more funding, and not just from the army, for his own research. In December 1934 von Braun and his team successfully launched two “A-2 (A for Aggregat [Aggregate]) liquid-fueled rockets from the North Sea island of Borkum to altitudes of more than one and a half miles.” The result was the opening of unexpected doors:
Feats such as the A-2 flights soon caught the attention of the Luftwaffe (German air force). It offered the von Braun group a project budgeted at 5 million reichsmarks (about $1.2 million) to develop a rocket-powered fighter plane at a proposed facility larger than Kummersdorf. The German army would not allow the Luftwaffe to get the upper hand, so it came up with a 6-million reichsmark allocation in 1935 to support the group’s rocket work along existing lines. It was not the last time competing forces maneuvered to gain the team’s services. For von Braun, now twenty-three years old and responsible for 11 million reichsmarks in funding, rocketry was no longer small potatoes.16
The von Braun group had hit the big league. Their work was in demand by multiple government groups—particularly the army and air force, who were perhaps anticipating the war to come. Consequently, as he broadened his research, von Braun was able to expand his group. Working for both the army and the air force required an increase in personnel. Included among his new employees were Bernhard Tessmann and Karl Heimburg. Furthermore, the outbreak of war in 1939 made the work of von Braun’s team on rockets even more important and opened doors that were slow to open earlier. It did not seem to matter that Hitler did not exactly embrace the team’s experiments. What did matter was that army and air force leadership did.
Bernhard Robert Tessmann, the son of Robert and Emilie Tessmann, was born on 15 August 1912 in Zingst, Germany. Zingst is located on the eastern end of the Fischland-Darß-Zingst Peninsula in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, on the Baltic Sea. He received an education in Berlin because his father, who was a small contractor, obtained a job there. According to Tessmann, after attending “basic schools” and high school, he attended night school for five years and earned a degree in mechanical engineering in the summer of 1935. While pursuing his degree in night school, Tessmann gained employment at Orenstein & Koppel A-G, a large machine company. Initially, he was a detail designer. According to Tessmann, the company “built all kind of diggers for mine works and cranes and all kinds of heavy machinery. This had given me also a chance to make some business trips to Holland where we dried the Lake Zoider out to gain more land, you know. The company had contacts with copper mines in [the] south of France where I had to go occasionally as a trouble-shooter. And even to Russia near the Black Sea area.”17 While facts about much of Tessmann’s life are somewhat hazy, he was not as much in the public realm as von Braun, which might explain why less is known about him and why he was able to fly under the OSI’s radar.
In 1991 Tessmann gave an interview, and, as a result, more is known about his life before 1936. His father was an employee of UFA film studios, where Tessmann had seen the sets for the film Frau im Mond, or Woman in the Moon. He was married to Ilse, and in 1935 (or possibly 1936, according to some accounts) a colleague introduced him to Wernher von Braun. The two men met in mid-August in von Braun’s Berlin office, which was, according to Tessmann, at the army headquarters, or WaPruf 11. Von Braun’s office was located in Dr. Walter Dornberger’s division. When Tessmann first met him, Dornberger held the rank of major with an honorary doctorate in engineering. By the summer of 1936 Dornberger had received a posting to the Army Weapons Department and was assigned specifically to oversee rocket development at the soon-to-be constructed Army Experiment Station at Peenemünde. When Tessmann first met them, however, von Braun and Dornberger answered to Gen. Prof. Karl Emil Becker at the German army’s Ordnance Department.
During that first encounter von Braun offered Tessmann a job. According to von Braun, the research that he was doing was entirely new and exciting, but it did not pay very much, which was an understatement. Von Braun clarified that the salary was “practically nothing much.” He admitted that his unit frequently had to make a convincing case for a better budget. Tessmann confirmed that von Braun’s assessment about his income was spot on, but there was another complication. According to Tessmann, “for a couple of months I didn’t even get any salary because he hired me, but he did not have a free and approved spot or the permission to add someone to his meager payroll. So through the Fliegerhurst Commandut, Rechlin, the German Air Force, I was hired later and got, finally after six months, my first check, and that was not much.”18 Salary issues aside, however, Tessmann admitted his new employer had not lied. Von Braun was correct. The work was exciting. Furthermore, that excitement would spread and grab the attention of other creative, young engineers.
Meeting von Braun would change Tessmann’s life and the lives of many other engineers, such as Karl Heimburg. Although he was not initially interested in building rockets, much less sending one to the moon, Tessmann soon became part of a select group working with von Braun and participating in his efforts to design and construct a viable rocket. Von Braun, not Woman in the Moon, had piqued Tessmann’s interest in sending a rocket into the outer atmosphere. Von Braun’s vision, or perhaps obsession, drew his colleagues to him like moths to a flame. Tessmann, like the others, became intrigued and bought into von Braun’s obsession. Who would not want to be part of making history? During the mid-1930s for young men such as Tessmann and Heimburg (the latter two years older than the former), getting involved with von Braun could possibly open up new career opportunities, job security, and eventually good salaries. As von Braun’s flame burned brighter, so might theirs. After all, if von Braun was right, could any of them pass up the opportunity of being a part of a history-making venture and all that it might entail?
Von Braun used every opportunity to espouse his ideas—to advance his vision for the future. According to Tessmann, von Braun “invited a group of us to dinner at his house one night, but he never got around to cooking it. He kept drawing calculations on his blackboard for a rocket to the moon.”19 Von Braun’s drive and vision were contagious, as Karl Heimburg noted. Born in Lindesfels, Germany, on 29 January 1910, Karl Ludwig Heimburg graduated from the Institute of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1935 with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Between 1936 and 1941 he found employment as an engineer in the coal industry. In this capacity he worked for C. Illies Company in Germany, Japan, Korea, and Manchuria. In 1941, although Germany was at war, Heimburg decided to pursue graduate studies in coal gasification chemistry; therefore, he enrolled in the Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe. Within a year, however, Heimburg found himself in the Germany army and posted to Peenemünde. There he would work in “Germany’s closely guarded rocket research and development facility” for the premier rocket scientist—Wernher von Braun.20 According to Heimburg, “We always had space on our minds. If we talked about space, though, people thought we were crazy. It was too fantastic an idea.”21
Although their ideological focus was on rockets and space, von Braun, Tessmann, Heimburg, and others had to face the reality of their jobs—their military jobs. Working under Lt. Col. (later Lt. Gen.) Walter Dornberger, they had the task of designing missiles for the Ordnance Department.22 Their task was a crucial one, since the type of ordnance that Germany could develop was curtailed by the Versailles Treaty. Under the terms of the treaty, Germany could not experiment with or construct artillery that could project shells beyond a specific range—9.32 miles. Ever resourceful, the Germans found a loophole. Because the treaty did not specifically prohibit it, the Germans focused on the construction of missiles.
Von Braun and his team had to do more than design and build missiles. They had to determine whether or not the missiles worked as planned. Von Braun needed a testing site—one that allowed the team to fire the missiles out to sea—and he tasked Tessmann with designing one that would permit the group to test a variety of engines. Because von Braun liked his first designs, he gave Tessmann a new job—that of “facility planner and designer.” The next step was to choose a location suitable for Test Stand 1, as the new facility would be called. According to Tessmann and Heimburg, von Braun’s mother suggested a place where her brothers had hunted and fished—Peenemünde, which was situated in the province of Pomerania. Von Braun’s mother hit the mother lode with her suggestion. As soon as he visited it, von Braun realized that Peenemünde was ideal. It was on a small island located on the Baltic Sea. By late 1936 Tessmann had the responsibility of making Peenemünde work.23
As in any major project, there were glitches. The first one resulted from funding. Although the von Braun team worked for the army, a lack of funds almost resulted in a shutdown before things got off the ground. Luckily for the team, the air force (Luftwaffe) stepped in, purchased the area, and received their own proving grounds approximately two miles away from the army’s facility. According to Tessmann, it was Luftwaffe general Albert Kesselring who, because of his interest in the work von Braun was doing, pushed for and found the funds to buy the desired Peenemünde site. By the end of 1936 Tessmann had relocated to Peenemünde and begun overseeing the construction of the testing facility. By March 1937 the von Braun team transferred their operation to Peenemünde. Holding an “honorary doctorate in mechanical engineering from the Friedrich-Wilhelms University of Berlin,” the newly promoted Col. Walter Dornberger was in charge.24
As soon as the facilities were ready, the team settled in and got to work designing and building missiles. The early missiles were the A series. On 7 May 1938 the rocket team conducted its first actual test of an engine for an A-4—a “long-range bombardment missile.” It took years of research and testing before the A-4 was perfected and received a new designation—V-2 or “Hitler’s Vengeance Weapon 2.” Although not violating the letter of the Versailles Treaty, von Braun’s work on the V-2 weapon was still in violation of the treaty. Germany was not at war. Why did it need missiles? War was on the horizon. Less than eighteen months later, Germany was at war—with Poland, France, and England.25
Once the English became aware of German efforts to construct a new type of weapon, the Royal Air Force received the task of bombing Peenemünde. Consequently, von Braun received orders to relocate the testing facility to a new location—a place where his staff could also oversee the construction of an underground factory that would produce the new V-2 rockets once they had been perfected. To complete construction and commence production as soon as possible, Hitler authorized the use of slave labor. He put the SS in charge of both the slave labor and the construction of the new facilities. The location chosen was near Kohnstein-Nordhausen. The complex—factory and testing facilities—eventually received the name Mittelwerk.
In late August 1943 the Germans were ready to commence construction at the new location. They transported 107 slave laborers fifty miles from Buchenwald to the construction site. With the SS supervising, the laborers—using their bare hands—enlarged two existing tunnels and dug “smaller cross-tunnels.” In September the first shipment of machinery and personnel arrived from Peenemünde. The Germans were wasting no time in getting up and running. In fact, a sense of urgency drove them. The work was brutal, and the toll on the slave laborers was unbelievable. By the end of the war sixty thousand camp internees had been relocated to Nordhausen. Approximately half of them did not survive the work. By the spring of 1944, because of the constant need for replacement workers, the SS located a concentration camp—Dora—in proximity to the Mittelwerk complex, which eliminated the need to transport concentration camp internees from Buchenwald.26 First construction, then production, proceeded at a frantic pace. Finally, success—on the rocket front anyway—was at hand. In September 1944 the Germans fired their first V-2 rocket. The target was Paris. Thus began a period in which the Germans launched four thousand V-2 rockets against numerous targets located in France, Belgium, and England.27 While the Germans fired rocket at their enemies, the ground offense had begun to intensify.
During the time von Braun’s team was ensconced at Mittelwerk and somewhat oblivious to the outside world, the Allied war against Germany had been heating up. By the summer of 1944, German forces found themselves being pressed on all sides. On the Eastern Front the Soviet steamroller had been gradually forcing German troops back toward their homeland. Slowly advancing up the Italian peninsula, British, American, and Canadian forces were duking it out with their enemy. The icing on the cake was D-day—when British, American, and Canadian troops stormed the beaches at Normandy, gained a foothold, and began advancing east toward Germany. While V-2 rockets were raining down on Germany’s enemies, von Braun recognized that security conditions at Mittelwerk were becoming increasingly tenuous. By February 1945 Soviet forces were nearing Berlin from the east, and in the west the situation did not look any better for Germany. In addition to advances on the ground, Allied air forces launched virtually continuous attacks against German troops and infrastructure.
In late March, when he learned that American troops were getting close and would force the suspension of his team’s work on the V-2, von Braun made a monumental decision that was based on a new directive. On 1 April Dornberger received orders for the evacuation of Mittelwerk from SS general Hans Kammler, and he informed von Braun and others on his staff about the edict. Acknowledging that the likelihood of Germany winning the war at that point was slim to none, von Braun decided to hide all of the documentation related to the V-2 rocket program. Fearing that the SS would destroy the written record of his team’s work, von Braun took steps to prevent that from happening. After the war he did not want to be back at square one where his research and the progress that his team had made were concerned. Dieter Huzel, von Braun’s personal aide, and Tessmann received the task of secreting fourteen tons of documents in the Harz Mountains. The Harz Mountains were approximately twenty-four miles from Mittelwerk.
With boxes of documents loaded into three trucks, Tessmann and Huzel, accompanied by seven German soldiers, drove to the Harz Mountains and began to search for a hiding place. They located an appropriate site for their task—an abandoned mine near Dörnten. Situated “at the northern edge of the Harz,” Dörnten housed a small mining community. At the abandoned mine Tessmann and Huzel paid the caretaker for an antechamber that was large enough to fulfill their need. Once the money had changed hands, the engineers and their crew were ready to commence unloading of their precious cargo. While this was not an easy task, the infrastructure within the mine helped make the job less arduous.28
The documents were contained in wooden boxes which were unloaded from the truck, and then from the two others which were driven to the mine during the night. Fourteen tons of numbered boxes were eventually loaded onto flatcars on the railroad track at the tunnel’s mouth. Then the flatcars were pulled by an electric-battery-operated locomotive a thousand feet into the tunnel, stopping at a gallery which branched off from the track. At the end of the gallery was a small, dry room that had once been a powder magazine.
Struggling and sweating in the damp chill of the mine, the nine Germans unloaded the boxes from the flatcars and hauled them to the small room. It was not until eleven o’clock the next morning—when American dive bombers were streaking over Dörnten—that the last box was in place. The room’s iron door was locked. Then the gallery leading to it was hidden from view by rocks and timbers blasted into it by a charge of dynamite.29
Tessmann and Huzel had followed an agreed-on security strategy. Because of their instructions from von Braun to keep the depository secret from everybody else, including their bosses and the soldier crew who had helped conceal the files, Tessmann and Huzel had blindfolded the soldiers on the trip to and from the abandoned mine. Even if they were captured and pressured, the soldiers could not reveal the exact location of the stash. Although the caretaker knew that Tessmann, Huzel, and their crew had stored secret documents in the old mineshaft, he did not know that the boxes contained the technical record of the German V-2 project. Furthermore, neither von Braun nor the rest of his team knew the exact location either; therefore, they could not “spill the beans” during interrogation—even under “rigorous” interrogation.30
Tessmann and Huzel did not finish their task a minute too soon. As they departed from the Dörnten area on 7 April, the first American soldiers—from the U.S. Ninth Army—appeared on the scene. The Germans returned to Nordhausen-Bleicherode but within two days were on the road again, trying to avoid the advancing Americans. Having loaded his belongings into a truck, Tessmann drove down the Adolf Hitler Pass on the way to the Alps. His goal was to link up with von Braun. His hope was that he could travel the four hundred miles to the rendezvous point without being captured by the Americans or any other Allied troops. Weather conditions made his drive treacherous, as heavy snow shifted to driving rain.31
Tessmann and Huzel were not the only ones to hide documents. “On orders of Lt. Gen. DORNBERGER, a box was hidden by Capt. KüHNE, a member of his staff, at the end of April or the beginning of May 1945 at OBERJOCH, less than a mile from the Tyrolean frontier. The box contained (a) minutes of the discussions of the Arbeitsstab DORNBERGER at Bad SACHSA in March and April 1945, (b) various documents on guided missiles and some of the latest projects in this field, (c) possibly some of Prof. von BRAUN’s private papers, and (d) other documents.”32 Like von Braun, Dornberger did not want precious documents to fall into the wrong hands—the SS or perhaps the Soviets. As both men would later demonstrate, they were willing to let the Western Allies—specifically the Americans—eventually get their hands on these materials, which would prove to be an excellent bargaining chip.
Von Braun was not concerned just about preserving the written record of his team’s work. He also devised a plan to evacuate personnel. In addition to owing Tessmann a personal debt because he had saved his life following an automobile accident, von Braun wanted to get as many of his team members out of harm’s way as he could. Consequently, he gave Tessmann and Huzel a rendezvous point in Bavaria. After hiding the boxes of crucial documentation, Tessmann was to proceed to that location. Although he did not want the SS to destroy the record of his life’s work, von Braun did need the help of the SS to get the rest of the scientists and technicians to Bavaria. Once there the group would be safe from Soviet forces advancing into Germany from the east, and von Braun could figure out how to navigate a surrender to the right American troops.33
Although traveling separately, Huzel and Tessmann linked up with von Braun and the others in Oberammergau. Once his brother Magnus arrived with information about the status of the area, the location of American troops, and passes, von Braun was ready to put the next phase of his plan into operation. He and a select group would approach the Americans. Included in the select group were von Braun’s brother Magnus, Dornberger, Lt. Col. Herbert Axster (Dornberger’s chief of staff), Hans Lindenberg (a combustion-chamber engineer), Tessmann, and Huzel. Loading their personal possessions into three cars, the men sat back and were driven down the Adolf Hitler Pass. They were off to negotiate surrender to the Americans.34
During a 1991 interview Karl Heimburg continued the story:
So we were in southern Germany. Then von Braun and General Dornberger took up conversations with the United States. The idea of the United States at that time, the United States Army was, “We want to know what is that all about rockets?” They did not have the idea to build rockets themselves at that time. They only wanted to know, and the idea was if we would do that we should go in an area where we can launch the V-2 on land. Not as we had to do it in Germany, over water. You could not see anything about the impact. This was, of course, interesting for us, too, that we should see how that vehicle comes down. Therefore, the Army had the idea we go to White Sands, and they had headquarters available in Fort Bliss. So we, at that time one hundred and eighteen, were brought to the United States. Part of us in White Sands proving ground, part of us, the bigger part in Fort Bliss. We launched some vehicles in White Sands. After the Korean War broke out [June 1950] the Army changed its mind and said, “We better build rockets of our own too. Of course, we cannot do that in Fort Bliss and White Sands. We have to go somewhere else.” And we—when I say we, the German group—was thinking, well, we should go somewhere close to an industrial center, either Los Angeles or San Francisco. The idea to go to the West, on our side, was the shipping on the western side is by far less than on the eastern side. If you go close to Los Angeles, we will launch the vehicles to the south, and if we go to San Francisco, we launch the vehicles to the north.35
Like Heimburg, Tessmann would also travel to the United States as part of Project Paperclip and work with von Braun and Arthur Rudolph on guided missiles at Fort Bliss, Texas, before eventually joining the team in Huntsville, Alabama.36
In the decade after the end of World War II, as the Cold War between the East and the West heated up, the Americans, British, and Soviets, among others, focused on increasing their military capabilities. They all recognized the importance of missile technology. In the summer and fall of 1945, the British—with the help of German scientists and technicians, including von Braun and Rudolph—constructed and successfully launched a V-2 rocket. Because both the British and the Americans wanted to take advantage of the knowledge and experience of the scientists, engineers, and technicians who worked on the V-2 program and because they wanted to keep this expertise out of the hand of the Soviets, representatives of the two nations entered into exhaustive negotiations to determine which scientists would be employed by which country. Although initially the British viewed the Germans’ employment as temporary, the Americans were open to the idea of permanent residence status or even citizenship for those who would be most useful to the United States’ Cold War agenda.37
Initially, von Braun, Tessmann, Rudolph, Heimburg, and others worked for army ordnance, but the game would change drastically in 1957. As Heimburg indicated, many of them worked on rocket technology at Fort Bliss, Texas, or White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico before being transferred to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1950. The United States was not alone in focusing on this technology or on pursuing the possibility of launching a craft of some sort into space—which was also von Braun’s dream. On 4 October 1957 the Soviets’ efforts bore fruit when they launched Sputnik I—the first artificial satellite—into space. Not pleased that the Soviets had beaten the United States to the punch and on his watch, President Dwight D. Eisenhower put the U.S. space program into high gear with the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. On 1 October 1958—one year after Sputnik I wound its way into the outer atmosphere, NASA opened its doors for business.
Although von Braun, Tessmann, Rudolph, and Heimburg would all make important contributions to the NASA space program, von Braun did not immediately jump at the chance to be a part of this initiative, despite his desire to design a manned space craft that could be successfully launched into outer space. According to Heimburg,
Von Braun did not join NASA right away. Somehow he did not want to step on the Army’s feet. Or on the Army officer’s feet. Once the top man of NASA was visiting Huntsville, and I was leading him around in the test facilities and he asked me, “What is the reason that von Braun refuses to enter NASA?” I said, “I have not the slightest idea. I cannot give you an answer on that.” Then he asked me, “Would you please tell von Braun either he joins NASA or he will be pushed out of space completely.” I said, “Okay, I can do that.” And I told von Braun and he said, “I’m fully aware and I will do that. The question was only I did not want to step on the Army’s feet.”38
Not willing to give up on his dream, von Braun joined the others at NASA. Almost from the beginning von Braun, Tessmann, Rudolph, and Heimburg were involved in important research that eventually resulted in the construction of the Saturn V rocket.
On 1 July 1960 the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) was established at the Redstone Arsenal facility in Huntsville, Alabama. The MSFC—a government-owned civilian center dedicated to research on rocketry and spacecraft propulsion—had as its first mission the development of “Saturn launch vehicles for the Apollo moon program.” Dr. Wernher von Braun became the first MSFC director on 1 July 1960 and served in that capacity until 27 January 1970. In that capacity von Braun was “the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that would propel Americans to the Moon.”39
During his tenure at the MSFC, von Braun would work closely with Tessmann, Rudolph, and Heimburg. In fact, on 5 December 1968 he issued a memorandum in which he codified new duties and promotions of members of his team at the NASA facility.40 “Effective December 16, Mr. Karl Heimburg will become the Director of the P&VE Laboratory. Also we are considering combining the P&VE and Test Laboratories. Pending the final decision on the proposed combination, Mr. Bernhard Tessmann will manage the Test Laboratory in his present capacity as Deputy Director.”41 Although the 5 December 1968 announcement did not specifically mention him, Arthur Rudolph was an integral member of the von Braun team at MSFC. Rudolph “was the project manager for the Saturn, a vital and complex component of Apollo.”42 In many respects, von Braun, a leading proponent of space exploration, was the face of NASA. Recognizing his importance to the program, NASA made von Braun the head of its “strategic planning effort” in 1970, which meant a move to Washington DC.43 Two years later, however, he retired from NASA and began work with Fairchild Industries in Germantown, Maryland. Von Braun passed away on 16 June 1977.
When he first went to Huntsville, Heimburg participated in constructing first the Redstone Arsenal facility and then the Marshall Space Flight Center. He joined NASA in 1960 and directed test operations, including those associated with Projects Juno, Pershing, Jupiter, and Explorer I. His responsibilities also included testing Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo engines. In 1969, as director of the Astronautics Laboratory, Heimburg was operations director for Project Skylab, America’s first space station. After a prolific career with NASA, Heimburg retired in 1974 and stayed in Huntsville, where he died on 26 January 1997.
As indicated earlier, Bernhard Tessmann traveled to the United States with von Braun and initially worked for the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency—first at the Artillery Proving Ground in Aberdeen, Maryland, and then at White Sands, New Mexico. Relocated to Huntsville, Alabama, in 1955, he, like Heimburg, helped plan and design both the Redstone Arsenal missile-testing facilities and the Marshall Space Flight Center. He also joined NASA early on and worked on both the Saturn and Jupiter Projects. He briefly received assignment to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and was tasked with helping to design nuclear test facilities. In June 1973 Tessmann retired from MSFC. He also stayed in Huntsville until his death on 19 December 1998.44
Unlike Arthur Rudolph, von Braun, Heimburg, and Tessmann avoided investigation by the Department of Justice’s Office of Special Investigations, despite the fact that they were all involved at Peenemünde and Mittelwerk. There is no indication in the OSI report that these men came under any scrutiny. Because he died in 1977, two years before the establishment of the OSI, it is perhaps easy to understand why von Braun avoided the OSI radar, particularly since Rudolph apparently made no effort to shift the blame for the treatment of the forced laborers to his friend and colleague. More than Rudolph, von Braun was the face of NASA, and it is possible that serious roadblocks would have impeded an investigation if one had been launched. The cases of Heimburg and Tessmann, on the other hand, are less obvious; however, before engaging in further speculation, there is one more Paperclip scientist—Dr. Kurt Blome—who must be investigated first, because he is also missing from the OSI report.
Not all Project Paperclip scientists, technicians, and engineers participated in the German V-2 program. The Germans also employed scientists in medical research of various types—including mass sterilization and gassing. Numerous books detail experiments on Jewish prisoners, the mentally ill and criminally insane, and the mentally and physically disabled—all in an effort to create a master Aryan race.45 A virologist, Kurt Blome falls into the category of medical research. While not much is known about his early life, a few facts are available.
Born on 31 January 1894 in Bielefeld, Westphalia, Kurt Blome apparently attended medical school. In 1931, at a time when he was an “internationally renowned physician,” Blome, a former lieutenant general in the SA, joined the Nazi Party. For the next decade information about Blome is remarkably absent. Although spotty, a record of his activities begins to emerge in 1942—the year in which he became involved with the Central Cancer Institute, University of Posen (Poznań University). That same year he published his autobiography—Arzt im Kampf (Physician in struggle)—“in which he exuberantly equated medical and military power in their battle for life and death.” Blome’s attitude is understandable within the context of the burgeoning “militarized medical Führer,” which was the culmination of the “militarization of medicine.” The Nazis initiated a revision of the German medical ethos as part of a program called Gleichschaltung, under which “all political, social and cultural institutions were to be virtually ideologized and controlled by trusted Nazis.” All professional medical organizations were eliminated or incorporated into the Reichsärztekammer, or Reich Physicians’ Chamber, which was led by “‘old medical fighters’ who had marched and fought in the streets in the early days.” Professors and medical students took weapons training. Having a “prominent military background” became inextricably linked to the acquisition of “medical prestige.” Categorized as medical “old fighters,” physicians like Blome were viewed “as more Nazi than physician.” Consequently, Blome, who, like his peers, had something to prove, embraced being a part of the newly created militarized medical Führer.46
By 1943, fully embedded into the Nazi Party and a full participant in the militarized medicine program, Blome had received promotions and new titles—Reichsgesundheitsführer, or deputy Reich physician führer, and “Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research in the Reich Research Council,” a post created by Hermann Göring on 30 April 1943.47 With these new positions he had new responsibilities and a new boss. As director of a unit at the Central Cancer Institute, Blome was involved in, and oversaw, biological weapons research. In addition, he received orders directly from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler to conduct specific research—including injecting concentration camp prisoners with the plague vaccine.
Not all the experiments ordered by Himmler were related to biological weapons. Following Himmler’s directives, deputy Reich physician Führer Blome authorized various experiments on prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp. These experiments included prolonged exposure to cold. Prisoners were forced to strip and remain outside in harsh winter conditions for up to fourteen hours or to spend a minimum of three hours in a tank full of iced water. At one point, of the three hundred inmates forced to participate, eighty did not survive. What was most important to Himmler, however, was the development of biological weapons.
Between 1943 and 1945 Blome met multiple times with Himmler, who was the moving force behind the Reich’s bioweapons program. Himmler was particularly interested in exploring the possibility of using the bubonic plague as an offensive weapon, and he tasked Blome with pursuing this line of research in July (or possibly August) 1943. To achieve the endgame as soon as possible, Himmler authorized Blome “to use human beings.” In addition, the Reichsführer offered the doctor a testing facility that had an exploitable group of potential patients—the medical block at the Dachau concentration camp. When Blome noted that certain circles within the party strongly opposed conducting experiments on humans, Himmler’s response demanded acceptance. The war effort demanded experimentation on humans. Refusal was treasonous. Agreeing to Himmler’s demand, Blome suggested that, in order to conduct plague bacterium research, he would need his own facilities that were isolated from population centers. Himmler agreed. The result was the establishment of the Bacteriological Institute at Nesselstedt, which was near what was once Poznań University. The Reich controlled the university by 1943.48
With construction on the Nesselstedt facility completed by February 1944, Blome and his staff were ready to hit the ground running. The facility included a number of buildings: a state-of-the-art laboratory, housing for staff, and an “animal farm.” In the experimental block were “a climate room, a cold room, disinfectant facilities, and rooms for ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ experiments.” Furthermore, because they were experimenting with dangerous biological agents and might become contaminated, the staff also had an isolation hospital that could accommodate up to sixteen people at a time. Despite his best efforts, Himmler was displeased with the progress of Blome’s team. Exacerbating the situation in the winter of 1944 were the constant rumors of an imminent Allied invasion.49
Blome’s productivity was not enhanced by Himmler’s harebrained ideas for a biological agent–delivery system. Beginning a month or two before the Allies invasion at Normandy, the two Germans met multiple times. Characterizing his superior as paranoid, Blome claimed that Himmler was convinced that the Allies planned to target the Reich with biological weapons. Promising to investigate Himmler’s reports of multiple puzzling, as well as alarming, incidents, Blome turned the conversation to the serious threat to the institute and his research—the Soviet army. Acknowledging the threat, Himmler agreed to relocate Blome’s research facility to “Geraberg, in the Thuringian forest, at the edge of the Harz Mountains.” Construction on the new bioweapons research facility commenced in October 1944. Although not completely finished by the war’s end, the Geraberg facility was clearly in use.50
Between 1943 and the end of the war, Blome and his research staff conducted experiments with a wide range of biological agents, including “plague, cholera, anthrax, and typhoid.” The team also attempted to spread malaria and typhus by experimenting with mosquitoes at Dachau and with typhus-infected lice at Buchenwald. Blome’s research extended to nerve agents—in particular tabun and sarin. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tabun is “the most toxic of the known chemical warfare agents. It has a fruity odor reminiscent of bitter almonds. Exposure to tabun can cause death in minutes.”51 Sarin is a nerve agent. “Nerve agents are the most toxic and rapidly acting of the known chemical warfare agents” and are more potent than their relatives—pesticides.52 Using aerosol dispersants and other methods to spray tabun and sarin from aircraft, Blome exposed Auschwitz prisoners to these nerve agents and evaluated their effects.
Despite Blome and his team’s frantic work, they were not achieving results fast enough to satisfy Himmler or, ultimately, Hitler. Pressure assaulted them from all sides. As they conducted their research, the war played out all around them. The Soviet steamroller was bearing down on Germany from the east. After the failed offensive that earned the title of the Battle of the Bulge, the Western Allies were slowly pressing their advance into the German heartland. The war was not going well for the Germans. The situation became increasingly worse for the Reich in the spring of 1945. No one—especially scientists and physicians, like Blome, who had conducted experiments on concentration camp inmates—was safe.
Although he initially escaped capture, Dr. Kurt Blome’s luck would not hold. He was on multiple watch lists, including that compiled by the Americans’ Alsos Mission. Initially tasked with gathering information about the Germans’ atomic bomb program, the Alsos Mission soon expanded to include intelligence gathering related to the enemy’s biological weapons program. Consequently, Blome made the group’s “most wanted list.” Alsos had an additional mission—capture as many scientists as possible to keep them out of Soviet hands and determine which ones to exploit in order to advance American programs. The Alsos Mission was not the only agency trying to get their hands on Blome, who was not oblivious to the fact that he was probably a wanted man. But it was difficult, once the war ended, to travel in occupied territory without going through a manned checkpoint of one sort or another.
Amazingly, however, Blome avoided capture for almost two weeks after the war ended. Possibly because he wanted to elude the Soviets, Blome, like von Braun, Rudolph, Heimburg, and Tessmann, headed to Bavaria, where his luck ran out on 17 May 1945 at a U.S. checkpoint in Munich. Soldiers examined the papers of a man who matched the description of the man identified as the director of the bioweapons research facility at Geraberg. The man who approached the checkpoint was “well-dressed”—“134 pounds, five foot nine, with dark black hair, hazel eyes, and a pronounced dueling scar on the left side of his face between his nose and his upper lip.” The man’s German passport identified him as “Professor Doctor Friedrich Ludwig Kurt Blome.”53 Blome’s name immediately raised a red flag, and the Americans detained him. Blome was formally arrested by Agent Arnold Vyth of the Counter Intelligence Corps, who dispatched him to the Twelfth Army Group Interrogation Center. Officials compiled documentation about the captured German. In addition to information provided by the War Crimes Office, they learned that the Office of Strategic Services also had Blome on their watch list.
Blome underwent extensive interrogation. Initially, he appeared cooperative, which raised the hoped of his interrogators, who thought that they were poised to hit the mother lode. During his first interrogation, Blome indicated that he did not agree with the use of medical science advancement in the commission of atrocities. When pressed, “Blome state[d] that in his capacity as deputy surgeon general of the Reich he had ‘observe[d] new scientific studies and experiments which led to later atrocities e.g. mass sterilization, gassing of Jews.’”54 His interrogators were practically salivating, but their excitement would not last. Maj. E. W. B. Gill, an Alsos Mission interrogator, conducted Blome’s second interview. This time the German volunteered less and was more obstructionist. Claiming to be nothing more than a Reich administrator, Blome denied being personally involved in any research. Not only did Gill fail to learn anything new from Blome, but he was also convinced that the German was being less than truthful.55
A month later Blome was transferred to Castle Kransberg—code-named Dustbin—for additional interrogation by Alsos agents Bill Cromartie and J. M. Barnes. The first session went no better than that conducted by Gill. A few days later, however, Blome “seemed anxious” to cooperate. Not certain that they could trust him, the agents also realized that it would be difficult to confirm Blome’s version of events. For example, Blome suggested that the army, not his staff, conducted vaccine research and that the Reich surgeon general had jurisdiction over epidemic research and was responsible for protecting Germans from bioweapons. Furthermore, he provided information that would add to the tense postwar relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. According to Blome, the Soviet biological weapons program was the best in the world, and a few months earlier the Soviets had seized the “Reich’s most advanced biological weapons research and development facility” at Nesselstedt.56
Although there was concern about the extent of Blome’s involvement in the development and testing of biological weapons for the Reich, the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency identified him as one of the scientists who could provide crucial intelligence for the United States. Consequently, they placed Blome’s name on the list of German and Austrian scientists whom they hoped to exploit. Recognizing that Blome’s past as Reich deputy surgeon could not be spun in a positive light, the JOIA acknowledged, however, that the German’s expertise would be crucial should the United States find itself at war with its soon-to-be former ally—the Soviet Union—but the agency was unclear about how many of the scientists on the list would actually be brought to the United States under Project Paperclip.
When the Dustbin came under the jurisdiction of U.S. Army Military Intelligence Service Center, the army moved the interrogation facility to its location at Darmstadt. Blome, who was also transferred to Darmstadt, found himself employed there as a doctor by the U.S. Army by the summer of 1946, while officials from the U.S. Chemical Corps took steps to transfer him to Camp Detrick, Maryland, where he could be interviewed at length by their bacteriologists. Unfortunately for Blome, this plan was derailed that same summer—by the Palace of Justice trials at Nuremberg. Soviet prosecutors announced their intention to put Maj. Gen. Walter P. Schreiber on the witness stand. Schreiber, the former Reich surgeon general, was expected to provide testimony against his former colleagues—including Blome.
The infamous Doctors’ Trial began in 1946. U.S. officials held twelve trials of German doctors accused of war crimes. The first of these was the United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. All but three of the twenty-three defendants were medical doctors. The prosecutors listed the charges against them: “The indictment consisted of four counts. Count one charged participation in a common design or conspiracy to commit war crimes or crimes against humanity. The ruling of the tribunal disregarded this count, hence no defendant was found guilty of the crime charged in count one. Count two was concerned with war crimes and count three, with crimes against humanity. Fifteen defendants were found guilty, and eight were acquitted on these two counts. Ten defendants were charged under count four with membership in a criminal organization and were found guilty.”57 Blome was one of the lucky ones. When the trial ended in 1947, he was a free man—acquitted of the charges primarily because the prosecution was unable to prove intent.
Blome’s acquittal reopened the Project Paperclip door. The German received a visit from Dr. Harold W. Batchelor and three of his colleagues from Camp Detrick. All were “biological warfare experts.” By this time, Blome realized that it was to his advantage to cooperate with the Americans. After all, he had just escaped conviction and possibly execution at Nuremberg. He could not take that chance again. If he made himself valuable to the Americans, then maybe they would protect him if he was targeted again. Finding Blome both helpful and a fountain of information, the Americans, willing to turn a blind eye to his past activities, offered him a contract to participate in Project 63, a job placement program. Many participants received jobs with American aviation companies. Although they believed that he had actually experimented on concentration camp inmates, the Americans believed that Blome’s potential usefulness—particularly as the Cold War loomed—outweighed any atrocities that he probably committed.
In 1951 Blome received an offer of a real job. The U.S. Chemical Corps gave him a contract and a yearly salary of $6,800. There is evidence to suggest that the U.S. Army falsified Blome’s Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency application by leaving out details of his employment history between 1945 and 1948. His agency file does not mention Blome’s July 1945 admission “that Himmler had ordered him in 1943 to use concentration camp inmates for experiments on plague vaccine” and that he intended to “conduct human experiments,” an admission that resulted in his war crimes trial. Not much is known about Blome’s work for the United States after this. Apparently he was post doctor at Camp King in Oberursel, Germany, near the U.S. Military Intelligence Service Center, because he was unable to obtain a U.S. visa. There is also mention in his file that he worked on a top secret project: “Army, 1952, Project 1975.” Information about this project remains classified.58
At the end of the day, however, Blome’s past caught up with him. French authorities arrested him and tried him for war crimes. This time the charges stuck. Convicted, Blome received a twenty-year prison sentence, which perhaps confirmed allegations that the Americans had made a deal with Blome. In exchange for information about his experiments at Dachau and his expertise on biological warfare, they would ensure that he would escape conviction at Nuremberg. Dr. Kurt Blome died on 10 October 1969 in Germany, which means that he must have received early release.59
When considering the men discussed here—Wernher von Braun, Bernhard Tessmann, Karl Heimburg, and Kurt Blome—one question comes to mind. Why were they not investigated by the Department of Justice’s Office of Special Investigations? All four men conducted research that affected the lives of concentration camp inmates and constituted war crimes, although not all of them directly interacted with the internees. What made one Nazi fair game for investigation when another got a pass? The first three men on this list—von Braun, Tessmann, and Heimburg—and Arthur Rudolph worked together on rocket research before and during World War II. The construction and operation of the rocket factory and testing facilities at Mittelwerk resulted in the establishment of the Dora concentration camp and cost many inmates their lives; however, only Rudolph found himself in the OSI headlights.
While some might argue that there was no reason for the OSI to investigate von Braun because he had died two years before the establishment of that branch of the Department of Justice, that does not explain why neither Tessmann nor Heimburg faced the same scrutiny that Rudolph did. After all, both lived until the late 1990s. Because the OSI report does not explain why some Nazis, particularly those who came to the United States as part of Project Paperclip, were not scrutinized by OSI, one must make an educated guess. Although they both worked on the Saturn rocket project, neither Tessmann nor Heimburg received the same notoriety that von Braun and, to a lesser extent, Rudolph did. As leader of the project that put a man on the moon, von Braun was “Dr. Space.” He was the face of NASA. To question his background or his integrity would be same as impugning NASA’s reputation. This suggests, perhaps, that it was not in the OSI’s best interests to investigate von Braun. But there was a precedent for investigating a deceased Nazi. Unlike Rudolph, Tessmann and Heimburg had no direct control over concentration camp inmates; therefore, it seems likely that the OSI left them alone because they had done nothing to draw attention to themselves—which Rudolph did. Furthermore, Rudolph was integrally involved in the decision to use inmates at Mittelwerk, which made charges of war crimes against him more sustainable.
Where does this leave Blome? Although he was acquitted at Nuremberg, it is difficult—if not impossible—to deny that he and his staff conducted experiments on human subjects—on the unwilling inmates of Dachau and Buchenwald. He had to face the music a second time, and he was unable to escape unscathed when the French convicted him of war crimes. Although he died almost a decade before the establishment of the OSI, why did the deceased Blome escape scrutiny? The OSI helped to identify the remains of Josef Mengele, who died the same year that the agency was established. While it is possible that Mengele’s war crimes were more egregious than Blome’s, both men experimented on concentration camp prisoners and caused the deaths of many of them. There are three factors that might explain why the OSI did not shine their light on Blome. First, he worked for the United States, albeit briefly in the grand scheme of things. Second, he died almost a decade before the OSI was created, unlike Mengele, who died the same year. Finally, Blome never received the notoriety that Mengele—the Angel of Death—did. Consequently, Blome succeeded in flying below the OSI radar.
Although Blome, Tessmann, Heimburg, and von Braun escaped OSI scrutiny, many others did not. One could argue that without Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman and, to a lesser extent, Simon Wiesenthal, the Department of Justice would not have been pressured to create the OSI and attach it to the Criminal Division. One could argue that it took the Holtzman Amendment to give the OSI the tools that it needed to pursue its mandate. But the OSI took its responsibilities seriously. Tasked with investigating suspected Nazi criminals and pursuing denaturalization and, in some instances, deportation cases against them, the OSI was thorough and persistent. The evidence did not always substantiate the initial charges, which resulted in exoneration. Central to the U.S. justice system is the “innocent until proven guilty” mantra, which made the OSI’s task all the more difficult. It was no easy task to collect evidence decades after the war. Documents had been destroyed or were sealed in archives behind the Iron Curtain. Witness testimony was frequently problematic. Some victims who survived the camps were too traumatized to provide coherent testimony. Statements provided by witnesses were contradictory. Some survivors were interviewed by Soviet officials in less than ideal circumstances, which sometimes raised questions about the veracity of their testimony. Furthermore, analysis of the evidence could be shaped by the issue of whether or not the “innocence meme” should, or in fact could, be applied to Nazis. The same conundrum exists in the current atmosphere created by terrorism and the nonconventional battlefield of the “war on terror.”
Sometimes, however, the evidence told a different story, and the OSI went to court. Did the OSI win every case that it pursued? No, it did not, but the cases in the win column spanned a group of people who established concentration camp and extermination policy, who ordered or personally carried out executions, and who performed obscenely irrelevant experiments on camp inmates. Nor did a successful case necessarily end with denaturalization or deportation. In one case it was enough to place a sitting president on a Watch List, which prevented him from entering the United States, even in an official capacity. This was no mere “slap on the wrist.” In the final analysis, as its 2006 report, “The Office of Special Investigations: Striving for Accountability in the Aftermath of the Holocaust,” suggests, the OSI, working with limited financial and personnel resources, followed its mandate to achieve justice for those tortured and murdered under the auspices of the Nazi Final Solution.60