Operation Paperclip

secret program of the US to bring German scientists, including former Nazis, into the US to work for the US government
Event covert_operation Q444698
Operation Paperclip
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Summary

Operation Paperclip is a covert operation[1]. It ranks in the top 3% of covert operation entities by monthly Wikipedia readership (17,527 views/month).[2]

Key Facts

  • Operator: Counterintelligence Corps[3]
  • Part of: aftermath of World War II[4]
  • Commons category: Operation Paperclip[5]
  • Start time: July 20, 1945[6], 1945[7]
  • End time: 1959[8]
  • Organizer: Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency[9], Counterintelligence Corps[10]
  • Participant: scientist[11], Otto Ambros[12], Kurt Blome[13], Walter Dornberger[14], Siegfried Knemeyer[15], Walter Schreiber[16], Wernher von Braun[17]
  • Topic's main category: Category:Operation Paperclip[18]
  • Depicted by: Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program to Bring Nazi Scientists to America[19], ‘The Nazis Next Door,’ by Eric Lichtblau[20]
  • Has characteristic: controversy[21]
  • Has goal: capture[22], recruitment[23], relocation[24]

Why It Matters

Operation Paperclip has Wikipedia articles in 28 language editions, a strong signal of global cultural recognition.[25] It is known by 57 alternative names across languages and contexts.[26]

References

Programmatic citations — every numbered marker resolves to a verifiable graph row below.

Direct Wikidata claims

  1. [3] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  2. [4] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  3. [5] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  4. [6] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  5. [7] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  6. [8] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  7. [9] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  8. [10] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  9. [11] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  10. [12] ↑ . Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America. wikidata.org.
  11. [13] ↑ . Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America. wikidata.org.
  12. [14] ↑ . Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America. wikidata.org.
  13. [15] ↑ . Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America. wikidata.org.
  14. [16] ↑ . Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America. wikidata.org.
  15. [17] ↑ . Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America. wikidata.org.
  16. [18] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  17. [19] ↑ . cia.gov. cia.gov. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  18. [20] ↑ . web.archive.org. web.archive.org. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  19. [21] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  20. [22] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  21. [23] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  22. [24] ↑ . wikidata.org.

Class ancestry

  1. [1] ↑ . Wikidata. wikidata.org.

Aggregate / graph-position facts

  1. [2] ↑ . Wikimedia Foundation. dumps.wikimedia.org.
  2. [25] ↑ . Wikidata sitelinks. wikidata.org.
  3. [26] ↑ . Wikidata aliases. wikidata.org.

📑 Cite this page

Use these citations when quoting this entity in research, articles, AI prompts, or wherever provenance matters. We aggregate Wikidata + Wikipedia + authoritative open-data sources; the stitched, scored, cross-referenced view is what 4ort.xyz contributes.

APA 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph. (2026). Operation Paperclip. Retrieved October 17, 2026, from https://4ort.xyz/entity/operation-paperclip
MLA “Operation Paperclip.” 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph, 4ort.xyz, 17 Oct. 2026, https://4ort.xyz/entity/operation-paperclip.
BibTeX @misc{4ortxyz_operation-paperclip_2026, author = {{4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph}}, title = {{Operation Paperclip}}, year = {2026}, url = {https://4ort.xyz/entity/operation-paperclip}, note = {Accessed: 2026-10-17}}
LLM prompt According to 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph (aggregator of Wikidata, Wikipedia, and authoritative open-data sources): Operation Paperclip — https://4ort.xyz/entity/operation-paperclip (retrieved 2026-10-17)

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Edit History

Rolling log of changes to this entity's Wikidata record. Values shown reflect the current state of each edited property — follow the history link to see the precise diff for any edit.

  1. 10w ago · William Avery Bot bot · 2026-08-05 view diff on Wikidata ↗
    Has characteristic → controversy
    Start time → +1945-07-20T00:00:00Z, +1945-00-00T00:00:00Z
    End time → +1959-00-00T00:00:00Z
    Local thumb → —
    + 14 other properties edited (see Wikidata diff for full list)
    "/* wbsetclaim-update-references:1||1|2 */ Depicted by: ‘The Nazis Next Door,’ by Eric Lichtblau, Changing http://web.archive.org/ URLs to https (×1). See [[Wikidata:Requests_for_permissions/Bot/Willia"
Live feed via Wikidata EventStreams. New edits appear within minutes of being made on Wikidata.