April 12, 2016 ▸ Science, Technology

Episode 81: Nazi Technologies and Operation Paperclip

Subscribe: TuneIn | RSS

This episode of Sofa King Podcast explores the amazing inventions of Nazi Scientists and the infamous Operation Paperclip.

During World War II, German engineers and scientists were among the best in the world, developing technology that nobody else on earth could compete with. This technological domination is what led them to almost taking over the world. Perhaps their most important piece of war tech was the V-2 Rocket, and the genius Wernher von Braun was perhaps their most important scientist.

But with the discovery of a secret list of top German scientists called the Osenberg List, post-war America learned who we should recruit from the prisons holding German soldiers and Nazis. President Truman authorized Operation Paperclip, a clandestine effort to pull Nazi soldiers from war prisons and recruit them to help defeat the still-warring Japanese and prepare to battle with the Soviet Union. NASA, the space race, and nuclear missiles would not have so decisively been American victories were it not for the scientists pulled here from Paperclip (such as Werner Heisenberg and von Braun himself). This episode has it all: An illegal American Black-Site prison known only as PO Box 1142, Nazi Nukes, Nazi Night Scopes, underwater army tanks, Sound Canons, Nazi space mirrors, guns that shot around corners, and even the Nazi Soda we still drink today–Fanta! And of course, what Nazi episode would be complete without a look at the Nazi Moon Base conspiracy theory?!