Taking Nazi Technology: Allied Exploitation of German Science after the Second World War

Description

During the Second World War, German science and technology posed a terrifying threat to the Allied nations. Combined with Germany's generations-old reputation for excellence in science and engineering, these advanced weapons, which included rockets, V-2 missiles, tanks, submarines, and jet airplanes, gave troubling credence to Nazi propaganda about forthcoming 'wonder-weapons' that would turn the war decisively in the Axis favor. After the war ended, the Allied powers raced to seize 'intellectual reparations' from almost every field of industrial technology and academic science in occupied Germany. It was likely the largest-scale technology transfer in history. In Taking Nazi Technology, Douglas M. O'Reagan describes how the Western Allies gathered teams of experts to scour defeated Germany, seeking industrial secrets and the technical personnel who could explain them. Swarms of investigators recruited from industry, military branches, and intelligence agencies invaded Germany's factories and research institutions. They seized or copied all kinds of documents, from patent applications to factory production data to science journals. They questioned, hired, and sometimes even kidnapped hundreds of scientists, engineers, and other technical personnel. They studied technologies from aeronautics to audiotapes, toy making to machine tools, chemicals to carpentry equipment. They took over academic libraries, jealously competed over chemists, and schemed to deny the fruits of German invention to any other land—including that of their allies. Drawing on declassified records, O'Reagan looks at which techniques worked for these very different nations, as well as which failed—and why. Most importantly, he shows why securing this technology, how the Allies did and when they did, still matters today. He also argues that these programs did far more than spread German industrial science: they forced businessmen and policymakers around the world to rethink how science and technology fit into diplomacy, business, and society itself. A deeply researched comparative history of the American, British, French, and Soviet efforts to control and exploit German science and technology amid fierce internal and external competition, Taking Nazi Technology is the first history to capture the whole picture of this crucial period at the dawn of the Cold War. Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 List of Abbreviations......Page 10 Introduction......Page 14 1 American Exploitation Programs: High Hopes, Narrow Gains, and Long-Term Lessons......Page 30 2 British Scientifi cExploitation and the Allure of German Know-How......Page 67 3 French Planning for German Science: Student Spies and Exploitation in Place......Page 92 4 Soviet Reparations and the Seizure of German Science and Technology......Page 112 5 Academic Science and the Reconstruction of Germany......Page 133 6 Documentation and Information Technology: Dealing with Information Overload......Page 158 7 Legacies of Intellectual Reparations Programs: Industrial Know-How in the Postwar World......Page 192 Conclusion......Page 229 Notes......Page 238 Bibliography......Page 268 B......Page 286 C......Page 287 F......Page 288 I......Page 289 L......Page 290 P......Page 291 S......Page 292 T......Page 293 Z......Page 294