First published 2014
After Germany's defeat in 1945, the U.S. government launched a covert recruitment program targeting Hitler's top scientific minds. Annie Jacobsen exposes how America secretly transported dozens of Nazi researchers and their families to the United States, despite many facing war crimes accusations. Some had stood trial at Nuremberg. One carried a mass murder conviction. Yet these same men drove major breakthroughs in rockets, medicine, and space exploration. Jacobsen interviewed family members, colleagues, and interrogators while accessing German archives and previously hidden documents from Third Reich descendants. She traces the postwar lives of more than twelve German scientists to reveal a morally complex government operation. The book examines whether this controversial program represented a strategic Cold War necessity or an unforgivable compromise with evil. Through extensive research including Freedom of Information Act files and university archives, Jacobsen uncovers how far the government would go to secure national advantage.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, non-fiction, 21st-century, military-history, academic, american-history
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: morally-ambiguous, secrets-and-lies
Setting: United States, Germany, Third Reich
Period: 1945, Cold War
575 pages · Hardcover · Little, Brown and Company