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The OSS (Office of Strategic Services, which later became the CIA) was very careful to sweep up the top NAZI scientists before the USSR could.Here is what the CIA story line is;As the Russian Army closed in on Peenemünde from the east in 1945, it became apparent to Wernher von Braun and his staff that things were coming to an end at the research center. Von Braun's staff was now under the direct command of the SS, Hitler's elite army, and von Braun feared that SS General Hans Kammler might possibly use the scientists as a bargaining chip or have the scientists killed to keep them from being captured by the Allies.Von Braun had received several contradictory orders from German High Command which was in mass confusion at the time. As von Braun later stated, "I had ten orders on my desk. Five promised death by firing squad if we moved, and five said I'd be shot if we didn't move." Since he was damned either way, von Braun called a meeting in mid-January 1945 with the other top officials at Peenemünde. The rumor was the Russians were approaching fast from the south and that the path of escape might be closed soon. If the scientists and engineers remained at Peenemünde, they would either be killed in combat or taken prisoner by the Russians. They certainly did not like either of those prospects.They all decided they wanted to surrender to the Americans. If nothing else, they were more likely to be able to continue their research after the war in the United States. They knew that somehow they had to smuggle all their research papers and important equipment out of Peenemünde. They certainly could not allow a decade's worth of work to be destroyed or fall into the wrong hands again.As the Third Reich collapsed, there was no chance that Peenemünde would be saved. That is why von Braun was utterly amazed when he received an order from the local army defense commander to become soldiers and fight the Russians when they arrived at Peenemünde. This would almost guarantee their demise. But another set of orders came from General Kammler stating that the engineers and scientists were to move to central Germany, close to the Mittelwerk factory. Von Braun was still wary of Kammler's real intentions. Kammler might be moving the scientists to a location where he would have the ability to turn them, along with the technology at the underground Mittelwerk, into hostages. However, von Braun knew it was the best option for their continued freedom.Von Braun prepared to evacuate thousands of engineers, scientists and their families to central Germany. It was a tremendous task, but von Braun insisted that it be done in an orderly fashion. He was the consummate leader at this time also. For ten years he had demonstrated his leadership abilities with staff, technical problems, and in dealing with politicians—but this move south really showed the determination of von Braun. German command and society was crumbling all around them, yet somehow the organization held together.They went to work rapidly. Almost all of the coordination went through von Braun's close staff. Simple things such as procuring boxes became a daunting task at this point in the war. They invented a color-coding system to make it easier to identify the contents of what they were moving. A convoy was organized, in which thousands of workers, engineers, and other Peenemünde support personnel would be transported by train, truck, car, and any method available. Moving this many people was bound to draw attention. Von Braun knew he would be questioned about the move by local authorities. As luck would have it, a recent shipment of stationary from the SS, that identified Peenemünde personnel as a branch of the SS, was badly mangled at the printer. The letterhead was supposed to read BZBV Heer, the name of an organization within the SS. Instead, it read VABV, in initials of a nonexistent organization. Von Braun's staff quickly invented a top-secret agency with the initials VABV, translated in English meaning Project for Special Dispositions.The initials VABV were painted and marked on boxes, vehicles, and armbands, anything that might be checked by SS inspectors or other authorities. All of the material and equipment was then packed into trucks and cars. The convoy headed south and along the way SS agents stopped the caravan frequently, but the VABV deception worked and they were allowed to continue.Later, they received word that Peenemünde had been captured by the Russians. A few weeks after that, the Americans captured the Mittelwerk. General Kammler ordered von Braun and 500 of the top scientists to be separated from their families and moved to the village of Oberammergau. They were placed in a small internment camp that was, in von Braun's words, "extremely plush, not withstanding the barbed-wire around it." Kammler was indeed holding the scientists hostage. They were surrounded by SS guards constantly. One day von Braun pointed out to the head of the SS guard that the Oberammergau camp could be easily bombed by Allied aircraft. One attack could wipe out all of the Third Reich's top rocket scientists. Any guard that allowed that to happen would surely be shot.The guard agreed and let the scientists out of the camp and into the streets of Oberammergau. He also agreed to let the scientists dress in civilian clothing so American troops would not suspect that they were of any importance. Von Braun quickly arranged for vehicles from Bleicherode to come get the scientists. They were really free at this point. Now all they had to do was surrender to the Americans.On March 15, 1945, midnight, a young civilian was chauffeuring von Braun in a Hanomag truck from Bleicherode to Naumburg, then driving on the Autobahn, with the destination being Berlin. Both fell asleep and the car left the roadway. A few hours later the car was spotted by Peenemünde associates Hannes Lührsen and Bernard Tessmann, who were also traveling to Berlin. Lührsen stayed with the injured while Tessmann drove for help. Von Braun suffered a broken arm and fractured shoulder. He awoke to find himself in a hospital bed. Even though he was in no condition to be up and moving around, von Braun insisted that his arm be set in a cast so he could leave the hospital.Patton's army was still far away. The meager supply of fuel available to the Allied columns was slowing the advance of the Americans. Needing food and supplies, the rocket scientists again used the VABV ruse to requisition the items from German Army supply posts. The scientists then moved to the resort hotel, Haus Ingeborg, in the border town of Oberjoch, near Austria. There von Braun met up with General Dornberger from Peenemünde. Von Braun's brother Magnus was also there.There was not much to do except wait for the Americans. The scientists played cards and listen to the radio. They heard of the fall of Berlin on May 1, 1945, along with the news that Hitler was dead. As the Americans finally drew near, it was decided that Wernher von Braun's brother, Magnus, would go out to greet the troops and surrender for everyone. The reasoning for this was that Magnus could speak broken English and it was thought that a large group of German men marching toward the Americans would seem hostile or threatening.Young Magnus pedaled off on a bicycle to meet the Americans. The first soldier that he encountered was a sentry with the 324th Infantry Regiment, 44th Infantry Division, PFC Frederick Schneikert. Magnus was ordered to drop the bicycle and come forth with his hands up. In a smattering of English mixed with bits of German, Magnus tried to explain his mission. The young American soldier was not really sure what to do with this boyish figure claiming to be a rocket scientist, so he turned the matter over to his commanding officer, First Lieutenant Charles L. Stewart. Stewart at first thought that Magnus was trying to "sell" his brother and the other scientists to the Americans. The communications were soon cleared up and Lieutenant Stewart gave Magnus passes for the Germans, to ensure their safe passage to the American encampment.Wernher von Braun, General Dornberger, and several other scientists were so excited after Magnus returned that they piled into three vehicles and immediately headed for the American camp. The Americans were struck by Wernher von Braun’s young good looks and his charm. He did not look the part. He did not resemble the imagined image of a top German rocket scientist. The Americans soon realized the importance of their prize. Reporters and newspapers flooded in to see the rocket scientists.When the Americans questioned the German scientists about their advancements in rocketry and propulsion, they stared back at their interrogators in bewilderment. “We were only expanding on the work of the American scientist Robert Goddard, why haven’t you asked him about rocketry?”A few months later, von Braun and the other scientists would sign a contract to come to America and detail their work to the U.S. Army at White Sands—just what they wanted all along. It would be a new phase of von Braun's life, one that would climax with an American walking on the moon.Recall, the Hitler and Stalin were allies until 22 June 1941 and were deeply involved in the development of the V2 from the beginning. 3500 German nationals were working in the Soviet Union on rockets during the war.Here is what the KGB had to say about its German rocket scientists.The Soviet plan to deport thousands of German specialists into the USSR received code name Osoaviakhim, after formally volunteer Soviet organization which in 1930s united many enthusiasts of aviation, rocketry and related disciplines.Some two weeks prior to the operation, Serov received a list of people targeted for deportation. It included 2,200 specialists in the fields of aviation, nuclear technology, rocketry, electronics, radar technology and chemistry. They would be assigned to various industrial enterprises of the USSRDays before deportation numerous passenger trains were pre-positioned on the stations around Germany. In the early hours of October 22, 1945, around 2,500 internal police officers accompanied by soldiers were dispatched to the homes of German specialists and ordered them to prepare for the trip to the USSR. Soldiers would then start loading furniture and other household items on tracks and transport them to the assigned railroad stationsIn October 1946, the best German engineers who worked for the Soviet missile program were ordered on the trains and sent to the various locations in the USSR to assist in the organization of missile production and design. By the beginning of the 1947, Soviets completed the transfer of all works on rocket technology from Germany into secret locations in the USSR. In the fall of 1947, Soviet-German team launched eleven A-4 rockets near the village of Kapustin Yar in the steppes north of the Caspian Sea.Stalin did allow hundreds of Soviet specialists, many of them recent GULAG inmates, travel to postwar Germany and work side by side with their German colleagues on the development of rocket technology. Inevitably, the whole endeavor had a temporary nature, aimed to train Soviet cadre in the industry that was virtually nonexistent in the USSR at the time. From the outset of the program, Soviet authorities had grave concerns about engaging thousands of Germans, who had relative freedom of movement, into the sensitive defense project.On May 7, 1946, Ivan Serov, the head of the Soviet security policy, NKVD, in Germany received a letter from A. G. Mrykin from the artillery directorate, GAU, complaining about overwhelming number of Germans involved in the Soviet rocket development effort.The document stressed that German specialists not only were gaining experience in the production of the current German technology, but also had direct access to the Soviet efforts to develop follow-on rocket systems.Along with having their rocket program exposed to Western intelligence, the USSR was now restoring military-industrial potential of Germany, something the Soviet government was least interested to do. Not to mention, Soviet authorities were concerned they would be accused by the allies of noncompliance with Allied Control Council agreements on the liquidation of the German war machine, which could lead to demands by the allies for inspections.On April 17, 1946, the Soviet of Ministers USSR issued a decree No. 874-366ss ordering Ministry of Aviation Industry, MAP, to deport 1,400 German engineers and workers in the USSR. Including family members, the number of deported was expected to reach 3,500 people at that point.On August 24, 1946, Colonel General Ivan Serov, a secret police officer who served as a Deputy Commander of the Soviet Administration in Germany, SVAG, sent a letter to Georgy Malenkov, a top party official overseeing rocketry, asking for government decision on the deportation of German specialists in the USSR.A draft of the government decree on the issue reviewed by the SVAG commander V. D. Sokolovsky and leaders of the various industries was conveniently attached to the letter. Among the officials who read the draft were Dmitry Ustinov, the head of Ministry of Armaments, assigned to host the rocket program; Mikhail Khrunichev, the head of Ministry of Aviation Industry, Ustinov's deputy Ivan Zubovich and Soviet representatives in Germany responsible for reactive and radar technology N. E. Nosovsky and M. M. Lukin.To minimize the attempts of escape, Soviet authorities scheduled deportations to take place simultaneously across the Soviet zone and in the shortest possible period of time between 15th and 20th of October 1946. The head of Soviet secret police in Germany Ivan Serov would personally lead the operation. Major General A. M. Sidnev, the chief of operations department of the Internal Affairs Ministry, MVD, in Berlin was delegated responsibilities for the logistical support.The commander of SVAG Sokolovsky supplied troops, tracks, railroad cars, fuel and food rations. Minister of Internal Affairs Kruglov provided guard units for the trains.In the recent past, Serov's chief Lavrenty Beriya had already accumulated a "considerable experience" in forced deportations of entire national minorities in the USSR, which were deemed to be a threat to the Soviet regime.On September 13, 1946, Soviet of Ministers USSR issued decree No. 2163-880s entitled"On removal of hardware from the German military enterprises." The document officially launched the process of transfer of German rocket production potential to the USSR.My sense in speaking with Garvin vonEschen Hans von Ohain and other Paperclip scientists who worked at the Ohio State University in the post-war period through the 90s, is that von Braun and the others would have been killed before they fell into Soviet hands by the Americans, and truth be told, the Americans were getting the dregs of the German program anyway.Had the Soviets managed to get von Bruan, von Ohain, Walter Dornberger and other Paperclip scientists, they would likely have achieved the same results since the timing of Sputnik was based on funding constraints, rather than any talent constraints. Recall 1957 was the 40th anniversary of the Soviet revolution. Plans to land men on the moon by 1967 during the 50th anniversary of the Soviet revolution were to follow.Recall the USA made a decision at the highest levels that long-range missiles in combination with atomic bombs would be the strategic weapon of the coming age. Had the USA not gotten ANY German rocket technology, the USA would have spent considerably more resources undermining Soviet efforts. It may have even resulted in World War 3 being declared by the USA despite the risks, to keep the Soviets from developing space based weapons systems. Which constitute spy satellites and ICBMs according to 1940s thinking. Had the USA gotten zero rocket scientists, and word got out about the Soviet focus on long range rockets and atomic bombs, the USA may have acted along the lines outlined by General Patton.Patton’s death may have been at the hands of Soviet agents who wanted to undermine continuation of the war by the USA against the USSR following the fall of Germany.Sputnik reports;Nazi Germany defeated Soviet Russia's allies, and the USSR was weakened. The United States and Great Britain developed military plans aimed at dismantling the USSR and wiping out its cities with a massive nuclear strike from US bombers of the type that attacked Nagasaki and Hiroshima.British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the British Armed Forces' Joint Planning Staff to develop a strategy targeting the USSR months before the end of the Second World War. The first edition of the plan was prepared on May 22, 1945. In accordance with the plan the invasion of Russia-held Europe by the Allied forces was scheduled on July 1, 1945.The plan, dubbed Operation Unthinkable, stated that its primary goal was "to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire.The British Armed Forces' Joint Planning Staff underscored that the Allied Forces would win in the event of 1) the occupation of such metropolitan areas of Russia so that the war making capacity of the country would be reduced to a point to which further resistance would become impossible"; 2) "such a decisive defeat of the Russian forces in the field as to render it impossible for the USSR to continue the war."British generals warned Churchill that the "total war" would be hazardous to the Allied armed forces.However, after the United States "tested" its nuclear arsenal in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Churchill and right-wing American policy makers started to persuade the White House to bomb the USSR with bomber based nukes.A nuclear strike against Soviet Russia, exhausted by the war with Germany, would have led to the defeat of the Kremlin at the same time allowing the Allied Forces to avoid US and British military casualties.An unclassified note from the FBI archive reads, "He [Churchill] pointed out that if an atomic bomb could be dropped on the Kremlin, wiping it out, it would be a very easy problem to handle the balance of Russia, which would be without direction,"An atomic cloud billows above Hiroshima city following the explosion of the first atomic bomb to be used in warfare in Hiroshima, in this handout photo taken by the US Army on August 6, 1945.Churchill's plan to destroy USSR won the hearts and minds of US policy makers and military officials. Between 1945 and the detonation of USSR's first nuclear device in 1949, the Pentagon developed at least nine nuclear war plans targeting Soviet Russia, according to US researchersDr. Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod. In their book "To Win a Nuclear War: the Pentagon's Secret War Plans," based on declassified top secret documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the researchers exposed the US military's strategies to initiate a nuclear war with Russia."The names given to these plans graphically portray their offensive purpose: Bushwhacker, Broiler, Sizzle, Shakedown, Offtackle, Dropshot, Trojan, Pincher, and Frolic. The US military knew the offensive nature of the job President Truman had ordered them to prepare for and had named their war plans accordingly," remarked American scholar J.W. Smith ("The World's Wasted Wealth 2").These "first-strike" plans developed by the Pentagon were aimed at destroying the USSR without any damage to the United States.The 1949 Dropshot plan envisaged that the US would attack Soviet Russia and drop at least 300 nuclear bombs and 20,000 tons of conventional bombs on 200 targets in 100 urban areas, including Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg). In addition, the planners offered to kick off a major land campaign against the USSR to win a "complete victory" over the Soviet Union together with the European allies. According to the plan Washington would start the war on January 1, 1957.For a long period of time the only obstacle in the way of the US' massive nuclear offensive was that the Pentagon did not possess enough atomic bombs (by 1948 Washington boasted an arsenal of 50 atomic bombs) as well as planes to carry them in. For instance, in 1948 the US Air Force had only thirty-two B-29 bombers modified to deliver nuclear bombs.In September 1948 US president Truman approved a National Security Council paper (NSC 30) on "Policy on Atomic Warfare," which stated that the United States must be ready to "utilize promptly and effectively all appropriate means available, including atomic weapons, in the interest of national security and must therefore plan accordingly."At this time, the US generals desperately needed information about the location of Soviet military and industrial sites. So far, the US launched thousands of photographing overflights to the Soviet territory triggering concerns about a potential Western invasion of the USSR among the Kremlin officials. While the Soviets hastened to beef up their defensive capabilities, the military and political decision makers of the West used their rival's military buildup as justification for building more weapons.Meanwhile, in order to back its offensive plans Washington dispatched its B-29 bombers to Europe during the first Berlin crisis in 1948. In 1949 the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed, six years before the USSR and its Eastern European allies responded defensively by establishing the Warsaw Pact — the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance.The mushroom cloud of the first atomic explosion at Trinity Test Site, New Mexico. July 16, 1945Soviet Nuclear Bomb Test Undermined US PlanJust before the USSR tested its first atomic bomb, the US' nuclear arsenal had reached 250 bombs and the Pentagon came to the conclusion that a victory over the Soviet Union was now "possible." Alas, the detonation of the first nuclear bomb by the Soviet Union dealt a heavy blow to US' plans.Although Washington's war planners knew that it would take years before the Soviet Union would obtain a significant atomic arsenal, the point was that the Soviet bomb could not be ignored.The Scottish researcher highlighted that the US was mainly focused not on "deterrence" but on "offensive" preemptive strike. "There was unanimity in 'insider circles' that the United States ought to plan to win a nuclear war. The logic that to do so implied to strike first was inescapable," he emphasized, adding that "first strike plans" were even represented in the official nuclear policy of the US.Remarkably, the official doctrine, first announced by then US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in 1954, assumed America's possible nuclear retaliation to "any" aggression from the USSR.US' Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP)Eventually, in 1960 the US' nuclear war plans were formalized in the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP).At first, the SIOP envisaged a massive simultaneous nuclear strike against the USSR's nuclear forces, military targets, cities, as well as against China and Eastern Europe. It was planned that the US' strategic forces would use almost 3,500 atomic warheads to bomb their targets. According to US generals' estimates, the attack could have resulted in the death of about 285 to 425 million people. Some of the USSR's European allies were meant to be completely "wiped out.""We're just going to have to wipe it [Albania] out," US General Thomas Power remarked at the 1960 SIOP planning conference, as quoted by MacKenzie.However, the Kennedy administration introduced significant changes to the plan, insisting that the US military should avoid targeting Soviet cities and had to focus on the rival's nuclear forces alone. In 1962 the SIOP was modified but still it was acknowledged that the nuclear strike could lead to the death of millions of peaceful civilians.