Talk:Operation Paperclip

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Klong5.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Neutral countries

Hi. The part of the introduction that says "The project was not initially targeted against the Soviet Union; rather the concern was that German scientists might emigrate and continue their research in countries such as Spain, Argentina or Egypt, all of which had sympathized with Nazi Germany." does not match what reference 8 says, which is used to justify that sentence there and when it is repeated in the "Capture and detention" section (the other reference used I couldn´t find to read it). In the CIA reference used it talks about neutral countries without specifying which ones, when it mentions Spain, Argentina or Egypt it also says Sweden, Portugal and Turkey to talk about gold and saying that those countries in general cooperated to recover it (marked with the number 58 in the source). I was wondering if it was possible to replace the incomplete list of countries by the term "neutral countries" which is the one used in the reference to talk about Project SAFEHAVEN. Verent (talk) 22:21, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: ENG 21011 Research Writing

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 August 2023 and 17 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Casphodel23, Alainasayre (article contribs). Peer reviewers: JhaStudent, Mbaumg12, Elliot.bw25.

— Assignment last updated by Wordnerd104 (talk) 23:04, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello all, I wanted to introduce myself before I make any edits. My partner and I are planning on clarifying the "scientific achievements" part of this article to make it more specific. Thank you for having us. Casphodel23 (talk) 21:14, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Not a huge fan of the last sentence in the lead

To get that out of the way, it reads like it's AI-generated - I don't know if it is - but that's not my main problem with it.

I don't disagree with the claim, per se, it's just that it feels oddly unencyclopedic, and out of place, compared to the rest of the lead section, and the article as a whole. It's got a very essay-like style to it: rather than being based on facts or events, it's a philosophical commentary that smacks of subjective thoughts on the operation; it doesn't, as far as I can see at least, seem to be based on any of the factual information contained in the article, instead making an ideological judgement on the situation; and, because it isn't sourced (and it's not in quotes), it's not even possible to justify its inclusion as one author's view of the events.

To wit, while I'm sure it's possible to argue the article justifies the overall view that Paperclip "blends scientific achievement and ethical controversy" (although it'd be better if it was attributed to people having made that assessment, rather than our article just saying that's what it does), the subsequent part ("reflecting the challenges of reconciling the pursuit of knowledge against values of justice and human rights") is quite literally impossible to characterize as anything but a subjective commentary on these questions, and one which is currently made in wiki voice. Never even mind the fact that it's not shown how "values of justice and human rights" specifically are linked to Operation Paperclip, the idea that this hypothetical reconciliation faces "challenges" is a vague assertion that doesn't rely on factual information or events and is just based on, presumably, the personal opinion of whoever wrote this phrase in this article.

It would be much better written, in my mind, as something like: "The operation's legacy has been the source of much discussion and debate; while the scientific achievements derived from it are widely acknowledged, controversy about its ethical implications, particularly with regards to how questions of justice and human rights should be integrated within the pursuit of knowledge, remains prevalent". This would remain in the realm of surmising how sources discuss the operation, be based on facts and discussions actually taking place rather than on some unsourced subjective opinion about the matter, and be overall more appropriate for Wikipedia's usual tone. However, it would still necessitate the content of the article itself reflecting this, per WP:MOSLEAD, which as of right now doesn't look, to me, to be the case.

As such, I'm removing this sentence as an unsourced, POV, essay-like addition. I replaced it with the less specific take that the operation's legacy is, in general, controversial, without going into grand ideas of "justice" or "human rights", something which can be justified via the "Controversies" section in my eyes (and otherwise the lead ends very abruptly and strangely). I'm not inherently opposed to adding the original sentence back in, of course - anyone is welcome to argue why that should be the case here. LaughingManiac (talk) 15:44, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Not sure what the sentence was when you were referring to it but I just edited, it said "Most were former members and leaders of the Nazi Party"; the article only mentions several as having had party membership and none were in a leadership role of any kind it was grossly misleading. Historian932 (talk) 12:06, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

So, I'm no expert on history, and don't know enough about the specifics of Operation Paperclip to make any definitive calls based on my personal experience. In any case, we need to stick to what reliable sources say for this, and I appreciate you notifying me of this change.

I don't have access to the published books in the sources list (if you do, that'd be helpful), but as based on the other sources in the "References" as well as "Further reading" sections - this archived article by the NY Times, about Annie Jacobsen's book, is very helpful in particular - you do seem to be correct that the notion any of these scientists were "leaders" of the Party is false. Some of them seem to have had high-ranking engineering roles, and a few were SS officers, but none seem to have had high ranking in the Party itself. The closest suggestion to that end is that a few were tried at Nuremberg prior to Paperclip, but not all of the people on trial there were high-ranking Party members. I also agree that the idea "most" were card-carrying members of the Nazi Party doesn't seem supported by what the sources actually say.

However, I take issue with the word "some", as while it's technically true it suggests to the reader a sparser amount of people than what was the case. According to the above-mentioned article:

"Jacobsen tracks 21 of these Nazi scientists and technicians. Eight of her subjects had worked directly with Hitler, Himmler or Göring; 15 were active Nazi Party members; 10 served in paramilitary squads like the SA and SS; and six were tried at Nuremberg. A few familiar figures pop up, including several pioneers in space exploration — Wernher von Braun, Hubertus Strughold, Walter Dornberger and Arthur Rudolph." (Emphasis mine.)

With this in mind, I have changed the word to "several", in line with the later "Several of the Paperclip scientists were later investigated because of their links with the Nazi Party during the war" from the Controversies section in the body of the article. Please discuss if you wish to revert. LaughingManiac (talk) 16:37, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I've added a phrase "confirmed to be". Firstly this is literally what we have in the case of the Jacobsen book. Secondly, I think it avoids a bit of making statements about the general population of the paperclip scientists. I mean, at a minimum we have the 15, so that's "several", but you could also suppose that 21 is a representative subset of the scientists in which case 71% of the scientists, i.e. over a thousand of them, which is quite a lot more than what a casual reader would regard as "several". It might not be quite that high but given what we know of Nazi control of academia it probably was a significant proportion. The reality is that we don't have information on the vast majority of these scientists. Fangz (talk) 09:45, 4 December 2024 (UTC)