After an enemy nation is defeated, the victor typically seeks to benefit under the adage “to the victor belong the spoils.” For example, Hitler committed suicide in April 1945 just as the European theater in World War II was ending in an Allied victory. The U.S. and the Soviet Union then began a furious attempt to grab as many German scientists who worked on nerve gas and V-1 and V-2 rockets for the Nazi regime.
The U.S. government brought many of those scientists to the United States through a government program called “Operation Paperclip.” Some of those scientists worked on the “Manhattan Project” that led to the development of the atomic bomb.
The U.S. also recruited members of the defunct Nazi intelligence organizations because of their experience conducting espionage operations against the Soviets. The American military, the CIA, the FBI and other agencies used at least 1,000 former Nazis and collaborators as spies and informants after the war.
John Fox, the FBI’s chief historian, said: “In hindsight, it is clear that [FBI Director J. Edgar] Hoover, and by extension the F.B.I., was shortsighted in dismissing evidence of ties between recent German and East European immigrants and Nazi war crimes. It should be remembered, though, that this was at the peak of Cold War tensions.”
Germany and Other Governments Collapse after Berlin Wall Falls
In October 1989, East Germany’s Communist Party General Secretary Erich Honecker resigned. On November 9, the Berlin Wall that had divided East and West Germany since 1961 was torn down.
The newly unified German Federal Republic was formally announced on October 3, 1990. A few weeks later, the Ministry of Justice issued an arrest warrant for Honecker for his role in the numerous killings that had taken place at the Berlin Wall.
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