Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America

by Annie Jacobsen

“I climbed up the stairs, located room 30 and let myself in with the key he had given me. It was an ordinary hotel room,” remembers Dolibois, “with rather noisy wallpaper.” Inside, the fancy light fixtures and plush furniture of a grand hotel had been replaced by a folding table, two chairs, and an army cot. Dolibois unpacked his duffel bag. There was a knock on the door. Ashcan may have been heavily fortified on the exterior, but inside the facility, the prisoners were free to roam around. Dolibois opened the door and stood face-to-face with a large man dressed in a ratty pearl-gray uniform with gold braids on the collars and gold insignia on the shoulder pads. He held a pair of trousers draped over one arm. Clicking his heels, he nodded and introduced himself as if he were at a party, not in a prison. The man opened his mouth and barked, “Göring, Reichsmarschall!” So this was Hermann Göring. Dolibois recognized him immediately from so many screenings of Triumph of the Will. Here was the man in flesh and blood. Göring was arguably the most notorious of Hitler’s inner circle still alive. Former commander in chief of the Luftwaffe. Director of the Four Year Plan. Hitler’s long-acknowledged successor until the perceived betrayal at the very end. It was Hermann Göring who ordered security police chief Reinhard Heydrich to organize and coordinate plans for a “solution to the Jewish question.” “At once I understood my assignment,” recalled Dolibois. He was here in Luxembourg to...