Chris Spencer

Some atrocities of World War II are the most recalled overall. Still, the nature of its atrocities is in the details—details that have been officially covered up, repressed, or just plain denied. Nazi Germany's and Imperial Japan's human experimentation were no deviations but the natural consequence of ideologies that dehumanized millions in their quest for scientific and military supremacy. These X-ray, microwave, drug, and psychological "Mind Kontrol" manipulation experiments were not conducted on the battlefields and concentration camps of Europe and Asia only. They continued into the post-war period, where they were continued under the aegis of the United States government via OSS/CIA Operation Paperclip and its less famous (MKUltra, MKNaomi, MKArtichoke) siblings. MK is Germanic for Mind Kontrol, a tenet of the Far Right.

This essay will go further and more in-depth into such atrocities, revealing the scope of the complicity of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in concealing war criminals. It will provide a longer list of the Japanese, German, and other scientists who provided sanctuary in the United States and a more specific description of their atrocities. The essay will also delve into the early experiments under Operation Paperclip, which will unlock the lesser-known aspects of this operation and how it led to the establishment of right-wing ultra-nationalism in the United States. Finally, it will make more direct comparisons between the ultra-nationalist agendas of yesterday and today, up to and including the rise of figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and the ominous Project 2025.

The Scientists: War Criminals Given Safe Haven in the United States

1. Shiro Ishii: Ishii commanded Unit 731 and conducted depraved, inhumane experiments on Chinese and Allied POWs: vivisections, frostbite experiments, and biological warfare. In exchange for their research, Ishii and his scientists were provided immunity from post-war War Crimes prosecution by the United States. Ishii's experiments with plague-infected fleas and other biological substances were used directly by the U.S. Military in its germ warfare program.


2. Josef Mengele: Nicknamed the "Angel of Death" at Auschwitz, Mengele conducted horrific experiments on twins and other prisoners. Mengele escaped to South America because Nazi sympathizers aided him with deep U.S. intelligence connections. American eugenics programs were significantly bolstered by Mengele's genetics and heredity research.


3. Hubertus Strughold: The "father of space medicine," Strughold experimented on the effects of high-altitude oxygen deprivation among prisoners in Dachau concentration camps. Strughold was given haven in the United States as part of Operation Paperclip and was a major player in NASA's early space program. Strughold's experiments on vacuum, hypoxia, and extreme cold effects on the human body in America were exact replicas of his Nazi experiments.


4. Kurt Blome: Nazi scientist who tested Bubonic Plague (Black Plague) vaccines on concentration camp inmates. The CIA recruited Blome to create biological weapons for the American Military. His human experimentation on the aerosolized pathogen area was greatly sought after by the U.S. Government.


5. Ryoichi Naito: Japanese scientist who operated under Ishii at Unit 731. Naito also continued conducting biological warfare tests in the United States under CIA haven. Naito's experiments with biological warfare using Anthrax and other biological weapons were adopted directly by the U.S. military.


6. Walter Schreiber: High-ranking Nazi medical human experimentation officer Schreiber was brought to America under Paperclip but later discovered and deported. The U.S. Army was deeply interested in Schreiber's work on typhus and other infectious diseases.


7. Klaus Barbie: "The Butcher of Lyon," Barbie was a Gestapo officer who tortured and killed members of the French Resistance. The CIA used Barbie as an intelligence asset to monitor French communists. The U.S. used Barbie's counter-insurgency methods in their Latin American coup d’état campaigns.


8. Arthur Rudolph: A V1 and V2 rocket motor engineer who used slave labor at Mittelwerk, Rudolph was given haven in America and managed the construction of the Saturn V rocket. NASA explicitly used Rudolph's rocket propulsion technology.


9. Hermann Becker-Freyseng: Becker-Freyseng conducted high-altitude research on prisoners at Dachau. He was imported to the U.S. and worked in aviation and space medicine. The U.S. Air Force capitalized on his hypoxia and other high-altitude research.


10. Siegfried Ruff: Another Nazi scientist who conducted high-altitude testing; Ruff was also brought into the U.S. on Project Paperclip. The U.S. Navy directly garnered his work on underwater decompression sickness (The Bends).


11. Yoshio Shinozuka: Unit 731 member Shinozuka tested positive for the Black Plague and other highly infectious diseases. The U.S. sheltered Shinozuka in exchange for his information, and the U.S. military directly adopted Shinozuka's biological warfare research.


12. Heinrich Rupp: Nazi pilot and German intelligence officer. The U.S. CIA hired Rupp to conduct clandestine operations in Europe. The U.S. Air Force Reconnaissance garnered the aerial surveillance ability of Heinrich Rupp.


13. Hans Eisele: A Nazi human experimentation "doctor," Eisele conducted experiments on prisoners at Buchenwald. The CIA recruited Eisele to help develop psychological warfare (MK Ultra and FBI Cointelpro). The U.S. Army used Eisele's human experimentation on stress and fatigue directly.


14. Erich Traub: Virologist and Nazi "doctor" who was a biological warfare inventor and was recruited by the CIA to research animal diseases that infect humans (like Anthrax and Ebola). The U.S. Department of Agriculture utilized Traub's research on foot-and-mouth disease.


15. Otto Ambros: Nazi chemist who assisted the USA in the development of synthetic rubber and nerve gas; Ambros was recruited to direct chemical warfare research for the CIA. The U.S. Army immediately capitalized on Ambros' skill at chemical synthesis.

Operation Paperclip and NAZI DARPA

These 15 and more) "Scientists" (War Criminals) were instrumental in monumentally shifting both Democrats and Republicans far to the Right of Center politically. All were given homes, cars, and high-paying salaries in America, handsomely rewarded for being World War II War Criminals. America, in this process, shifted itself far to the Paranoid, Fascist-Nationalist Right.

Early Project Paperclip Experiments: The Lesser-Known Horrors

While the overall shape of Operation Paperclip is well documented, early experiments conducted by these scientists in the U.S. are not. Among the worst was continued human experimentation, at times under the guise of medical research. Hubertus Strughold's space medicine experiments at Brooks Air Force Base, for example, involved subjecting human test subjects to temperatures of extreme cold, not unlike his Dachau experiments. Kurt Blome's biological warfare research at Fort Detrick involved testing pathogens on unknowing populations in America and elsewhere.

The CIA's MKULTRA program, the offspring of these early experiments, brought human experimentation to new heights of perversion. MKULTRA, under Sidney Gottlieb, sought to develop mind-control techniques through the application of drugs, hypnosis, and psychological torture. Two of the most infamous sub-projects were MKNAOMI, the development of biological agents to carry out assassinations, and MKARTICHOKE, the utilization of hypnosis and drugs to interrogate prisoners.

The Rise of Ultra-Nationalism: From Hitler and Hirohito to Trump and Musk

The ideologies of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito did not die with the close of World War II. Instead, they were resurrected in the United States, where the CIA and other intelligence organizations gave haven to the designers of these regimes. Operation Paperclip was not just a scientific endeavor; it was political, aimed at utilizing the ultra-nationalist ideologies of these scientists for U.S. purposes in the Cold War.

It is possible to trace the ultra-nationalist trajectory in America from the time these scientists arrived in the 1940s through the rise of the John Birch Society in the 1950s, the Tea Party movement in the 2000s, and the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Trump's presidency, with its accommodation of authoritarianism and white nationalism, can be seen as the apotheosis of this decades-long history. Similarly, the rise of Elon Musk, who has been linked to far right-wing figures and whose ideology sped up ultra-nationalist discourse, is a new turn in the saga.

DOGE and Operation Paperclip: The New Flavor of Ultra-Nationalism

The rise of cryptocurrencies, in particular DOGE, needs to be understood as a modern manifestation of the same ultra-nationalist ideologies that powered Operation Paperclip. In the same way that the United States government worked to harness the scientific expertise of Nazi and Japanese war criminals, the government has worked to harness the technological expertise of individuals like Elon Musk. Musk's enthusiasm for DOGE, which originated in far-right internet forums, is a form of ultra-nationalism, new but concealed behind the Iron Curtain of techno-transformation but fueled by the same ideologies that gave rise to Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito.

Jeremy Scahill and Blackwater/Xe: Privatizing Ultra-Nationalism

Jeremy Scahill's investigative work on Blackwater (now Xe Services) reveals another part of the ultra-nationalist spectrum. Blackwater, the mercenary force established by Erik Prince, was the height of the privatization of war and the erosion of state sovereignty. Scahill's book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army documents how the company operated above the law, conducting extrajudicial killings and other crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prince, an ultra-right ideologue close to the Trump administration, is the modern equivalent of the ultra-nationalist ideologies that Operation Paperclip nurtured. His uncontrollable power and privatized concept of war is a direct linear descendant of the ideologies that drove the Nazi and Japanese war machines.

Scahill further refers to the close relationship with the American intelligence elite. Blackwater recruited most of its staff from ex-CIA officials and Special Forces, creating a revolving door between private and public security. Initiating an effacement of the public/private divide, too, is typical of the ultra-nationalist agenda, in which power is vested in the hands of tiny, unaccountable elites.

JSTOR and the Scholarly Record

The scholarly record, as reflected in JSTOR, provides us with further evidence of the intimate connection between Operation Paperclip and MKULTRA and the rise of ultra-nationalism in America. For example, John Marks wrote an article in The Journal of American History in 2007, "The Search for the 'Manchurian Candidate': The CIA and Mind Control," discussing CIA mind control and hypnosis experimentation and the degree to which these programs were based on Nazi and Japanese research. Marks writes, "The CIA's MKULTRA program was not an isolated anomaly; it was one part of a general pattern of official violence and experimentation traceable through World War II."

A second JSTOR article, written by Linda Hunt in The International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence and titled "U.S. Coverup of Nazi Scientists," is a detailed description of how the U.S. government systematically shielded Nazi war criminals from justice. Like Hunt, "The recruitment of Nazi scientists under Operation Paperclip was not merely an instance of scientific opportunism; it was a deliberate effort to utilize the ideologies of the Third Reich in the Cold War."

The Legacy of Operation Paperclip and the Future of Ultra-Nationalism

The legacy of Operation Paperclip is that of ideological contamination and moral compromise. By offering sanctuary to war criminals, the U.S. government not only behaved in violation of the same principles for which it allegedly fought but choreographed the rise of ultra-nationalism in America. The parallels between the past and present ultra-nationalist movements are undeniable, from the rise of Donald Trump to the reign of Elon Musk. In the future, it is required that we confront this legacy, lest we be condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The rise of Donald Trump and Elon Musk foreshadows a disturbing development toward a new kind of American fascism, one that aligns authoritarian populism, corporate oligarchy, and technological supremacy. The Trump presidency, with its open promotion of white nationalism, disdain for democratic convention, and blatant disrespect for political institutions, has provided a manual on how authoritarianism can flourish under populist guise. His rhetoric, founded upon fear-mongering, polarization, and scapegoating, was reminiscent of the playbook of 20th-century fascist leaders even as he sought to undermine the foundations of democratic government.

Musk, however, embodies a more insidious form of ultra-nationalism—one that marries Silicon Valley aspiration to right-wing politics. With his promotion of cryptocurrencies like DOGE, born from the womb of far-right internet subcultures, Musk has developed a public image that blurs the lines between capitalist tech billionaire and political influencer. Musk's forays into space, AI, and surveillance techs foretell a tomorrow where corporate elites like him will have unprecedented control over society, with a stranglehold on both economy and means of information to push their agenda.

This coming together of Trump's authoritarian populism and Musk's technocratic ambition foretells a dystopian future of America, where the power of the state is undermined at the expense of monopolistic corporations and nationalist agendas. They are the apotheosis of decades of right-wing extremism that has polluted the American political process, a new kind of fascism under the guise of "Making America Great Again" through grabbing power, muzzling dissent, and gutting democratic institutions while masking its authoritarian drive with the veil of technological advancement and economic strength. Making America Fascist Again.

Japanese and Nazi War Crimes, Human Experimentation, and the Emergence of CIA-Fomented Ultra-Right-Nationalism

References

• Biddiscombe, P. (2001). The Denazification of Germany: A History 1945-1950. Tempus Publishing.


• Harris, S. H. (1994). Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-1945, and the American Coverup. Routledge.


• Hunt, L. (1991). Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990. St. Martin's Press.


• Marks, J. (1979). The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control. Times Books.


• Scahill, J. (2007). Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Nation Books.


• Simpson, C. (1988). Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.


• Weindling, P. (2004). Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials: From Medical War Crimes to Informed Consent. Palgrave Macmillan.

© 2025 Chris Spencer

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