This is a story about clandestine operations, international intrigue, and jealously guarded
secrets.
It’s about engineering marvels and technological nightmares.
It’s a big story.
But it stars very, very small...inside a cigar box full of letters.
Melinda Hess is a filmmaker who came across letters her father had written in 1946.
Her father, Sanford Hess, died in 1989.
But in 1946 he was a young private in the US Army, deployed to Fort Bliss, Texas and
corresponding with his parents back in New York City.
The War was over, and Sandy Hess, a promising young mechanical engineer, found himself stationed
deep in the Southwest working on….something.
Here’s Melinda.
I didn’t know very much about my father’s time in the military.
I knew that he was an engineer, and i knew he had not seen any quote “action” in
World War II.
And I had a vague awareness that he was in New Mexico.
The letters from Fort Bliss bore an address that piqued Melinda’s curiosity: Ordnance
Research & Development Sub-Office (Rocket).
So I started going through the letters…and I started reading them out loud, and there
were various names coming through.
A few things kept recurring: Germans.
Wernher von Braun.
Engineers.White Sands Missile Range.
Jewish.
V-two.
So, Melinda began to read about it all.
...and as I began to google and do some more research, I was completely blown away by what
was revealed.
The V-2 in those letters was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile…and
it was developed by Nazi Germany.
The V2, which in German stands for “Retribution Weapon 2”, rained down on allied cities,
chiefly London, and killed thousands of civilians.
The missile also took its toll on German soil: the Nazis used concentration camp labor to
build the V2s, and thousands of prisoners died in the process.
Nightmarish as it was, the V-2 represented some seriously advanced technology...and when
Germany fell in 1945, the United States went to great lengths to recover it.
In the years following the war, the US military’s “Operation Paperclip” brought more than
100 German scientists and engineers to America, most notably V-2 project architect Wernher
von Braun.
They also imported literal trainloads of rocket components.
Overall, the project was an American effort to develop Nazi tech, on American soil, for
American gain .
And that is what a young Sandy Hess describes in all those letters.
Reading them gave Melinda a very personal look at a secretive and pivotal project.
Here’s one passage, read by Melinda:
I will be the only American engineer in the test section.
I will work with the Germans on the tests and write reports, etc....They call themselves
“prisoners of peace” and are treated very well.
I will work under a dr.
Schilling and with about 15 others.
What a crazy set-up!
And there’s one other detail that makes this all the crazier still: Melinda is Jewish.
Her father, Private Sandy Hess, was Jewish.
And his letters reveal more than a little discomfort about working with Germans:
The major asked me if I had any animosity towards them, and I truthfully answered “yes.”
He explained that he feels the same way, but I must realize that they are working for the
U.S. Government and I must treat them like co-workers.
And that’s exactly what he did.
In the letters Sandy describes befriending and working well with his German colleagues...though
at the time, none of them could know how historic their work would become.
Under American direction, the V-2 program evolved, splintered, and eventually led to
the Saturn family of rockets...the very same rockets that sent Apollo astronauts to the
Moon.
Meaning that lots of Project Paperclip scientists, including Wernher von Braun, ultimately ended
up working for NASA.
In short, our space program owes a lot to a careful collaboration between ex-Nazis and
American Jews.
Back in the present, Melinda is the filmmaker in residence at the Jewish Film Institute
in San Francisco.
She’s producing a big documentary project about her father and his involvement in Project
Paperclip.
And when she’s done, all the letters in that little cigar box will end up in national
archives.
Personal as they are, they help tell the story of a world finding its equilibrium again after
years of violence and fear.
The Germans certainly treat me wonderfully, and with the greatest respect.
(I wonder how they would act if they knew I was Jewish, or do they) Anyway, they are
certainly a brilliant group and I am very enthused about my work.
So, here at DNews we’re on a real military history kick - and if you are too, check out
this video about the crazy Cold War communications network that helped the US guard against a
Soviet North Pole sneak attack!
And if you want even more space history, check out my channel, Vintage Space!
And as always, thanks for watching.