Operation Surgeon was a British post-
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
programme to exploit German
aeronautics
Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight–capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. The British Royal Aeronautical Society identif ...
and deny German technical skills to the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
.
A list of 1,500 German scientists and technicians was created, with the goal of forcibly removing them from Germany ("whether they like it or not") to lessen the risk of their falling into enemy hands. It was feared that if they remained in Germany, they could enable the Soviet Union to "achieve a long range bomber force superior to any other in the world".
"UK 'fears' over German scientists"
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
UK 31 March 2006
At the operation's inception, many of the scientists had already offered their services to British Commonwealth countries, Sweden, Switzerland, Brazil and South America, and regarded working for the Soviet Union as a last resort, should they be prevented from working in Germany and unable to find employment elsewhere in the west.
Of the scientists relocated from 1946-1947, 100 chose to work for the UK.
British records of the operation were made public in 2006.
See also
* T-Force
* Similar (but separate) attempts to remove German technical information and personnel after the war were:
** Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...
- US removal of German rocketry experts and materials.
** TICOM (cryptography)
** Operation Alsos (nuclear weapons)
** Operation Osoaviakhim
Notes and references
;Notes
;Bibliography
Further reading
* Matthew Uttley ''"Operation 'Surgeon' and Britain's post-war exploitation of Nazi German aeronautics''", Intelligence and National Security, Volume 17, Number 2, June 2002, pp. 1-26(26) Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
* John Gimbel, ''Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany'' Stanford University Press, 1990
* Matthias Judt; Burghard Ciesla, ''Technology Transfer Out of Germany After 1945'' Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996.
* John Gimbel
U.S. Policy and German Scientists: The Early Cold War
', Political Science Quarterly
''Political Science Quarterly'' is an American double blind peer-reviewed academic journal covering government, politics, and policy, published since 1886 by the Academy of Political Science. Its editor-in-chief is Robert Y. Shapiro (Columbia Un ...
, Vol. 101, No. 3 (1986), pp. 433–451
External links
Employment of German scientists and technicians: denial policy
UK National archives releases March 2006.
Dark side of the Moon
BBC article.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Surgeon, Operation
Surgeon
Surgeon
Soviet Union–United Kingdom relations