<small>[[Operation Paperclip]] | [[Nuremberg Trials]] | [[WW II]] | [[Nazi Germany (Third Reich)]] | [[MK Ultra]] | [[CIA]] </small> # Nazi Biological Warfare Chief Who Escaped Gallows for CIA Work **Kurt Blome** (January 31, 1894 – October 10, 1969): High-ranking Nazi scientist, **Deputy Reich Health Leader** and **Plenipotentiary for Cancer Research**—positions that were **cover for directing Nazi Germany's entire biological warfare program**. Tried at Nuremberg, **mysteriously acquitted**, then hired by CIA and U.S. Army Chemical Corps. ## Nazi Career: "Cancer Research" as Bioweapons Cover **Positions**: Deputy Surgeon General Third Reich, Vice President Reich Physicians' League. Reported directly to **Hermann Göring and/or Heinrich Himmler**. **Real work** (starting 1943): **Assumed responsibility for ALL biological warfare research sponsored by Wehrmacht and SS**. Code name: **"Blitzableiter" (Lightning Rod)**. **Posen Institute** (central Poland): Built as "cancer research" facility—**actually camouflaged biological warfare production center**. Surrounded by **10-foot wall, guarded by special SS unit**, designed prevent accidental pathogen release. Received **2.7+ million Reichsmarks 1943-45** from Wehrmacht/SS. **Research overseer**: Karl I. Gross—SS officer, tropical disease specialist who **conducted lethal experiments on 1,700 Mauthausen prisoners**. ## The Experiments: Weaponizing Plague, Nerve Gas, Insects **Human experimentation**: - **Infected prisoners with plague** to test vaccines - **Tested nerve agents Tabun and Sarin on Auschwitz prisoners** - **Spread malaria via mosquitoes dropped from planes**—"artificial mass transmission" - **Infected with lice to cause typhus epidemics** (Dachau, Buchenwald) - **Soviet POWs used as test subjects** **Insect warfare**: Collaborated with Eduard May (SS Institute Entomological Division)—October 1943 commission for **"humanly harmful insects"** experiments on prisoners. **Animal disease weapons**: Worked with Erich Traub (Riems Island Institute) developing **foot-and-mouth disease, Rinderpest** to spread via aircraft over Britain, U.S., Soviet Union. **Targets**: Methods to **weaponize plague, cholera, anthrax, typhoid** with aerosol dispersants and aircraft spraying. **Himmler's special interest**: **Weaponizing plague**—ordered Blome to experiment on concentration camp prisoners testing vaccine efficacy. ## Nuremberg: The Mysterious Acquittal **May 1945**: Arrested Munich by U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps after fleeing Posen research center. **1947 Doctors' Trial**: Charged with **euthanasia (exterminating sick prisoners) and human experimentation**. **Blome's admission**: Only admitted he'd been **ordered in 1943 to experiment with plague vaccines on prisoners**—vastly understated actual program. **Verdict: ACQUITTED**—despite well-documented crimes. **Why?**: **"American intervention saved Blome from gallows in exchange for information about biological warfare"**—U.S. wanted his expertise for **American chemical/biological weapons programs**. ## Operation Paperclip: From War Criminal to CIA Asset **November 1947** (two months after acquittal): **Four Fort Detrick representatives interviewed Blome**—he **"identified biological warfare experts and their location, described different methods conducting biological warfare."** **Employment**: - **Hired by Sidney Gottlieb** to work on **CIA's MKUltra program** (human experimentation) - **1951: Hired by U.S. Army Chemical Corps** under **Project 63** (Operation Paperclip successor) to work chemical warfare - **Personnel file neglected to mention Nuremberg** - **Denied visa by U.S. Consul Frankfurt**—employed instead at **European Command Intelligence Center, Oberursel, West Germany** - **Certified by U.S. High Commissioner John McCloy**: **"Not likely to become security threat to US"** **Camp King** (northwest Frankfurt): U.S. Army interrogation center/intelligence post. **After Walter Schreiber (former Surgeon General Third Reich) secretly brought to U.S., Blome filled his position as chief medical doctor**—running **clandestine enhanced interrogation program**. **Activities at Camp King 1946-late 1950s**: **"Never been fully accounted for by Department of Defense or CIA"**—classified operations remain secret. ## Later Life: Right-Wing Activism in West Germany Returned to **practicing medicine in West Germany**. **Remained active in right-wing Germany Party until death 1969**. Worked on **secret projects for American government** throughout post-war period. **Never faced consequences** for human experimentation, weaponizing diseases, testing nerve gas on prisoners, spreading typhus/malaria epidemics in concentration camps. ## The Moral Calculus **What U.S. knew**: Letters found by Operation Alsos between Blome, Dr. Haagen, Dr. August Hirt discussing **"need for more human subjects in better condition"**. Instructions from Blome to Hirt researching **mustard gas effects on "living organisms"**—Americans believed were humans, not animals as Nazis claimed. **Blome's own statement** during interrogation: _"I cannot approve of the way new advances in medical science have been used for atrocities. [As deputy surgeon general] I observed new scientific studies and experiments which led to later atrocities, e.g. **mass sterilization, gassing of Jews**."_ **Despite this admission**: U.S. **intervened at Nuremberg to ensure acquittal**, then immediately hired him. ## Legacy: Justice Denied for Biological Warfare Expertise **Bottom line**: Kurt Blome directed Nazi Germany's biological weapons program, infected concentration camp prisoners with plague/typhus/malaria, tested nerve gas on Auschwitz inmates, developed methods to weaponize diseases for mass deployment—**and was rewarded with CIA employment on MKUltra and Army Chemical Corps contracts**. His acquittal at Nuremberg **"mysterious"** only if one doesn't understand U.S. prioritized his biological warfare knowledge over accountability for crimes against humanity. Like Wernher von Braun with rockets and Hubertus Strughold with space medicine, **Blome represents Operation Paperclip's core trade**: **grant war criminals immunity in exchange for expertise to use against Soviets**. Died 1969, never punished, **U.S. government shielding him from justice for 22 years**. His victims—prisoners infected with plague, burned with nerve gas, deliberately sickened with typhus—**received no justice because American government valued his knowledge of how to kill with diseases more than moral accountability for his crimes**.