Erlangen 2026 – scientific programme

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GP: Fachverband Geschichte der Physik

GP 6: Physics and People

GP 6.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 18, 2026, 12:00–12:30, KH 02.019

Women physicists and technicians in the Paperclip Program — •Johannes-Geert Hagmann — Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany

At the end of World War II, national interest programs for the evacuation and immigration of specialist scientist from Germany, Austria and other countries to the USA were born. These initiatives were designated by the names of Project Paperclip, Project 63 and Defense Scientist Immigration Program (DEFSIP). They operated over a time period of more than 20 years from 1945 to the end of the 1960s. While a significant body of historical literature has described these programs in their globality, the role of the small cohort of women scientists and technicians has so far been overlooked. In this contribution, we reconstruct and highlight selected biographies of women physicists and technicians in the Paperclip program, adding to a transnational historical perspective of migration of scientists from Europe to the USA in the early Cold War period.

Keywords: Cold War; Project Paperclip; Women scientists and technicians