The Nazi aerospace exodus: towards a global, transnational history

Abstract

The exodus of Third Reich scientific and engineering personnel after World War II has traditionally been understood through its impact on the Cold War missile and space race. This article assesses the state of scholarship on this topic globally, particularly in aerospace professions, in the process drawing some conclusions on the total numbers, skill composition and Nazi backgrounds of the Germans, the stages of movement, and the technological impact of their movement. Such an assessment not only demonstrates the geographical weaknesses in existing knowledge, notably in the scholarship on Britain, France and much of the Third World, but it also points us towards a global, transnational history of the phenomenon, as cross-border flows of people, information, and technology grew beyond the bounds of the victorious powers’ national programs for exploiting German knowledge.