Do Go On - 415 - Operation Paperclip

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

This week we talk about the controversial Operation Paperclip, a post World War II secret United States intelligence program that sponsored German scientists to immigrate to the USA. On paper, any Nazis or war criminals were to be excluded... but just how true would that be? This is the first episode of Block 2023!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 07:52 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodSupport the show on Apple podcasts and get bonus episodes in the app: http://apple.co/dogoon Live show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/ Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/ Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.  REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4443934.stmhttps://www.npr.org/2014/02/15/275877755/the-secret-operation-to-bring-nazi-scientists-to-americahttps://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/project-paperclip-and-american-rocketry-after-world-war-iihttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/08/hitler-germany-campaign-collapsed#:~:text=Ordinary%20Germans%20knew%20by%20the,war%20for%20varieties%20of%20defeatismhttps://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/chasing-moon-wernher-von-braun-and-nazis/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serengy Amarna 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.

If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. And welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnikey and, as always, I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. Hello, butt heads. You never know what's going to come after the word hello.

You never know what's going to come up after the word but? Yeah. Was heads this time? I could have said butt lovers. Yeah? She has before and she will again. Hello, butt lovers. Hello, butt lover.

I answer to butt lover. I'm an ass man. I'll tell you that. I'm open about it. Tell you that, no worries. Well, you got the number plate. You're ready to go. Ass man.

I gotta say this. Start a block. How good is it to be alive? Yeah. It feels great. Yeah. For once, I agree. Yeah.

For once? Personally, if I can just be vulnerable for a second, I wish I was never born. Okay. Even during block. Especially during block. Buster. Talk. Off.

Easter, no thank you. Yuck. Other holiday. and sell Halloween, piss off. Piss off. Fourth of July? Yeah. No thanks. Ew.

In comparison, they're all great. Valentine's Day? No, you can stay. That's a beautiful day. Exactly. That's for us. I love love. And Matt loves ass.

Oh, yeah. That's my Valentine's Day. Any day. Any day? See you in a ass. What, do you secretly think to yourself, happy Valentine's Matt? I guess so.

But it's not Valentine's Day. It's not Valentine's Ass day. It's Blockbuster tober, the most special time of the year in the Dugo One calendar. Matt, for people who have no idea what we're talking about, what is Blockbuster Toba in essence? Well, it's basically, well, it was a month, and now it's two months because we've annexed November now Blow Vemba. Blow Buster Vember. And it's the two months where we do the reports that are the most requested and then most voted for. These are the big topics, the blockbusters.

The ones everyone wants. Yeah, none of that crud we've been talking about for the other 45 weeks for the year. This is all open up to a public vote. I think there were, there were, was it 100 or maybe multiple hundred topics that were up for the vote? And we had thousands of voters. I thought it was millions. Well, millions is also a kind of thousands, though. Sorry.

So you were the math go. Well. And anyway, the public has voted. And now we're going to count down the nine most. voted for blockbusterist and blockbuster-rific topics. Starting with number nine. Jess, how do you feel about that? Ten, don't worry about it.

We've got a top nine. I'm upset. I'm very upset about it. Sometimes there's eight, depending on how many weeks we've got. Eight's great. Okay. Nine hurts. Nine is fine.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, let's go with that. No one's fine. Whatever. I'm cool and chill now. You know, I don't care about numbers and... Yeah, you just wish you were never born. I just wish I was never born.

That's just a general vibe I have at all times. You like three, right? There's three of us. Yep. Three threes is nine. It's a beautiful number. Wow. Three each.

Great. Okay. I like that. Hmm. We might be stuffing that up with a guest next week, but anyway. Yeah, that's right. But before we get to that guest, let's do this week's episode. Basically, what we do here is we're taking turns to report on a topic, often suggested by one of listeners.

We go away, do a bit of research and bring it back to the group. And that is what I've done this week. it's a bit different with Block because we all see the top nine sort of get divvied up a bit. Can I be honest with you, Dave? I can't remember what it is. You've got no idea what I'm going to talk. I knew that would be the case. Yes, it is like written down in a spreadsheet somewhere.

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. I've got no idea. I can give you a multiple choice and you still wouldn't get it. I reckon you'll ask a question which should, you know, trigger something in my break. Still won't know. Still won't know. I still have a semi-related question.

The question to get us on the topic this week is... I started a semi from Ars Talk before. All right, question is, what was the name of the paperclip that used to offer advice in Microsoft Word? Oh, Clippy. Bing! Is it? That's inspired stuff. That was the first draft.

For me, and also, I'm guessing, whatever the Microsoft guys name is. His name was Clippy. Bill Banks. Bill Banks. Bill? Bill. Not Bill Bryson. Is it Bill?

Is it Bill? Is it Bill? Is it Bill? Is it Bill? Bill. Bill. Okay, I'm going through, like a doorway through a fence. Oh, Bill Gate.

Bill Gate. Bilgate. That was a controversy involving counterfeit money. Bill Gate. Clippy is right and... Oh, now I vaguely remember what this is. Which is kind of related to the name of this episode. Yeah.

Before we get to that, let's talk a bit about Clippy. Okay. What if I told you, that little guy whom Time magazine, named one of the 50 worst inventions ever. What? It's funny to call him an invention. I guess he is. He was a little aggressive.

But the 50 worst ever? Unbelievable. But he's not the most controversial paperclip, not by a long shot. Although actually, I would like to do a report on Clippy one day. I did a bit of a deep dive into Clippy and there's something there. But today we are talking about Operation Paperclip. Yes.

I mentioned this topic way back on episode seven, apparently, on the Apollo 11 moon landing. And apparently on that app, I said one day we should do this topic. Almost eight years later. Here we are. And in eight more years, I will do Clippy.

I'm committing now. Great. Well, somebody remind us. Because, yeah, this literally was written down in a spreadsheet I was looking at last night. And I forgot. So... Yeah, we need reminders.

We won't remember in eight years. We might be dead. Hold Dave to it. Hmm? Now, this topic was suggested by a bunch of great. people and anyone can suggest a topic at any time. There's a link in the description of this episode. And thank you to Sarah Groom from Worthing in West Sussex,

Becker Mountain from Atlanta. Becker Mountain. Incredible. Jesus. I don't mind if I do. Becker Mountain, I haven't even met the Mountain. There it is. Pick your favourite there. Alexandra Rogers Brassington.

Oh my God. From Hull in the UK. Yes. Alton in Alabama. And Meredith Van B. from Auckland, New Zealand. Take Alton out. And all those names are fantastic.

No, Alton's also great. Alton's a cool name. A beautiful start. Exactly. But the mystery of what comes next. What's the last name? Towers?

Yeah. Alton Towers. Ghostly. By that English theme park? Alton Ghostly. Yeah, I went for, Dave was just making it a bad joke about a theme park. I was having a real attempt at guessing his name.

Ghostly. I think that's it. Yep. Alton Ghostly from Alabama. I think it's Smith. Okay. Yeah, you would hold that back because mystery is better than Smith. No offence to the Smiths.

No offence. Alton Smith still is good. I think nearly any surname with Alton. With Alton. With Alton is going to work. Agreed. What about Alton, Alton? Yeah.

Ooh. Or if it's Alton John. What about Alton-Aprie? Oh, what about Alton-Nating? I don't think that would be good. That wouldn't be good. No. That's the one.

That's the one. Everything else works. Nating. Nating. Is there any name that works with Nating? opinion beautiful man for a boy girl absolutely beautiful

hey Dave please do go on have you even begun no but here I am about to begin let's give a bit of background here World War II ever heard of it vaguely yeah

well as a very brief recap it all kicked off in 1939 and eventually was Germany Italy and Japan against the Allies The world yeah yeah

Gavis says that cool nickname and the Guardian writes that two years into the war in September 1941, German arms seemed to be carrying all before them. Western Europe had been decisively conquered, and there were few signs of any serious resistance to German rule. Look like it was going their way. Then, the Nazis went against political and economic packs they had signed with the Soviet Union and invaded them in the brazen Operation Barbarossa. And they got pretty damn far with that

as well, but, again from the Guardian, quote, the fundamental problem facing Hitler was that Germany simply did not have the resources to fight on so many different fronts at the same time. I mean, you take on the world. That's a big place. Yeah, yeah. That's a lot of fronts. Exactly. Every direction.

So just make a big circle. Oh. Just stand in a really big circle, everybody facing out. And then just slowly. There's only one front. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm starting to think Adolf Hitler was a bit of a bozo. War's actually really easy. Yeah. Yeah. Just circle it. Just make a big circle. Geez. Girl, they're dumb.

Well, from there, they didn't listen to you, just the war really began to turn against the Nazis. The Guardian notes that ordinary Germans knew by the end of 1943 that the war was lost. Terror began to replace a commitment as a means of keeping people fighting on. By early 1943, the German government began recalling from combat a number of scientists, engineers and technicians to work in research and development to bolster German defense for a protracted war with the USSR, and the Germans began developing technology at a remarkable rate.

The whole war has been referred to by some, probably nerds, as the first scientific war, with huge advancements in technology proving decisive to the result. We're talking radar, jet engines, and nuclear weapons were all created or greatly accelerated by the battles. Scientists and engineers played a huge role in the outcome of the war, and in many areas, Nazi Germany possessed technology, that was superior to their enemies, the world.

Okay. Wow. I mean, it almost feels like if they had a few tweaks, they could have been good for the world. You know, look at all these things they've done. The tweaks I'd make would be, you know, getting rid of the Nazi part. Okay, right. And just do the science. Keep the science.

Keep the Volkswagen Beetle. Yeah. Keep fanta. Keep the fashion. Get rid of the war and the killing of people. Yep. Interesting take. Okay.

I yeah personally I love it when he goes political when he says these controversial things and then he emails me at midnight saying please can you edit that out I can't believe I'm it makes people uncomfortable but maybe people need to be made to feel uncomfortable Nazis are bad maybe only in that discomfort can we truly grow honestly I think they did they I don't think they did much good but it sounds like they made a radar

So. Well, Hitler even had his propaganda ministry come up with a term for revolutionary super weapons, known as Wunderwaffe or Wunderweapon. Oh, that's so good. Wunderwaffe. Wunderwaffe. That sounds pretty bad ass, but wonder weapons sounds so silly. Most of these weapons.

You've made some wonder weapons. Check out of our Wunder weapons. Oh, no, I'm terrified. I'm terrified of your. Wunder weapons. No, they've got the better language. I'm going to say that. The Wonderva.

It's a beautiful language. I absolutely love it. Your mother tongue, Dave. What's your favorite phrase? Wunderwaffe? Wunderwaffe. Yeah. It's up there.

That'd be top five. Volkswagen. Yes. Yep. Yep. I love how they don't do Ws. Werner-Durner Derner. Werner, Angela Merkel.

Yes. Ferner Herzog. Oh my God, some of the best names ever. The list goes on, but we just don't have time to list for all the words. I, Berliner. Yes, that's a great one. It's that beautiful German phrase. Famous from a German.

So they had the Wunderwaffe, but most of these weapons, however, remained prototypes, which either never reached the combat theatre, or if they did, were too late in two insignificant numbers to actually have a military effect. A little too little too late from Hitler, okay? But the ideas were there and the technology were still in, development. And on the other side of the fence, the Allies also knew that the war was wrapping up and everyone began making plans for the future. Oh, holidays. It's nice to have something to look forward to. What are you going to do after the war? Yeah. Should we take a trip, maybe hit the beach?

Yeah. I'm thinking if we get a group together, we could hire out like a pretty sick villa in Bali. Oh my gosh. You know, private pool, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Just to like relax a little bit. Maybe with a group booking you, get a free breakfast time in or something you were. Yeah, yeah. I think I saw this place or you can like get like a chef that comes out and cooks for you for a day or something. That'd be really nice. So if we get the Anzac's together. Yeah. Maybe the Americans.

Canadians, they're free? Yeah, yeah. They're invited. We'll just, um, we need a pretty big villa, but yeah, we're going to be nice. Bring up the Wunder chef. Yeah. Are we ready to forgive the Winston Churchill and his lads for sending us into Gallipoli? We could bring them along.

Hmm. I mean, yeah, it's extended invite. Yeah. If they come, they come. Be the bigger man. Yeah, that's right. So as the Allies gain territory and marched across Germany, they attempted to plunder as much equipment and expertise as possible

from the rubble for themselves while preventing others from doing the same. The Soviets, the United States, and to a lesser extent, the British and the French all seized intellectual reparations from Germany. Right. Sort of collecting stuff as they went along. Technically, the USA and Britain were on the same side as the Soviets here. But the truth is that even before the war ended, they were very wary of this new tech getting into Joseph Stalin's Soviet arsenal.

The USA wanted to keep the advantage to themselves in case they went to war with Stalin later on. The range of Germany's technical achievement astounded Allied scientific intelligence experts accompanying the invading forces in 1945. For one, the Allies had no idea that Hitler had created a whole arsenal of nerve agents. The New York Times writes that while searching the IG-Farbon laboratories in the German-Polish border, British soldiers uncovered 175 forested bunkers storing aerial bombs with a powerful organophosphorus nerve agent. They called an American army chemist who tested the chemical

and found that just a drop on the skin would kill a rabbit in one minute. Whoa. And they had 175 bunkers full of the stuff. Fuck. One drop. And they eventually turned that into, a L'Oreal testing facility with similar results.

Just one drop. But it made the rabbit really beautiful. Beautiful. One drop was all. Look at this beautiful corpse. Oh my God. What a beautiful dead rabbit. It's so glossy.

What a beautiful, beautiful look. Oh, lovely coat. Maybe it's Mabeline. No, L'Oreal. Noriel. I said L'Oreel, but that was only the one that I could think of. I don't, I imagine they all kill rabbits.

Do they all still kill rabbits? I don't know if they still do. But back then. But probably. Back then, definitely. Back then, definitely. I loved killing rabbits for beauty. Yeah. The Allies were surprised to find that the Germans had their fingers and many pies in the midst of developing or had already developed, supersonic rockets, nerve gas, jet aircraft, guided missiles, stealth technology, chemical weapons, hardened armor, color photography, and other groundbreaking technologies. Wow. I mean, color photography really pales in comparison to a lot of those other ones, but we're still impressive.

I've made a nerve agent. Well, good for you. I've actually got a new film here that really shows red in a nice way. Which one do you think has been used more since then? Nerve agents. This photograph would kill two rabbits in under a minute. Whoa, if they look at it. That's one of those cursed photos.

In May 1945, Stalin's legions secured the atomic research labs at the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in the... suburbs of Berlin, which the BBC rights would eventually develop and become the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal. So they're all coming along going, I'll have that, I'll have that, you're coming with me, and they're all trying to keep their allies, you know, the people that are actually on the same side of from doing the same. That's for me. That's for me. It's kind of like they've gone to like an outlet mall. They're just shopping. I love that. I'll love that. But it's one of those ones where people are lining up on Boxing Day morning, waiting for it.

And as soon as the boom gates, if you will, lift, people are killing each other to grab a discount. So very much like Black Friday sales. It's killing each other. The Americans formed the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, the JIOA. So gather and review dossiers on hundreds of Nazi scientists and engineers, then recruit the ones deemed useful, move them to the United States, and at least initially, put them to work in the still ongoing war against Japan, and at the same time, make sure that the Soviets didn't get their hands. on the technology.

It really was a race. US forces removed V2 missiles from the vast Nordhausen complex built under the Hartz Mountains in central Germany, just days before the Soviets took over the factory in what would become their area of occupation. So they're just shotgunning stuff left, right and center. Following the soldiers claiming territory, formerly occupied by the Nazis groups such as the combined intelligence objectives

subcommittee, the CIOS. There's many initialisms and acronyms I'm going to tell you here. And I'm going to retain all of them. But they're all set up by Americans, the ones I'm talking about. And they began confiscating war-related documents and materials and interrogating scientists as German research facilities were seized by the Allied forces. And a prize discovery was the Osenberg list. This was a catalogue of prominent scientists and engineers that had been moved from the war's front lines

to begin developing new weapons for the German Reich. This list had been found by a lab technician at Bond University in Germany and was a crumbled document floating in one of the school's toilets. Whoa. He's really checking everything, isn't he? Very thorough. Oh, what's this? I'll have a look.

Cool. Brush off some of this. Run this under a hand drive for a bit. Oh, this is I want to try to destroy the list, but the half flush just hadn't been quiet enough. They should have gone. Always go full. Go full. It's really thinking about water conservation, though.

Yeah. If you're destroying documents, you go full flush. Yeah. Australian invention, the half full flush. Is that true? Really? I'll try to mention the half full flush, is that true? All in one.

You said it with some conviction and then immediately backtrack. Yeah, I believe it, as I said it, but not as I finished saying it. I believe it, but do you reckon if you're in this situation, you're marching across Germany, collecting scientists, and you're like, hey, what are you doing? And so on someone says, I invented the half full flush. Are you getting a ticket to go to America to keep working? Yeah, I think you are. You getting me? Yeah.

Yeah. We got the toilet expert Thank you for your service Yeah In a half flush We got Dr. Crapper on the line Bring him to the front So they found this list

It was in a toilet And it was a list of all the scientists That Germany had moved To develop these weapons So it basically gave the Allies A shopping list To keep these The shopping

Allegory going List of scientists to capture Described in a top secret memo As quote Chosen Rare Minds Who's continuing Intellectual Productivity we wish to use.

So they've got the list of the who's who. Is Albert on there? Is this around that time? I believe Albert was already in America. So they already got him. They already got him in a pre-sale. Yeah. Got it nearly.

They used the code. Einstein 1. The top name on the list was Werner von Braun. Wow. Werner. Verna. Ferner's so good. Yeah.

I'll talk about him in detail in a minute. VVB. He's number one. WVB? Oh, damn. Yeah, WVB sounds good too. But phonetically VVB. VVB.

VVB. VV.B. I think, do you think Werner for a dog if you have another one? That's pretty good. Verna is pretty fun. It's pretty good. Then I'd have Goose and Werner. Goose and Werner.

That works. That's very good. I need to bring your attention to the fact that I just met a dashound this week whose name was Keith. Keith's a great name I thought that was incredible Yeah That is so good The town called Keith

Oh I love it I think near the border Of my old time favourite names Keith I do love a I do love a dog With a human name

It's very funny But also I met a golden retriever recently whose name is pudding So that's pretty good too That works well A human name Yeah

Human food name Put DASH hound And that's the one That's the one that looks like It's some people elsewhere call it like something entirely different.

Like a Daxend? Daxend. Oh. And they're sausage dogs. Shossage dog, yeah. Or as an, I know them. Keith. Keith.

Oh, you've got a Keith. I'm on first name basis. Can I meet your Keith? Oh. Two little Keiths over there. Teeth is an absolute beauty. Keith, that's so good. So let me give you another initialism here.

The Joint Intelligence Committee, or the JIC in the USA was also set up with monitoring and calculating the emerging Soviet threat. Several reports were published in August 1945 detailing the current and future military capability of the USSR, and the report concluded that Stalin's USSR was a hostile entity that would continue to seek global domination. They even calculated that by 1952, the Soviets would have recovered from war losses and regained their true and formidable potential. The USA had a ticking clock to contend with, and they were prepared to do whatever it took to stay in front. front of their rivals.

Wow. So they're very much panicking that we've, all right, we've just wrapped up this World War. There could be another one coming and we've got to stay in front. Oh, man. What a stressful time. Yeah, what about just like, everybody just chill out for a bit. What I'm going to have a break? Yeah, no, come on.

Are you kidding me? We've booked out this place. I've got to pull. This work life balance is terrible. Got to go out. Sorry, this war life balance. You know what we didn't do? We didn't invite the Soviets.

Oh, that's, and that's created tension. And they're going to be pissed. Oh, go. Can we get a message out? A late... And China, I don't think we message China. You're talking about a late call-up? Yeah. We've just had a cancellation.

No, no, no, no. Do you want to come? No, no, we've just organized this. Yeah. We're doing... Oh, we just had this thought. Let's all get away. Let's get when we're meeting in Bali in two hours.

I'm just messaging everyone now. Sounds like Canada's in. What about you, China? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the only way. Well, unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. Instead, so they're very paranoid.

They're freaking out. And when you're doing that, maybe you make some pretty rash decisions. Well, yeah, also, you haven't bloody had a Mai Tai on the beach. Exactly. You need to chill the fuck out. Get on a banana. Do some meditation. Like, you know, your shoulders are up here.

You're so stressed all the time. Of course, you're not going to be making good decisions. Yeah. Who are we talking about here? America. Everyone. Everyone. Okay.

You got to swap that musket for a mascato. Yes. Yes. Yes. World War II, they're big for muskets. We really didn't need those German scientists to bring technology forward. That's right. How do they get... Color photography. How they get beaten? Holy shit.

China was in the Allies, wasn't it? Yes, and they suffered badly at the hands of Japan. Yeah. Have we invited Japan? Well, no, I mean, I didn't, are we... Do you think we'll be cool to invite Japan? No, I think it's too soon. I think it's too soon.

Okay, all right. Indonesia, where we're visiting, did they sit? Because it might be a little uncouth to be celebrating the end of the war if we're celebrating in, we're, you know, against someone we defeated. All right, fine. We. I think there's only one.

I think it's okay for me to claim that just leave. There's only one solution here, and that is a barge in international waters. Yes. No one can get offended. See you there. I really have a hard to get on that villa. But okay. Well, we'll have it.

It'll be off. the coast of the villa. Okay. I can see the villa. You can see it. So they're doing all these, they're writing up all these reports that they're evaluating secretly the USSR and how formidable they'll be as an opponent. They're also writing many reports on Germans, where they were at with the technology

when they were sort of conquered. Major General Hugh Nour, Deputy Commander of the US Air Force in Europe wrote, occupation of German scientific and industrial establishments has revealed the fact that we have been alarmingly backward in many fields of research. If we do not take the opportunity to seize the apparatus and the brains that developed it and put the combination back to work promptly, we will remain several years behind while we attempt to cover a field already exploited. So he's like, we've got to use these guys.

The report also concluded that 8 out of 10 leading German rocket scientists, experts in the field of guided missiles, had gone missing and had probably been captured by the Soviets. And this and the fact that two entire German physicists, institutes had been packed up, shipped to Russia and rebuilt, was warring to the USA, because they're also grabbing. My first guess wouldn't have been the Russians. I would have assumed they'd just shot themselves into space.

Yeah. They know how to do it. It's like once again, part of the reason I never want to excel at anything. Is you know, like these guys are just like really, really good scientists. Yeah. And now. They're sticking their head up, tall poppy style. That's right.

And they're getting lopped off. Not me. I'm sitting back here. average it a couple of things. You're just yelling, I don't know shit. I don't know anything. Couldn't tell you. Rockets?

What is it? What is it? What is rockets? I'm bad. I can't do basic multiplication, let alone the very complex science you like. It does feel like you are protesting too much though when they're going, this is a genius pretending that she doesn't know anything.

And that's true. Put it in the van. Oh no, you've said too much. Is that not true? Yeah. Am I not a genius? You're a genius of sorts. Yes?

Yeah. And I pretend to know nothing. Yeah. And that's part of my genius. But to be clear, are they looking for a genius of sorts? Yeah. Great. I think they are.

Oh, great. Sorry, you're in. Fantastic. A holiday planning genius. Oh, yeah, I am good at that. So in response to these concerns, the J-I-O-A, one of the great initialisms, or they might be Gioa. I'm not sure. They put into action a rapidly expanding program to capture Nazi scientists.

Well, Nazi scientists. Some of them, as we'll discover, are nasty Nazi scientists. We'll discover that. What? Some of the Nazis were nasty. Nasty, Nazi. Nazi. I reckon they didn't do a focus group with people who speak English, did they?

When they came up with the name Nazi. If they'd found out that it sounded very much like the word nasty, you probably have a bit of Ray Brown. Anyway. What would you choose? Like the nannas or something? The nannas. Can't hate a nana. I don't know.

Some nannas are pretty nasty. What about Nazi nannas? Nazi nannas. Yeah. Nasty Nazi nannas. Yeah. Shit. Nasty natsy natsy nana.

Nasty Nazi nana. The nasty Nazi nana ate a nana. That's too far. Hey, Dave, it looks like during the Second World War, Indonesia, Indonesia was then known as the Netherlands East Indies. Oh. And was occupied by Japanese forces. So we're clear to go. Yeah.

They're happy to party. Yeah. I think they're probably, I think Netherlands were defeated there. They're probably happy to be, I don't know, I don't want to put words in Indonesia's men. But they might, they might be happy to have some visitors. Yeah. Now that they've gotten rid of the last ones, maybe they want some more. They'd be stoked to see us.

Visitors, yeah. Well, we're paying customers. Yes, that's the difference. And so they should be. So they should be grateful? Yes. Oh, God. They being us, they're traveling party.

That's right. I'm grateful. Mm-hmm. Of their hospitality. Yeah. Thanks having us. Very kind people. Thank you.

So they're like, we got to capture these nasty Nazi scientists. The program was originally called Operation Overcast. Okay. It's pretty badass. Well, were they having it in Melbourne? Wait, wait, give it 10 minutes. Oh, hang, Operation's slightly sunny. Okay.

Yeah, it's a bit fun. But people I don't know, in Melbourne, you can get some different kinds of weather. Yeah. It's kind of our thing. We have weather. It could be pretty unpredictable. Sometimes it's sunny. Other times.

There's clouds. Yeah. Have you got a rank go? You might need it. Yeah, you got to probably. But maybe check the bomb before you head out of the door, mate. Living in Melbourne's all about liars. Lairns and laneways.

Laiers, lineways, culture. Bring an umbrella. And coffee. And coffee. Oh, yeah, I guess like, I guess it's just such a normal part of my. every day of my identity that I don't even think about Melbourne's rich history of coffee. Yeah. Once you travel, you realize the coffee is pretty good.

It's pretty good. No, but it actually is quite good. That's the thing, though. Like, we joke, but the coffee here is very good. I wasn't joking. Point to the joke. Where is it? I can't.

So it's operating over. Its aim was simple, quote, to exploit German scientists for American research and to deny these intellectual resources to the Soviet Union. The operation was later renamed Operation Paperclip or Project Paperclip. I think overcast was better. Yeah, it kind of was, wasn't it? Paperclip's a bit of fun, I guess. Yeah, I guess it's if you're trying to get people off the scent, is that what Operation names are meant to do? Because it doesn't, there's nothing that draws a line between what it is.

is and what it's named. Well, Britannica writes, Project Paperclip was so named for the paper clips that held together the many pages of information about the scientists possessing more problematic pasts during the Nazi era. That is so fucking boring. Yeah. They just looked around and gone,

there's a few paper clips here. Wouldn't that be true of anything? Any operation at the time would have had paper clips keeping paper together. Do they not have staples? Yeah. Operation Staples sounds pretty like. What about Operation Keith? And the mascot's that little dog.

Yeah. Now we're talking. All right. We're back on Operation Keith. Let's let him know. Let's let him know we're making a late change. Was Keith a stranger or like a friend's dog? Like, will you see Keith again?

It was just on the street. Yeah. Oh, man. What is that? How do you know what's name? Do you introduce itself? Oh, you don't get it, Matt. Yeah, you don't get it.

When you have a dog. Yeah. One of the first questions is, how old is it? Yes. Always age. What's their name? What's the name? Oh.

Or their harness or tag will say it. Or the owner will say it. Or the owner will. say the dog's name and then you'll go, oh, it's a great name. Like there's a corgi on my street called bagel. Oh, yeah, that's pretty good. And also, if you're not sure of the breed, what kind of, what kind of is this? What, how old is it? What's the name? So I know everything about Keith. Keith, I could steal Keith's identity if I wanted to. And I know. What's Keith's mate name? So there must be times where you're like, I don't quite feel like going out with the dog today.

And your dog doesn't get a walk because you're like, I can't face other dog people. Does that happen? No. You suck it up for the dog. Oh, yeah, you got to. It is quite nice. You put on a breakfast. But it can be.

But otherwise, like, you don't really, like, stop and chat to people on a walk otherwise, which is probably a good thing. But it is quite nice. Especially when you meet a dog called Keith, I mean, that's made my week. Yeah, that's good stuff. Oh, yeah. I forget you are those people. Yeah.

You're those people that I'm not. I want to avoid. Anyway, I also ask the questions, you know, they say, and I go, my dog's four. How old's yours? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's great. It's a beautiful community you have here.

Recently, I've been saying, oh, he's just turned three. You know? He's still in months? I could just say three. I think I said just turn four about Humphrey as well. Uh, 78 months. Yes, he is big for his age. Yes.

Right. The Soviets, they had their own version of Operation Paperclip, which was called, Operation Osso Aviacim. That's pretty badass, sounding. I think paper clip's better. I mean, I don't know the translation. It might mean Operation Badass. I don't know.

Yeah, it could be something very cool. Could mean Operation Found in the Toilet. Yeah. We don't know. We can't know. Operation Toilet Boys. Toilet boys. Everyone on this list is a toilet boy, and we want them.

I see, I kind of like Operation Toilet Boys better. Than Paperclip. Yeah. Toilet boys. Or Operation Ossonbu. because the list was called that. That sounds pretty cool, Operation Austinburg. But they've gone Paperclip, and they've gone Osir Avikim.

Their objective for the Soviets was to move Nazi scientists and engineers to the USSR along with their families, the laboratory equipment and other work materials, which is similar. But unlike with Operation Paperclip, the Nazi scientists captured by the Red Army were treated like criminals. They weren't given the option of staying in Germany, let alone employment contracts. Indeed, Moscow considered their work on behalf of the Soviet Union to be war reparation. basically like your country invaded us and this is how you will repay us. You'll make it up to us by working for us now.

Sort of like when you can't pay a bill at a restaurant and make you wash the dishes. You're scrubbing toilets going, how did I get you? What happened to me? I'm a scientist. Why was my credit card to client? You were a scientist. You're a toilet boy now. See, it makes more sense.

It makes more sense. We can't go into the office and work as a paper clip for a bit, can you? And they grabbed the Soviets a heaps of, heaps of Nazis and the experts in their fields of optics, aviation, chemical engineering and other technology sectors, moving up to 6,000 people in one day from Germany into the USSR. That heaps. US President Truman authorized paperclip in August 1945. It allowed US military departments to sponsor immigration of chosen rare mines. I guess that's what it said on the visa. They're a chosen rare mine. Years later in 1963, Truman recalled that he was not in the least

reluctant to approve paperclip that because of relations with the Soviet Union, he said, quote, this had to be done and was done. Can I ask you a question, Dave? Would you refer to me as a rare mind? Have a moment to think if you need it. Matt, same question's coming away. I'd say yes, but would I choose you? Not so sure. For what? Chosen rare mind. Oh, I see. Okay. So you're a rare mind, but I'm happy for you to stay. We haven't set like what it is unique. from somebody. I'm still out. He's still not choosing me.

Okay, but I am a rare mind. You're a rare, I'll give you that. Matt, same question. I want to say yes and yes. You would choose me. Yeah, I'll take two if you got them. Well, if Matt wants you, then I want you. I don't want the Soviets, aka Matt getting you.

No, but he chose me. Right. Well, I will treat you like a criminal. You are under arrest. Ah, God, the burden of being a rare mind. Stuff. German and Austrian professionals facing the prospect of uncertain employment in their devastated post-war economies were also generally eager to accept such an offer from the US. Usually the recruits and their families were taken to the safety of the United States and they were then provided with labs and other facilities to continue their research.

That's all those nerds need. They were given a dog and anything else they needed. You can have this test tubes? I'm not really a dog person. Well, you've got a dog. I'm sorry I've ordered six On the other end in the United States There were some moral questions about the program Both within the government and in society

Who quickly found out about the project Let's first talk about the general public Probably not surprisingly Not everyone was receptive to allowing Nazis Being allowed to go completely unpunished And continue their work in the United States But they're working for the United States Yes

But some people were like Well months ago We were at war with these people. Yeah. And now I'm just at Walmart with these people? Yeah. What's going on? The New York Times, Newsweek and other media outlets exposed to paperclippers early as December

1946, famous people including Albert Einstein. Don't forget the code. Einstein won. Rabbi Stephen Wise and even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, whose husband Franklin Roosevelt, had been president during the majority of World War II. They all publicly opposed the program. Privately loved it. Loved it.

Very into it. And according to a poll, most Americans at the time considered it a, quote, bad idea. People within the current government were also unsure. According to Britannica, the ethical and moral concerns of the project were immediately obvious to many within the US government. Some considered these experts to be a national security risk given their sudden change in loyalty. Like I said before, a few weeks ago, they're working for the opposition and now they're working for us. Can we trust them? Yeah.

This is murky. I don't know what to do. If they don't take them, offer them jobs. They think Russia will get them. Yes. Who they see now as a threat. But if they do get them, they're paying Nazis. Nazis are on the payroll now.

Yeah. I don't think there's a good option here. I'm going to say, I'm on holidays. Hopefully it's sorted out when I get back. Yeah, yeah. We just got an out of office reply from me. I'm going to be on the barge if you need me. Sorry, no reception.

Yeah, on the barge if you need me, but don't need me. Yeah, no, that's tricky. It's good to have boundaries, Matt. That's good. I really just think, why do we need war? If I'm going to be involved in this, I'm going to say it, no war. And just everyone get on. Yeah.

If that's okay? Yeah. Is that too much to ask? Yeah, it is. Oh. It is too much to ask. Damn. It's a lovely sentiment though

Jeez, I always push it too far Yeah Yeah We keep asking you to rain it in But that's right Probably the phrase you say Most of me is knock it off

Yeah But I just can't Just won't do it I keep saying Peace and love man Yeah Piss and love Is that what we're saying

Piss and love? No Maybe it'll be more receptive I'm saying peace and love Piss and love No you're not quite getting You're saying piss I'm saying peace.

Okay. Look, this is like Craig and Craig. You're taking the peace right now. We're hearing the same word. Same thing. You're saying the same thing. You're saying the same word. Yeah, peace.

Yeah, piss. Piss and love. Piss and love. Okay, I'm confused. Am I saying peace? Piss? Yes. And love.

Yes. Great. We cut for a second. I need to go over peace. And we're back after the peace. Got it. I was a long one. Nazi experts selected by the program, I've got to say, had to be screened by the JIOA, and according to official policy, anyone who had been more than a nominal member of the Nazi

party was supposed to be excluded. President Truman had expressly ordered that anyone found to, quote, have been a member of the Nazi party, and more than a nominal participant in its activities or an active supporter of Nazism, militarism, would be excluded. Yeah, so they're like, we're not, we don't want the Nazi Nazis. Yes. Not the nasty Nazis. No, but just like the, the, the, the, the, the complacent ones. Yes. The ones who are like, oh, no, I'm not, I'm not really a Nazi, but, you know. Yeah, I just happen to live in Germany at the time. Wrong place, wrong time. Right. Right. Long time. I, I, what was I meant to do? What was I meant to do? Not be a Nazi? Come on. It's tricky. Easy to say. Easy to say.

Dave's family, obviously, they chose to be Nazis. It was incorrect. That was absolutely incorrect. Is that incorrect? Yes, my family came out from Germany in 1890. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, they got out here early. That was right. Were they on the boat with Albert?

Even earlier. You got pre-bought your family. He's the family I prepared earlier. The Vonikis. Voniky it would have been as well. That's right. Oh, Verna Voniky von der Vorniky. Fener vaughnerkey

Yeah now your dog should be book of Furna I think my great great grandfather's name was Herman Herman Vornike That's fantastic That is so good He eventually started a grocery store in St Kilda That's sick I think the story I've been told by my grandfather

Either his grandfather or his great grandfather A long time ago Is that he was a young teenager on the ship Came out The boat stopped in Melbourne Was supposed to keep going He jumped ship and never went back Wow

Where was I meant to keep going to? I'm not sure. Like, if it was like... If it's going to keep going with Tasmania or Antarctica. I'm not... Maybe they're picking stuff up.

Yeah. Oh, I see. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a return trip, but he was like, I'm out. And a young... And a teenager to, I believe. Wow.

So... Isn't it it? It's wild, though, that maybe spur of the moment decision has... Yeah, it means that you grow up here. Yeah, that's right. And then now grocery stores are in my blood. Like, when I'm at the self-checkout,

I'm flying through that thing. Yeah. I get it. I get it. I'm bippin. I'm bopping, I'm beeping, I'm stacking the bag. Aldi, they, you know, another German, they think they can, you know, they're too fast, some people say, but I'm filling that bag.

It's fine for you. Whatever, they can sit down in that chair and scan all day. I'll be packing the bag until the cow is coming. Very comfortable, yeah. So, that's my family. You are beautiful to watch at a supermarket, I will say. It's impressive. Yeah, I get Dave to do my weekly shop.

I've worked as a checkout operator, checkout chick-chick for a while, and, uh, it's a, Yeah, I can't get close to Dave. It's embarrassing when you try to steal my culture. Isn't it crazy, too, that, like, you don't, like, Herman didn't think about that when he just jumped ship and stayed in Melbourne, that like, this podcast wouldn't exist. Think about all the things. Yeah, did he even consider that? I don't think he did.

Or did someone go back in time and say, Melvin or Herman. Oh, Melbourne. But he read Melbourne. And then he think, Melbourne. Melbourne. Wow. I'll go there. I'll go to Melbourne.

Melbourne, that's close enough. And they said, if you go, Melbourne, he said, Melbourne. I said, yes, Melbourne. If you go to Melbourne now, a podcast will happen in 100 years. Yeah. 130 years. Yeah. And he said, wow.

I must make this happen. And then as he got off the boat and the man was sailing away, he turned and said, what's a podcast? Yeah. Don't worry about it. It's not for you. Amazing stuff. Beautiful detour we went on there. Beautiful detour.

But what I was trying to say is that, according to the official rules of Operation Paperclip, on paper, people who had supported Nazism or had committed war crimes or atrocities were not allowed to take part. That's a pretty, isn't that a strong stance for them saying?

Okay, if you've committed an atrocity, then we're not interested. Not allowed. Jeez, that's it. That actually, I thought they would mean a bit soft, but I didn't realize I'd taken a hard-line stance. But did that happen in reality?

Oh, no. Well, that's a complicated question. The answer is, in some cases, no. I'm going to give you some examples of people who took part in Operation Paperclip, and then we can revisit that question of morality. Okay, great. Number one, Adolf Hitler. He's like, I know a lot of stuff.

Yeah. I ordered all this stuff. I know heaps of stuff, and I'm a great manager. I really good at delegating. Do you say, I'm really inspirational. I've got leadership skills coming out the wazoo. Out of Hitler's resume. Leadership skills?

Oh, my God. People management. Managing large teams. Well, the most famous scientists associated with Operation Paperclip was the man I said was on top of that Ossenberg list in that toilet, found in the Dunny. And he's the man I mentioned on the Apollo 11 episode all those years ago. VVB.

VV.B. W. Verna von Braun. Full name. Werner Magnus Maximilian Frere von Braun. Oh. Magnus is great. VMMFVB.

Yes. Or Werner for short. Yep, great. He was born on March 23, 1912, in the province of Posen, the kingdom of Prussia, then the German Empire, and now Poland. The son of a Prussian baron, von Braun, was the second of three sons of an aristocratic family. After Werner's confirmation, his mother gave him a telescope,

and he developed a passion for astronomy. As a youth, he became enamored with the possibilities of space exploration by reading the work of Herman O'Birth. No relation to Herman Warnocky. Whose 1923 book, The Rocket Into Interplanetary Space prompted von Braun to master calculus and trigonometry so he could understand the physics of rocketry.

Before this, apparently, he had struggled with the subjects. And then literally later became the world's best rocket scientist. Wow, just need the motivation. Just need a motivation. I've never heard it called Rocket Tree before. I love it. It's a great word, isn't it? Yeah.

Rocketry. Rocketry. He was also inspired by the world's first large-scale experimental rocket program, the Opel R-A-K. This was a series

of rocket vehicles produced by German automobile manufacturer Fritz von Opel of the Opel car company, which still exists. He was nicknamed

Rocket Fritz. And the company conducted a series of public demonstrations that were essentially publicity stunts for the company, the great

rocketry-based website. Wikipedia.org has an anecdote that says... Vickipedia. Sorry, yes, of course. Of course it is. It says, 16-year-old Werner was so enthusiastic about the public Opal demonstrations that he constructed his own homemade rocket car,

nearly killing himself in the process and causing a major disruption in a crowded street by detonating the toy wagon to which he had attached fireworks. He was taken into custody by the local police until his father came to get him. detonating his car. That's funny. He didn't explain how he got the nickname Rocket.

Nominate determinism. It wasn't a nickname. Wow. His first name. Rocket, Fritz. It was Rocket. Von Braun, after this incident where he nearly killed himself and exploded the street, enrolled at the Berlin Institute of Technology,

where he would go on to earn a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering. As a student, he joined the German Society for space travel and worked with Herman Oberth, the author of the book that had inspired him. So, you know, they say never meet your heroes, but he worked with this. And they worked on liquid-fueled rocket tests. Von Braun continued to experiment with rockets in his spare time. So he's a rocket scientist by day and a rocket scientist by night. And at age 18, he and some friends would launch rockets from a municipal dump on the outskirts of Berlin.

They called the area Ractonflugplatz or Rocket Flight Place. and they were mentored by Herman Oberth. That guy again. The New York Times recalls in Von Braun's obitry. Spoiler of the man born in 1912 is now dead. Great. One day, in 1932, this sounds like a scene out of a movie. A black sedan stopped by the dump and three German army men in Mufti,

military stuff, stepped out. The Versailles Treaty concluding World War I had said nothing about barring rockets to Germany. So they had to sign the thing saying, you know, we're not going to have a big military. We're not going to do this sort of stuff anymore. But it said nothing about rockets. To continue, when the three men climbed back into the sedan, they had Dr. von Braun's joyful consent to carry on his experiments with the full sanction and financial support of the army. So one day, he's basically a kid out, exploding rockets in a rubbish tip. And that night, a car pulls up and says, hey, do you want to get in and we'll pay you to do this?

He's like, sweet. See you tomorrow. So at the age of 20, he became German Army's top civilian specialist in rocketry. What? At 20. A 20. What could I have been an expert in at 20? For me, it's diagnosis murder.

Yeah. I'd seen every episode twice by that point. How many? I don't want to know. Don't worry about it. Nine seasons. Yeah, no. I was more wondering by now how many times you'd see in each episode, but I don't want to know the answer.

Okay. I think it'll be too sad. And for you just a 20 expert? Yeah, I don't know. Nothing. I was stupid. Still am. I'm not an expert on anything.

Oh my God. What am I to find out? I'm having a crisis. Matt, if it was a black sedan pulling up when you were 20, what were they going to ask you to do? I don't think any black sedans were pulling up to get me a tiny. Horse and cart, sorry, a horse and carts pulling up. Yeah.

No, I don't think any black horse. Orson Carts would have probably come to get me. I don't think, unlike Dave, very confident in himself as a 20-year-old, diagnosis murder. I'm like, Jess, very humble. Yeah, we're humble. Well, Dr. Von Braun said later that he had felt no moral scruples at the time about the possible abuse of his test rockets in war.

He said he was interested solely in exploring space. Based on his army-funded research on liquid propellant rocketry, von Braun received a doctorate in physics. in July 1934 from the main university in Berlin. The New York Times writes, Wallace June in Berlin, he read an article about an imaginary trip to the moon that made a lasting impression,

which he once recalled, it filled me with a romantic urge, interplanetary travel. That's how we got the nickname Rocket. It was horny. Romantic urge. I wanted to fuck that crazy. I don't want to fuck that moon.

Come here. He's looking up at the sky, and I like, oh, you fuck, he didn't know. He likes a moon. He must be an ass man too. Ass man. He loves a full moon.

He loves a full moon. He said, he was a task worth dedicating one's life to fucking the moon. Not just stare through a telescope of the moon and the planets, but to soar through the heavens and actually explore the mysterious universe. I knew how Columbus had felt when he fucked that moon. So the moon, getting there was his eventual goal. It was during this period in von Braun's life that the Nazis came to power in Germany with Hitler becoming Chancellor, in 1933, PBS writes, Von Braun was a right-wing nationalist by upbringing,

but seems to have taken little interest in Nazi ideology or anti-Semitism. As money began flowing into Rearmament and eventually into the rocket program, he became more enthusiastic about the regime. Because he's like, oh, they're paying for this stuff. Awesome. I get to do my little rocketry. But it's more about like whoever's got the cash to let him play with rockets and less about the ideology.

Yes, he's, you know, overlooking a few things. because they're bankrolling. Still ethically, not great. No, no, I think as long as they're paying you, that's okay to overlook atrocities. If they're paying you quite well. If you're on the payroll. Yeah, that I think it's fine.

Yeah. I think he, I know. If you're not doing the atrocities. Yeah. If you're just, yeah. You can take money from the people that are. Yeah, I think that's fine. That's fine.

I think you can profit from atrocities. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can work for them, just not, it's something different. Great. We're finding the line here. He, um, I don't, I don't, I don't, I think he'd be rolling over in his grave hearing you talk about him fucking the moon. I don't think that's what he would have said making love to the moon.

Sorry, yes. It was more about an emotional connection. That was vulgar of us. Yes. You, mostly. Yeah. I would never be so disrespectful. I withdraw all my comments.

Thank you. You wanted to make love to the moon. That's right. All night long. So just talking about him in the Nazis, PBS continues in 1937, now the technical director at age 25 of the new Army Rocket Center, he received a letter asking him to join the Nazi Party. Since it required little commitment and it might damage his career to say no, he went along. This is what PBS writes.

He then became a junior SS officer in 1940. And through the early years of the war, von Braun worked on developing the V2 rocket, the world's first long range guided ballistic missile, described by Hitler as a vengeance weapon. This is Wunderowulf. Wunderwaffe. Wundervoffer. The V2 rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kaman line, which is, you know, the technical edge of space. With a vertical launch on the 20th of June 1944, the V2 rocket has been called the rocket that launched the space age.

Wow. He's in charge of it. He's 25. 25 years old. And he's like, okay. He's a Wunderwaffe, he's a Wunderkind. He's all the Wunders. He's Wonderwriters.

Fred. Wunderwight. Wunderwight. Wundervat. He met with Adolf Hitler on several occasions. Being formally decorated by Hitler twice, including being awarded the Iron Cross. Hitler promoted Dr. von Braun to full professor,

a rank of especially high respect in Germany and ordered the mass production of the V2 rockets. And V2s were pretty impressive and terrifying, according to space.com. Able to reach speeds of more than 3.5,000 miles or 5,500 kilometres per hour, the 46 foot or 27,000 pound or 12,250 kilo V2 rocket could carry warheads 500 miles or 800 kilometres.

The rockets travelled at supersonic speeds, impacted without audible warning, and proved unstoppable as no effective defence existed at the time. So they really were wonderful. First years in September 1944, more than 5,000 of them were aimed at Britain of these, only 1,100 arrived on target, but they killed almost 3,000 people and injured thousands more. And I've also read numbers saying they killed up to 9,000 people in Britain, these rockets.

Is he still saying that he's only really in it for space exploration? I'm in it for the space. He's like, it's the first thing that's ever gone to space. I did that bit. They also then came down and landed on people's houses. But I'm not in charge of the landing. I'm in charge of the take-off. I imagine these are the kind of things he's telling himself.

A man who would go on to be a US president and at the time, General Dwight, Eisenhower said of the V2 rockets, he said, it seems likely that if the Germans had succeeded in perfecting and using these new weapons six months earlier than he did, our invasion of Europe would have proved exceedingly difficult, perhaps impossible. Wow. So they were just a little bit too late to tip the war for Germany. Wow.

But that's how powerful these rockets were. Shit. They're basically, once they're in the air, unstoppable. But it seems the rockets weren't developed in time, and by 1945, the war was lost for Germany and everyone knew it, von Braun came up with a contingency plan. He was worried that Hitler would destroy all of the V2 rockets and their related scientific breakthroughs to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. So von Braun got one of his aides to take 14 tons of paper, moved by three trucks, and hid them in an abandoned iron mine.

Just to save keep. That's so much paper. I imagine how many paper clips that is. Like, I reckon you could chuck that on a handful of USBs. Chuck it on a stick, mate. Floppy disk if you've got it. Put it on a few thousand floppy. disc or one, like, hard drive.

Would that kill you? And then put them in the toilet? Yeah. Then flush them. Then flush them. Yeah. At the iron mine for safekeeping. They're like, I think von Braun's lost it.

Just put it in the Google Drive. Chuck it in the Google Drive. And then put your laptop in the toilet. They put your laptop and half flush it. Is that right? I need you to put these rockets in the cloud. Fire the rockets into the clouds? No.

No. Into the cloud. But fucking hell me. So I can access it from anywhere. He's a fucking idiot. I don't want to have to go to the iron mine to get my rockets. I don't have to get my hands wet, just to get the rockets. Oh my God.

It's gross. It's really yuck. Why is everything in a toilet? On May 2nd, 1945, von Braun and a group of German rocket scientists surrendered to the American forces. With Nazi Germany, crumbling and on the verge of a full collapse, von Braun was confident that with his unmatched knowledge of rockets, he would not be harmed. He later told an American reporter, I did not expect to be kicked in the teeth. The V2 was something we had and you didn't have.

Naturally, you wanted to know all about it. So he's really cocky. And apparently, I think that night they surrendered and they figured out who he was and they're like, please come right this way. Gave him a lovely, literally a cooked breakfast and really looked after him because they were like, this is a smart guy. Let's kiss his ass. And he knew it.

He's like, they're going to kiss my ass. Which is great because I'm an ass man. I'm going to need a few seconds alone with the moon. Von Braun and an initial group of about 125 were sent to America where they were installed at the beautifully named Fort Bliss in Texas. They then worked on rockets for the US Army and assisted in V2 launches at the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico. So they brought the V2s over to American.

Wow. How to go. Fort Bliss sounds like exactly what they need. A bit of a pool, some sunshine. Couple of weeks at Fort Bliss. A couple of cocktails. Oh my gosh. Some board games.

Just some R and R. Wow. You know what I mean? All inclusive. Rockets and rockets. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I did think rockets and I couldn't think of a second R word.

But then you just said rockets and rockets. And I was like, it was right there. That's why he's so good. That's why he's so good. Double it up. Do you think the ass man was interested in anything else? The ars man. Ars man.

Ars man. Oh my God. That's what it was. That's what it was. He was an ars man. Ars man. Rockets and rockets. We've been misinterpreting this whole time.

Oh my God. That is embarrassing. Thinking he was an ass man. But he's an ars man. Wow. I feel a fool. So he's a miracle. Von Braun became one of the most prominent advocates for space

exploration in the United States during the 1950s. He became director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the chief architect of the Saturn 5 launch vehicle, the Super Boost at the big rocket that would propel Americans to the moon, would become an integral part of the Apollo missions of the 1960s. And we know, thankfully, to my report, people didn't know before that, that they made it to the moon in 1969 and Von Braun fulfilled his childhood dream. So he was alive at that point?

Yes. Well, was it his childhood dream? Did he want to go to the moon? No, he wanted to send Americans to the moon. I wanted to send three Americans to the moon. Little boy in Prussia. He wanted to send Americans to the moon. Well, I'm happy for him.

In many ways, the whole Apollo NASA mission to the moon was built off the back of Operation Paperclip, and the men involved were highly successful and highly rewarded. The NASA Distinguished Service Medal is the highest award, which may be bestowed by the Space Administration. After more than two decades of service and leadership in NASA, four men from Operation Paperclip were awarded this medal, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal all in 1969. But did these men qualify for Operation Paperclip under the guidelines initially laid out?

Remember, President Truman had expressly ordered that anyone found to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in these activities or an active support of Nazism, militarism should be excluded? They couldn't have been like full-on Nazi. That's the rule. They could have been like, I'm a Nazi. only because I fear for my life if I don't play along. You could be that kind of Nazi.

But you can't be like, yay, kind of Nazi. Yay Nazis. You couldn't be yay Nazis. That was the thing. I think that's a good rule. I'll briefly go through these four men who are awarded this top NASA medal, this incredible prize. Kurt Debis, or Kurt Debus, I forgot to look it up.

The first director of NASA's launch operation center, later renamed as the Kennedy Space Center. Debus is described by the BBC as a rocket launch specialist who was also an SS officer. So I weren't really supposed to take officers like that. His report stated before he came over, he should be interned as a menace to the security of the Allied forces. They took him anyway. He was very good at rockets. Yeah, that's funny. It's the compromise. How good are you at rockets? Are you better at rockets than you were an awful person? That's right. There's a scale here. Oh, okay. Well, your rockets really cancel out your

Nazism. There's a, there's a quite a complicated mathematical equation which the Nazi scientist provided. And I said, if, if we pass this, then it's okay. Well, you're, you're very smart. There's no conflict of interest that I can see here. Wow. Okay, no, it looks like you pass. And it's proven you that you're fine.

Yeah. Okay, great. Well, here's a hot breakfast. It's a hot breakfast. I know. And a few minutes alone with the moon. Can I go next? And a condo.

They love condos over there. They love condos. Do they? I don't even fully know what it is. A condominium. I do know what it is. Although I don't know what that means. Yeah, I think it's like an apartment.

Okay. Yeah. Sounds better though. What's a condo? I think it's an apartment. But they have apartments. I'll look it up for you. What is a condo?

Condo. Thank you. Realstate.com.com. You has an article. Condos versus apartment. What's the difference? In condos, you have a body corporate, which is made up of owners.

That's the same in an apartment. Wait, that means we have condos here? Condo. Tell me condo, condo, condo. Conta Biniu is the North American term for the form of property ownership known as strata title in Australia. That mean anything to anybody? No. Yeah, if you have a strata title, that means there's a body corporate, doesn't it?

I don't own property. I don't know. But you do live in a condo. So maybe you could explain. What is your place? Wine's an apartment? Okay. So condos in apartment.

Don't worry about it. They love condos. I regret bringing it up. Me too. I'll tell you that much. Condos sound like an Australian. Like if we had condominiums, we'd call them condos. Yeah.

So it's just another thing we think is a thing we do. I thought you were going to say, doesn't it sound like what Australians would call condoms? Oh, condos. Chuck us a condo. I'm going to go visit the moon. Why are they dingers? I don't know. We've derailed.

Dave, please do go on. Hmm, condo. Please condo on. Condon. Please put a condo on. He's looking at what condos are. Let me tell you a bit more about these Nazis. Yes, please.

So, Kurt Devis, he, they... He sounds like he was a Nazi Nazi. Sounds bad. What about Erbarad Rees, who became director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and directed the lunar roving vehicle program. Rees was in the first group of Operation Paperclip rocket scientists brought to the United States.

He served as Vernor von Braun's assistant, but was not a member of the Nazi party. So I think technically you call for. He's probably okay. Yeah. He never even signed up. Didn't pay the admin fee? Yeah.

Get a little badge. Get his membership card. I mean, I don't understand it at all. What, how many, how many, so you have to sign up to be a Nazi. Well, to be part of the party. Yeah, because it's a political party. Yes. Yeah, to join the party at the time.

Right. Then there's Arthur Rudolph, the project director of the Saturn 5 Rocket Program. According to the BBC, during the war, he was chief operations director at Nordhausen, where 20,000 slave labourers died producing V2 missiles. 20,000. What? He was described in his report as, quote, 100% Nazi dangerous type. And we, yeah, took him in.

We'll take him, take it. He passed the sums. Yeah, yeah. Past the calculations. He sounds like a Nazi Nazi Nazi. Can you say that again? 20,000 people died. Yeah.

Making the V2 missiles, that Wunderwaffe, that big rocket that they were making. 20,000 people died. How many people died getting blown up by them? Yes, that's actually a terrifying fact. Well, I guess it's tragic no matter of way you look at it, but that's a fact about V2 missiles. More people died making them than they ever took out in military operations. I wonder how they died. How do you lose 20,000 people?

I think that you... Fumes? I think they were the slave laborers and there were like people from concentration camps and stuff like that who worked to death. Oh, my God. Wow. That's horrendous. So not a great guy. In 1984... But he, America said,

Come on in. Come on in. Grab a hot breakfast. Yeah. And he's one of the more controversial ones because in 1984, the US government investigated Rudolph for war crimes. And he agreed to announce his United States citizenship and leave the US in return for not being prosecuted.

So they basically said, if you leave, this will go away. So he was able to live and work there for decades. For decades. And then eventually when he was no longer useful to the... them, they went, hang on a second, I reckon you're probably pretty bad. And he went, I'll go. I think people probably started investigating him and it came out and they were like, oh, yeah, yeah, no, he doesn't work for us anymore. And they just sort of kicked him out. Very dodgy stuff. He died in Germany in 1996 at the age of 89, having never been charged or properly investigated.

His whole Nazi pass had been swept under the rug. So, and he'd already won this NASA distinguished service medal. And of course, the fourth winner, an absolute hero. of the Apollo space program was the familiar, Werner von Braun VVB. He died of cancer at age 65 in 1977, seven years before this question came to the forefront when Arthur Rudolph was disgraced and returned to Germany. So he died before that.

So von Braun wasn't around to answer questions or defend himself, but in the 80s and 90s, journalists and scholars uncovered more about him and his associate's Nazi records. And it is not good stuff. According to PBS, he and his employer from 1945 to 1960, the US Army had effectively neutralised most of the uncomfortable questions surrounding his former service to Adolf Hitler. In autobiographical articles and press interviews, he stuck to the line that he was an apolitical scientist who only wanted to go to space. That's all he cared about.

He built missiles used against allied cities because it was his national duty in wartime. He admitted that he had been a member of the National Socialist Party. The Nazis, but labelled it nominal and necessary to protect his career in a totalitarian society. He always contended, refusal to join the party would have meant that I would have to abandon the work of my life. Okay, you can understand some of that. But the sad truth is that in developing the work of his life, the rockets, slave labor was used, as I said, with many of these quote-unquote workers sourced from concentration camps,

and the conditions for these enslaved workers were awful. And like I said, more people died building the rockets than were killed by it as a weapon. Braun admitted visiting the work plant at Mittelwerk on many occasions and called the conditions at the plant repulsive, but claimed never to have personally witnessed any deaths or beatings, although it had become clear to him by 1944 that deaths had occurred. He denied ever having visited the Mittle Baldora concentration camp where 20,000 people died from illness, beatings, hangings and other intolerable work conditions. Horrible place. Horrible place. But for a long time, details of concentration camp, slave labor, was not widely available because the US army had classified

a lot of the details, because it would look really bad that their number one NASA guy was involved with this stuff. The military did the same with von Braun's SS officer rank and the Nazi records of the more than 100 associates who had come to the US with him, deliberately sweeping that information under the rug. Technically, if following President Truman's strict orders that members of the Nazi party and more than nominal participants in its activities should be excluded, that would have meant von Braun would have been ineligible to serve the US. A member of numerous Nazi organizations, he also held the rank of SS, and his initial intelligence file actually described him as a security risk.

Jesus. Like, you know, red flags all over the place, but they're ignoring them all because he's the smartest guy. Yeah. Wow. That's fucked. It's fucked up. And over the years, more information has come to light about what von Braun knew and what he did. According to Annie Jacobson, who wrote a 2014 book called Operation Paperclip,

the secret intelligence program that brought Nazi scientists to America, she said von Braun himself handpicked people from horrific places, including Bookenvold Concentration Camp, to work to the bone building his rockets. She also contends, when you see the kind of activity during the war, you have to imagine what he saw and what he knew. It's impossible to excuse him from his Nazi past. But despite all this, von Braun was allowed into the USA, and his influence on the Apollo space program,

rocketry and space exploration is undeniable. He has been described as the father of space travel, the father of rocket science or the father of the American lunar program. A lot of kids, this guy. Yeah. The mother of them all, the moon. Wow. He received many awards,

including President Gerald Ford awarded him the country's highest space honor, the National Medal of Science in Engineering. He is in the National Aviation Hall of Fame, as well as the International Space Hall of Fame. And the National Space Society still awards the Werner von Braun Memorial Award to recognize excellence in management of and leadership for space-related projects. So despite this recognition, von Braun is still a highly controversial figure, widely seen as escaping justice for his Nazi war crimes due to the Americans' desire to beat the Soviets in the Cold War and get to the moon first. And he got them there, but at what cost? Well, a lot of lives.

A lot of lives. A lot of lives. Dodgy stuff. America's soul. Yeah, that's good. That's good. That's good. That's good.

Question mark. America's soul? America's soul? Put that on a t-shirt. No, I liked it when you, like, yeah. But I don't. You said it more dramatically. Yeah, but I don't know what I'm talking about.

Oh, you never do. Yeah. But it sounded good. Okay. I do. Just like Americans listen to this going, what fuck is this guy talking about? The guy doesn't even know what a condo is.

He doesn't know what a condo is? Yeah. He thinks he can talk about. Our soul? Our collective soul. You're nothing about America's soul. I know about America's movie, Soul. The Pixar film fell asleep during it.

Apparently, very good. Lovely sleep. Yeah, it was a great nap. I've got to say, the names I've said so far are just a few of the more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers and technicians who were taken from Germany to the USA. Roughly half of the early paperclip specialists had been members of the Nazi party. And of course, there is an incredible spectrum there of hard-classed. Nazis who did horrific things to others who themselves felt oppressed by the regime and were

very happy to get out. Yeah. I think, yeah. I mean, the way you were just then, it was like hardcore Nazis, I think just because, just to keep it on theme for the rest of this report, they're Nazi-Nazis. Nazi-Nazi. Thank you. Yes.

But some of the people were totally indifferent to everything. Take, for example, Herbert A. Wagner, Austrian scientists, who was the first of many Germans brought to America's part of paperclip, Wagner developed numerous innovations. in the fields of aerodynamics, aircraft structure and guided weapons. He is most famous for developing the Hensual HS-293, radio-guided glide bomb.

Sounds like it's going to be full of glitter or something, but I think it's nastier than that. It's funny just thinking about these brilliant minds in a different time, they would have invented things that would have helped, you know? Yeah. But they were at the peak of their science

during these wars. So they're making things. to kill. Yeah, the people, they come up with these ideas and the army's like, great, how do we blow it up? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I've cured a bunch of diseases.

Right. How do we blow it up? How do we reverse that and give the disease to our enemies? How do we infect people with it? Then we have the antidote. Can we explode cancer? So this guy had arrived at Frederick, Maryland in 1945, with seven large cases of blueprints, another technical data, and a pocket full of dreams.

He supported US efforts to deploy glide bombs against Japan because they were still fighting against Japan at the time and a formally classified FBI counterintelligence report describes his approach to his work. I like this. It says, An excellent German scientist of good character who was not interested in politics.

He has given no evidence of being either pro-Nazi or pro-communist and is disinterested politically. Once belonged to the German SS for a four-week instruction course but dropped out of the same on his own violation. He's an opportunist who is inter-interested. who is interested only in science and does not subscribe to any political ideology. Since the death of his wife, Wagner has been drinking considerably, but is not a drunkard. Okay.

So that's another one of the people that are like, they've got nothing really. No skin in the game where the Nazis have done anything messed up. He just wants to make his science and have a few drinks. I just want to make my science. I just want to make my science. He's had a few drinks when he's talking about that. I just make my science. I don't care of it.

Like, I think the Nazis are good. I just want to make my science. So there weren't all dodgy, but Annie Jacobson, who wrote that book, summed up her opinions in an interview with NPR in 2014. She says, You have to be a Nazi ideologue to move up that chain of command so high. It's almost like someone who is a hedge fund manager in the United States

trying to take the line that they don't believe in capitalism, you know? That they're just trying to earn a living for the family. I mean, if you're going to rise to the top of your field, you maintain the party line, and that is what I found was the case with paperclip, especially a lot of these senior guys. Yeah. Geez, it makes it, yeah, pretty uncomfortable a lot of the things that have been achieved through that.

Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm going to go through some of them now. Morally, very questionable, but how successful was it as a program? Well, most paperclip scientists and specialists were dispersed as individuals or small groups to military laboratories, universities, and private companies, so they went far and wide. Of course, we've already covered the important and extremely successful and famous Apollo program that was masterminded by scientists from Paperclip

and has really become the most famous thing associated with it. Now people think Paperclip, they usually think Furn of Von Braun and Apollo. And that's kind of the default in most people's minds if they know about it. But they did a lot of other stuff as well. Not the only advancement in technology to come out of members of the program. Notable areas of focus were guided missiles, supersonic aerodynamics, guidance and control, rocket and jet engines and aerospace medicine.

Hans von Ohan was a German scientist. scientist, engineer and the designer of the first turbojet engine to power an aircraft, and he was part of paperclip. Adolf Buseman was responsible for the swept wing, which improved aircraft performance at high speeds. A swept wing is a wing that angles either backward or occasionally forward from its route rather than in a straight sideways direction. Did that help eventually get to the droop snoot? Yes, the droop snoot. And then, of course, the winged keel. Oh, yeah, for the For the America's Cup. 9 and 83.

Australia 2. The winner of the America's Cup. And the droop snoop. What was that plane? It was from? The Concord. The Concord. Which we sat on.

We've been in a Concord and watched a video with Queen pumping loudly. What a moment that was. It was so fun. Lava Concord. So it, Swipwing, apparently, has been very influential. It has the effect of delaying the shock waves and accompanying aerodynamic drag rise caused by fluid compressibility near the speed of the speed of,

sound improving performance. Makes sense? Yeah, obviously. Yep. Swept wings are therefore most always used on jet aircraft design to fly at their speed. So if you look at a plane now, they're, I think, a lot of the bigger ones, the jets, they've got sweat wings because of this guy. And he was there because of the paper clip.

Paperclip. Also, the famous B-2 stealth bomber was based on a 1944 German design, the Horton H.O.229, which was arguably the first stealth aircraft. I was really thinking you were going to start talking about some things that were just better for society in general, but it is just a lot of killing machines or things that make planes go quicker to kill. The Breville Blender, the popcorn machine. Oh.

So, yeah, they basically took that design from the Germans and developed a further now. The famous stealth bomber is based on that. Also, how about this one? Cruise missiles are still based on the design of the V1 missile. So. Yeah, a lot of military stuff. A lot of military stuff. A lot of military stuff, yeah.

I don't know, they got that specific. Yeah. But is it a cruise ship? No, well, don't use that one. So on a technical level, Operation Paperclip was extremely successful, especially with military war, that kind of stuff. Get into space, I suppose that's pretty big. Very big deal.

But was the program justified? Only one paperclip scientist, George Ricky, was formally tried for any crime, and no paperclip scientist was found guilty of any crime in the United States or in Georgia. Germany. Ricky was returned to Germany in 47 to stand at the Dora trial where he was acquitted. But we know that at least some of the men involved in Operation Paperclip were involved in war crimes who, according to the BBC, had their alleged crimes covered up and their backgrounds bleached by

a military which saw winning the Cold War and not upholding justice as its first priority. And in many cases, these men were celebrated for their work for their new lives. One is Hubertus Strughold, who for 50 years from 1963 to 2013 had the Strughold Award named after him. Now, Hubertus Strughold, which is a great name. He's often referred to as the father of space medicine for his central role in developing innovations like the space suit and space life support systems. The Strughold Award was the most prestigious award from the Space Medicine Association, a member organization of the Aerospace Medical Association. So they gave out this award for 50 years, but during his work on behalf of the US Air Force and NASA, Strughold was the subject of three separate US government investigations into his suspected involvement in war crimes committed under the Nazis.

He was under suspicion of being involved with human experiments at the Dachau concentration camp. A 1958 investigation by the Justice Department fully exonerated him, while a second inquiry launched by the immigration and neutralised, service in 1974 was later abandoned due to lack of evidence, and in 1983, the Office of Special Investigations reopened his case, but withdrew the effort when he died in 1986, so they never fully got to the bottom of what he was up to. But in the years, since his death, it's become hard to deny his involvement, and on October 1st, 2013, in the aftermath of a Wall Street Journal article published in December 2012, which highlighted his connection to human experiments during World War II,

the Space Medicine Association's executive committee announced that the Space Medicine Association would be retiring the Strughold Award. So this guy had done horrific shit to people against their will. These are not volunteers, I don't just say that he's experimenting on. Horrible, horrible crimes. And then, you know, he lived this new life in America. And then people were like, wow. What a guy.

What a guy. He's this award. But then there was suspicious of him from 1958 onward, at least. And it took to 2013 that they stopped. the award after him. Another guy that's been written about by NPR was Dr. Theodore Benzinger, who was one of the Nazi doctors. Benzinger?

What, Jess? You like that one? Tell the class, what's so funny here? I just made me think of Buzinger. That was funny. Basinger. Benzinger, he was one of the Nazi doctors who came to America, and when he died at the age of 90-something, had a wonderful obituary in the New York Times lauding him for inventing

the ear thermometer. So there you go, he invented something, the ear thermometer. But NPR writes... He took a thermometer right, and what he did? Instead of sticking it in your ass. He shoved it in some of the ear. Yeah. He said, it's a new one. That's a new thing. I come up with that.

Everyone's like, did you wash it? Oh, fuck. But NPR writes, so he had this New York Times, this obituary saying he's the inventor of the ear thermometer. He's, you know, incredible for science, but they entirely left out the story of his work that he'd performed on concentration camp prisoners. So again, did horrible Nazi stuff. The last known original member of Operation Paperclip, George von Tissenhausen passed in 2018 at the age of 104.

I've got to tell you, it sounds like being a Nazi is great for longevity. Honestly, a lot of these people, apart from Von Braun who died in the 60s of cancer, all these other people live to their late 80s, 90s, this guy 104. Yeah, I don't know what, probably a coincidence, but I don't know. Yeah.

Did they have a secret? Well, these guys were there? In the Indiana Jones movies, weren't the Nazis after like eternal life or something? I haven't seen them. Yeah, the Holy Grail. Holy Grail? Yeah. The Ark of the Covenant.

Do you think they found one of these? They must have. Yeah. And that's how they lived to 90 plus. They didn't live forever. Well, as far as we know. Whoa. Oh, my gosh.

They're fake ages of that old. Imagine what their real ages are. So, yeah, the last guy died. 104, he's credited with the first complete design of the lunar roving vehicle. So there you go. But paperclip wasn't the only program of its type. Obviously, I already mentioned the Soviets had a similar program. Operation Surgeon was the British post-second World War program to exploit German aeronautics

and deny German technical skills to the Soviets. A list of 1,500 German scientists and technicians were created with the goal of forcibly removing them from Germany, quote, whether they like it or not. That's nice. Isn't it? It's interesting as well, because all these countries have. taken the greatest minds of Germany. That's why Germany is famously very bad at engineering.

And they haven't really done. Have they done anything sort of notes since? I don't think so. Yeah, real brain drain. Yeah. I think they're just kind of just wandering around aimlessly. Yeah. As a nation.

Walking into walls like. Yeah. Doink. Oh. Like Sims characters. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

It's not doink though. What's the German word for doink? Voink. Oh, a voing. Oh, voing. nine Akhtung I say something like that

Voink Something like that Very two dimensional characters Very too special That's all that's left They took them all They took everyone else out Yeah

They took the brains out Yeah Sorry if you're still there You know one of the brains The bronze is Is it remand They're all hot Oh yeah

They're all Hot and strong Yeah Yeah The beauty and the bronze Left Oh yeah But the brains

Those ugly brines The brines Those ugly brines The ugly brines The ugly brain drain. And just to wrap it up, the Germans weren't the only ones who were poached. Many Japanese perpetrators of horrific, still in scrubbing some of the stuff I read from my

brain, who had experimented on human subjects, were also given immunity in exchange for the results of their experiments. So they never went punished because they were like, we've tested these diseases on these unwilling participants. Deal with the devil. Yeah, he's- America has lost its soul. Terrifying stuff.

Is this with America or is this with other countries? Oh, both. Both countries. America and other. There's two types of people in this world. Americans and everyone else. But again, since Japan's brain drain back then, they haven't. And what do they do?

What have they done? They haven't created any technology. Oh, my God, one of the most backwards countries there is. Yeah. Going to Japan is like going back in time. You know, you're like, what is all this? It's Asia's sovereign valley. Sovereign Hill.

Sovereign Hill. Because if I, there would have been, you know, the majority of this thing out there going, Sovereign Valley. What does that mean? Sounds beautiful. Oh, Sovereign Hill. Now we all get that gold rush theme park outside of Melbourne. From Belarout.

Perfect. But that's my report on Operation Paperclip. It's left a very questionable legacy as over the decades more and more of the truth has come out about some of these guys' backgrounds, and people are still scratching their heads going, do we do the right thing here? I'm going to go out and say, no. But, Jess, then think of all the bombs we wouldn't have, these high-tech bombs that can kill more people easier.

That's true. Yeah. It's not even one of the, it's not like, you know, one of those, what do you call them, philosophical things, the tram, the trolley question, yeah. trolley question and then because it's like one way these people get punished for their crimes but if that happens then all these great bombs are made and more people don't die so it's pretty tricky it is a tough one you go the other way they do get punished but then we don't have the bombs yeah so it's kind of like a do you want the lose lose or the win-win it's a

tricky one but it's like you were saying at the start map they're like they're worried about the the enemies getting the technology and then use, well, they'll develop the bombs anyway and then use them on us. Very, very tricky. And they were paranoid. They had this real fear of, oh, my God, we're going to go to another world war. We need to get in front no matter what. Sweep this under the rug, but then over the years you look back and go, well, that's really

morally questionable. I just think this is a, it just feels like a romantic comedy situation. USSR, USA just had to have a conversation. Yeah. Pick up the phone. The Cold War was that third. act part where they, or maybe second act, I don't understand movies, but it's the bit where they're like, I hate you.

The conflict. I can't believe. Yeah. I can't believe I ever even trusted you. Yeah. That's where. And then we see a montage of the miserable without each other. But they just had to say, oh, no, that, that email wasn't, that was an old email that

you read or something. Yeah. It was a misunderstanding. Yeah. It all works out of the end as we see with current US Russian relations. Yeah. They're kissing. They're smooching.

They're smooching at a sunset. Yeah. And you go, oh. And I think we're almost up to the bloopers. I love bloopers. You love our bloopers. If I say a blooper, I think of Jess Perkins. Yeah, yeah.

I do too. Every time. I love bloopers. You inspired the end of Who knew with Matt Stewart a bit. I'll do some bloopers in the post credits there. I am an inspiration is what I'm hearing. But ethically, is that a good decision? Ethically, very dubious.

Dubious Perkins, some people. call you. They do. Well, Dave, what a fantastic report. How grim was that? Well, it's what the Patriot. Well, not, it's what everyone wanted to. Yeah. It's the ninth most photofore topic of Blockbuster tober, 2023. They love grim. They love grim. And we love to know that so many technological and scientific advances have come because of Nazis. Yes, and people being murdered. Nazis that have faced zero. No consequences for being Nazis. Hey, they got medals.

That's true. They did get medals in a new life in America. Just to give everyone an idea of how popular that topic was to get in a ninth position, it got 26.6% of the vote. Whoa. And now mathematicians are going, how can there be room for eight more topics? But everyone, you were allowed to vote for as many as you wanted to. So more than one in four people who voted said, tell me about them Nazis. I want to hear about that.

So there it is. Yeah. Amazing stuff. But moving on to a much more joyful topic. And this is thanking some of our most and best and sexiest. Sexiest friends. Yes. Which we like to call our Patreon supporters, not their value, but they are all hot.

They are all to a person. Hot. To a person. To a person. Two per person? No. You know the phrase to a man. Oh.

Because some of our patron-on. I've never heard that. I've never heard that. You haven't heard the phrase to a man? No. Have I made it up? So in what context would you use it? To a man?

She's hot. As in every single one of them to an individual. Down to the last. Every single one is hot. To a person. To a man. Nah. I don't, I've never heard that.

Well, I think you've made that up. It could have been made up. It could be just another one of my, what was that? Matterisms. Matterisms, yeah. That's pretty good. That's good. Although remember when you thought that sold a pup wasn't real and that turned out to be real?

I don't recall ever being wrong. I do not recall. Oh, that is, you don't want to be answering stuff like that. in this episode, because that does make you sound like you're a Nazi. I have not been sold apart. Anyway, so in this section, people who have signed up at patreon.com slash 2G1 pod, our great supporters there on multiple levels. There's all sorts of ways you can get involved.

I mean, that's the one way, but there's different things you can get depending on your level, things like Jess. You can vote on topics. As we've just discussed, you can get early access to tickets to live shows. you can join the Facebook group, the friendliest corner of the internet, and bonus episodes as well. Heaps of them. Heaps of them.

Heaps of them. I've done so many. I've lost my voice. They're on the floor. They're out the door. Please. We've got bonus episodes coming out. The ass.

We're ass men here. And women. I'm an ass man. To an ass man. Every one of them is hot. So, yeah, we're getting so close to doing a fourth monthly bonus episode for people on the bonus episode level or above, which is, I believe, the Dreamboat Cooper level. Anyway, the first thing we like to do to thank some of these great supporters each week is the fact quote of question section, which I actually think has a jingle. Fact quote or questions.

Huh. She always remembers the jing. He always remembers the ding. Mm-hmm. Jing being jingle. Yep. I forgot to say sing. And... It's been a while. The way, yeah, because Dave and I've been doing the last few solo, I think. Oh, I've been pushing my voice really hard. Yeah.

He's been singing and dingers. I'm not cut out for a sing and a ding. You're not a trained singer like me. I'm not. I'm a trained dinger, though. You are. Thank you. You are the best dinger in the biz.

Safety first. So people... who are on the Sydney-Shyrneberg level or above get to give us a fat quota a question or a brag or a suggestion or really whatever they like. Recipes. And I read them out for the first time on the show. And that's really just to forgive me for saying anything

that is maybe a bit off-color. That is maybe... Maybe a little off-color. Maybe I mispronounce something. I haven't read it out before, okay? The first one comes from... And I'm not being defensive. I'm just trying to be honest.

Being a little defensive. I'm opening a dialogue with the... listeners. God, he's so defensive. The first one this week comes from, what episode is this, Dave? Four hundred and fifteen. The first one this week comes from Henry T. Wilhoit. I also knew what episode number it was, just in case you wanted to throw it out a bit more generally. I would have said four hundred and fifteen. But question was only addressed to the man in the room. To a man. It was addressed to a man. My cat is a wake sense in that context.

Yes. Yes. Okay. Henry T. Wilhoit, incredible. A.k.a. An official hazelnut farmer. That's the title Henry's given himself. And Henry is offering us a fact this week. Relatively relevant, because it's Stalin related by the looks. Okay. I think he was mentioned. When Joseph Stalin died in 1953, the Soviet government tried to keep his death a secret. The only reason the US found about his demise was by translating a coded radio.

message sent by the Kremlin to their allies worldwide. The young army a radio operator who first decoded the message was none other than country music star Johnny Cash. What? What? What? I'm going to need that again. Johnny Cash decoded the...

Encrypted message that announced Stalin was dead. That's amazing. I think that might be the best fact I've ever heard. We've done an episode on Johnny Cash and I don't believe. if I brought that up because I don't think I knew that. No. That is wild. That's amazing.

I should say, I don't fact check either. I'm reading these out for the first time. So people are going, you just got sold a pup, mate. Yeah, which is a thing. Definitely a thing. That's a wild fact. Thank you so much Henry T. Will Hoyt for sending you in. The next one comes from Tim Wright,

aka unpaid intern of self-gilt. And Tim is asking a question here. which goes over something like this. Ever since supporting on this website, ever since supporting on the website was shut down, I've been too lazy or forgetful to sign up on the Patreon itself. That's right. For a little while, we had our own website.

It was kind of like our own... Our own sort of support system where you could pledge. Yeah, it was like an LOD Patreon. But then we ended up having... It was too much going on at once. Yes. it got on top of us. But anyway, so Tim continues.

The guilt of squatting in the nicest corner of the internet without supporting the podcast has become too much to bear. So here I am. Tim, you legend. Guilt. Works every time. You don't have to feel guilty, Tim. Nah, feel it.

Tim goes on to say, you guys have been podcasting for nearly eight years at this point. And a lot has changed in your lives over that time. Given this, I posed to you the question from an early episode to see if your opinions have been altered. So, cremation, burial, or other. Tim says, as per the usual request, my answer is probably cremation. It'd feel uncomfortable to me

that someday in the far future my grave may be dug up or move for want of space. At least with cremation, I wouldn't be constrained to one point. Cheers, guys. I can't remember what I said at the time, but I think I'm a cremation guy.

Yeah, I mean, unless like, yeah, shoot me into space. No, I don't want to go to space. Yeah, cremation. Because then you're associated with Nazis. Exactly, and I don't want to do that. I guess, yeah, I guess cremating me. But then like, use my ashes to make a diamond or something. Oh, yeah.

And shoot into space. And then shoot that into space. Hell yeah. I mean, I think I was back on team cremation until I originally did that episode. Yeah. Yeah. How cremation can go wrong. Yes.

Or just not be done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want my loved ones to stand there and watch me burn. It'll be written into the will. Watch it. Yeah, I think I'm going to go, I don't like the idea of it. I still have, I think I'm probably talking about this at the time, the idea of accidentally having a bit of someone else mixed in with me.

I want it to be completely cleaned out before I go in there. Okay. Why, you're dead. I know. There's something weird about it. It's something weird about being turned into dust, too. Oh, what? It's just.

It's all really fucking strange. Scrap it. I'm off it. I'm not going to die. Okay. Choose not to die. You know who else didn't die? The next one comes from Ben Johnson.

Jesus? Was it going to be Jesus? Is that what we were talking about? It was going to be a friend who once upon a time didn't die. But I think technically he did die. He ascended. Anyway, Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson.

Okay, basic bitch boring name. Wow. Ben, wow. But Ben, we know you and we know your, you are. You and your name, you and your name are simpatico. So where are you going? No, I was going to, I was trying to figure out how, but my brain isn't working. I was going to say, you're not that.

Oh, the curtains don't match the drapes. Yeah. Carpet doesn't match the drapes. Why you've got curtains and drapes? Wow, you really like privacy. Ben Johnson, oh, is offering us a joke. I don't think we get many of these. Oh, brave.

I don't think we've had a huge hit, right? Let's see. Let's see. About time this podcast finally had a joke. I bet it'll be good. It's the joke. I bought a dictionary off Amazon the other day. When it a...

That was great. You're really amazing. You had a bit of a hand movement going to. Does it imagine Max... Yeah. I bought a dictionary of Amazon now like that. Keep that going. Okay.

Yeah. Hey, okay. So what are this in this? Heard about this? I've seen this. This thing on? So I bought a dictionary off Amazon the other day. When it arrived, all the pages were blank.

There were no words to describe my anger. I got the rhythm was off on that, the punchline. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought I was still in set up because there was a thing below, which I thought it was a punchline, but it was PS Happy Block. Right, okay. Let me try one more time. I do not get it.

I bought a dictionary. So, hey, hey, we. Okay, now you're going too far, actually. I need you pair it back for a little bit. Were you about to do a crowdwork? Yeah. No, no crowd work. It's not written in there.

I'm from Chicago. Oh, the windy city. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I thought you did a fart. Got him. That's good stuff. I kill. Got to try stand up.

I'm heckling. Take it back. I bought a dictionary off Amazon the other day. When it arrived, all the pages were blank. There were no words to describe my anger. Yeah. There were no words to describe my anger Let me tell you

There are no words to describe my anger Are you angry that the dictionary is blank? Yes And there's no words Dave, do you genuinely not get it? That's fucking good stuff Okay, he gets it He gets it

I get it now Only after the second time Not enough to laugh Hold on Can we edit that We'll just cut that together That was I believe that That was scary

I know Yeah You're realising what I just realised Yeah He faked his orgasm. Every time. You're faking it every time. Are you always faking when you laugh?

Yes. But there's one laugh that you do where I think it's genuine though, because you don't do it as often. And it's really cute. That should be the most fakable one of the world. I think I'm stifling it a bit like, all right, here we go. Thanks so much, Ben Johnson, for that joke. Finally this week, it's Roy Phillips, aka man in a shoe shine shop who saw Susie shopping and sitting in the shoe shine shop.

Well done. You did quite well there. Another Johnny Cash later, didn't he have a song about a shoe shine boy? Maybe. Probably. It feels like that in Johnny Cash would happen. Get rhythm, I believe. So, Roy is offering us a quote.

And I love this quote. Okay. Hans, booby. I'll be your white name. And that was Harry Ellis from Diehard 99. Hans, Boobie. Hans, booby. And I like, because it's a, spelling boobie is something that has confounded me for years.

Because it's so close to booby. So Roy's spelled it and this B-U-B-B-B-B-Y, which I think I would say Bubby. That's Bubby. So I think I think I'd. I maybe spell it B-U-B-I. I agree. But it's a tricky one. And how has he gone with it?

B-U-B-B-Y. But I knew what he meant. That's Bubby. But maybe that's how, like, maybe it's just Australian accent. We'd say Bubby. Yeah. But that would be boobie. I realized I didn't know the name of the actor that played Alison Diehard.

And this name doesn't ring a bell, but I love it. That actor's name is Hart-Botchner. That's so good. What good is that? Canadian actor, actor, film, director, screenwriter and producer. Hart-Bochner. Heart Bochner. You don't want him.

It's the opposite of normative determinism that he was never going to be an open heart surgeon. Like you wouldn't. Yeah. Oh, Dr. Bochner. Dr. Hart Bochner. Thank you so much to Henry, Tim, Ben and Roy. The other thing, or one of the other things we like to do

is shout out to a few of our other great supporters. And Bob normally comes up with a bit of a game based on the topic at hand. Good luck. I was thinking of like something they invented. Maybe a weapon? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But under like, Operation.

And, yeah, and the name could be a lot nicer as well. Yeah, you cover up, it's like, oh, this is a ray that killed turtles. But it was called Operation Cuddles. Cuddles. It will not get better than that. If I can kick us up, I'd love to thank from Lawrence, Kansas in the United States. It's Morgan Potter Bell.

Morgan Potter Bell. Could it just be their operation name. Could be. Yeah, okay. Rather than a weapon. Operation Botchner. That's good. Operation Hart Botchner.

Operation Hart Botchner. That operation was a failure. The patient did not exist by the end. They didn't exist. exist. Thank you so much. Morgan Potter Bell, what a name. Morgan.

I'd also love to think from Halifax in Great Britain. It's Jamie. Jamie. Operation. Die hard. Whoa. That's a good one. That's a good one.

How does his brain work? Fantastic. Or Operation Hard die. Okay. No, no. No, no. Save hard die for another one. We've got a few more to go.

It's a few more to go. We've got seven to go. Stop burning them all. And finally, for me, I'd love to thank from Mercer Island in Washington in the United States. It's Bradley Purtle. Pertil. Operation Turtle. Oh, Operation Turtle.

Bradley Turtle from Operation Turtle, Operation Turtle. Yeah. Bradley Turtle from Operation Purtle. Hello around. You idiots! Let me go on. Bradley Purtle from Operation Turtle reporting for duty, sir. He saved it.

He saved it. He saved it. Incredible performance. Yeah. Sir. Sir. Report of Judy, sir. Can I bother you for a glass of water?

Water. Water. Bradley Birdle from Mushphoration Turtle. Can I bother you for a glass of water, sir? My favorite Pokemon is Squirtle. Squirrel. May I thank some people? Yes.

Thank you so much. I would love to thank from Lacey in Washington, Ryan Norseg. Oh, Norsego. What about Operation Waterwalk. Water walk. Yeah. Water walk. Water walk.

Water walk. Water to walk. Water to walk. Water walk. Like walk on water. Walk to work. And your work is war? No, Matt. I can fix it.

Matt's confused. Water. A water. Wark. Woha. Are we talking about Wowa? Woh-W-W-W-W-K. Yeah, I'm gonna laugh.

Operation War-W-Walk. Beautiful language. Thank you, Ryan. I would also love to thank from the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. Oh, beautiful. Zach Forbes. Oh, it's got to be the Blue Mountains Panther. Operation Panther.

Operation Blue Mountains Panther. Operation. Pantaara, which is Spanish for Panther, maybe. That's sick. Operation Panther. Operation Panther, that fucking rules. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's cool.

Bad ass. That one must have been taken early. I reckon the first ever operation was probably called Panther. Yeah, it's a coolest sounding. You start a Panther and then. Yeah. Where to you from there, though? Yeah, that's true.

Paperclip. Start a hundred. Do you go to paper clip? Yeah, that's true. From, what's left? Panther to paper clip. Yeah. Close alphabetically.

And finally for me, I'd love to thank from address unknown, so we can only assume deep within the fortress of the moles, Tommy Debag. Tommy Debag. Tommy D-Bag. I wonder if there's any relation to Chris DeBerg. I don't know how naming conventions work in other parts of the world, like the mole. Or Dimebag Daryl.

Could be. Tommy D-Beg-Bag D-Beg-Darle. D-Beg-D-Beg-T-Row. Tommy D-Bag. Wow. Operation. Baggy shorts. Baggy shorts.

Baggy Shorts. Baggy trow. Baggy trow. You've got to drop baggy trow. Operation Baggy trow. That's lovely. On your dummy D-bag or Tommy de bag. I would like to thank from Green Bay, Wisconsin, I believe this is.

Yeah. Cheesehead country. Am I right and say that? Go cheeseheads. Whatever that means. I would like to thank from Green Bay, Mitch. My girlfriend's middle name is McCabe Rudolph. Wow.

Macabe's a great middle name. Yeah. McCabe. Maycabe. It's so good. Operation McCabe. Maccabe. That's good.

Oh, McCabe, you've done it again. You will not get that in Wisconsin, but Mitch. I mean, I barely get it in Australia. Okay, there's an ad on TV for chips. Ah, McCain, you've done it again. Yeah, the company's called McCain. It's probably an American thing anyway, to be honest. Oh, McCabe, you've done it agape.

Yeah, that's how it would work. Who's Gabe? You've done it, I gape. Operation McCabe. That's good. I would also like to thank from, oh my God, listen,

but it was one second. It's warming up the pipe. Mimamu. I would like to thank from Hillsborough, New Jersey. It's Samantha La Roca. Rocka. Like rocket.

The rocker. Operation. Rocking chair. Oh, that's good. What about Operation Rocker? A rocket chair. No.

Rocking chair. Don't you think that's kind of menacing? Yeah. Imagine you walk into a room and there's a rocking chair in the corner and it's slightly rocking. Yeah. That's creepy as shit. Yeah, but then if you notice that it had rockets attached to it, I'd be pretty excited. Operation Rocket chair.

No, it's still called rocking chair. It just has rockets attached to it. Yeah, I'm all right. Are you happy with that? Yep. And there's a doll on it. There's a guy playing banjo on it. And then on his lap is a doll playing banjo.

A doll playing banjo. And its head spins around. Yeah. That's pretty menacing. That's spooky as shit. But they're beautiful banjos. Oh, lovely. What an instrument.

Yeah, Julian banjos, fantastic. The more banjo, the better. The man, I should say, is Steve Martin. Yeah. Wow. And his head turns around. No, that's the doll. The doll.

Can you pay attention for five seconds? Honestly, no. We got one final name here. And finally, I would like to thank from Sutherland in New South Wales. It's Meg. T. Meg T.

I wonder if there any relation to T-bag? D-Beg? Probably D-Beg. What are there any relation to the Meg? Wow. Operation Jason Statham. Oh my God. That is so good.

Operation Jason Statham. What makes you think I'd risk my life for you? What makes you think I'm a Meg? Chomp. He's a Meg. I'll now pronounce you, man and Meg. Man and knife. So honestly

We are on Patreon We have a monthly podcast called Phraising the Bar Where we have watched a in chronological order One Brendan Fraser film a month For nearly over three years There's only six to go We don't know what we're going to do after that We've been talking about other movies

Are we going to talk about Alan Ruck? What the Ruck? Go Ruck yourself. We love The Ruck. Or Jason Statham's come up We couldn't think of a good name But I think Operation Jason Statham Is an incredible name for a podcast

I think Man and Knife is a great name for a podcast To a man and knife To really bring Make people understand what's going on Yeah otherwise it doesn't make any sense To make it timeless Or the other idea is we just

We do a movie club where we watch good movies No no Let's continue to punish ourselves forever Or watch movies that are related to past episodes Is there been an Operation Paperclip movie Because there was an Operation Mincemeat movie After we did that episode on a movie I never watched that.

No, I never did either, but I always thought maybe we'll watch it for the Patreon one day. So that brings us, oh, I should just say quickly, thank you so much to Meg, the Meg. Maybe that's so T, Meg T might be T for the. Yeah, Meg, comma, the. Yeah. Thank you, Meg, Samantha, Mitch, Tommy, Zach, Ryan, Bradley, Jamie and Morgan. And the last thing we like to do here is welcome some of our great supporters into the Patreon triptych club. Welcome.

We know it's pronounced triptych. Now we do. For a couple of years we didn't. But that was because Dave said it wrong on episode one. And we've gone with it since then. Absolutely. My art teacher was wrong. Anyway, welcome into the triptych club.

This week, there's only one inductee. Jess, you're normally sitting behind the bar of this triptych club. Can you explain it from your vantage point? Well, there's a few inductees. Okay. I'm thinking of a different episode. Maybe about five. But what it is, is I like to imagine that it's like an airport lounge.

It's a cool, exclusive club. A gentleman's club, but not gross. To a man. To a gentleman. Where... No toilet. We have a band. The Dave books.

I'm behind the bar. This week, I've got explosive food for you. Oh, God. Thank God. I thought you were about to confide on us about a condition you might be suffering. No, the hors d'oeuvres I have for you are exploding in flavour. Oh. Pesto mostly.

I've just added a pesto to pretty much everything. Yeah. And what do Nazis eat? Natchos. Okay, that I've got nachos. Oh, no, my fucking favourites. Oh, God. Yeah, and so you should be happy I've got them.

Thank you. I just thought of Nazi nachos Sounded some like Yes, it works I'm pretty confident that Nazis didn't eat many nachos I think you're okay to continue eating nachos day No It's ruined

I'm so sorry But I have them And they're delicious They would have eaten sourcrow And stuff that you don't want anyway Oh my other favourite Fuck And Bratwurst or something

Oh shit They're big three Oh no Natchos Sourcrow Bratwurst Yeah he loves it Damn

Sorry mate Dave also books a band That's right for the after party Yeah Who's playing tonight? You're never going to believe it What? I've actually booked a mini festival tonight

Really? We've got to have And obviously a book a festival You've got to book that at months If not years in advance sometimes Yeah But you're never going to believe it It's actually called the paperclip festival

And we have one Oh no we've got all of the 11 bands called paperclip on Spotify We'll be appearing live tonight There's 11 bands called paperclip There's paper clips There's paper clip people Paperclip minimiser

paper space clip and then eight with the name just paperclip one word boy shaped paperclip oh my god there's so many paperclip there's a band called paperclip worship the paperclip tank uh-huh okay and they're all appearing live oh my god it's gonna be huge that's exciting i'm really excited so uh dave's emceeing he's on stage yeah i'm at the door I'm the bouncer. I'm the muscle. And I've got my list here, five names on it. I've just added four to it quickly after Jess just reminded me.

And I'm going to read these out, lift up the velvet rope. If you hear your name, run on in. Dave will hype you up on stage with a bit of weak wordplay. Jess will hype Dave up. The crowd will go wild. Yeah, they'll party on my line. Yeah, they go wild. So, oh, it must be because of the weak wordplay.

Or maybe it's because the wordplay's amazing and you don't get it. Yeah, yeah, it's possible. Unlikely, but possible. All right. Are we ready? I'm lifting up the road. First up, welcome in from Stanmore in New South Wales, Australia. It's Brendan My Hill.

There's only one hill I'll die on, and that's Brendan My Hill. What's going to die on? From Carnegie here in Melbourne, Victoria, it's Lydia. Welcome Lydia in. Carnegie, Lydia. From Vania in Ontario, Canada, it's Sam Sutherland. I've got Vania mania with Sam Sutherland. with Sam Sutherland from Greensboro in North Carolina.

Quick Fun fact, that is where Thistledoo Minigolf started the mini golf craze in America. Incredible fact. Wow. It's Brandy Broyhill. There's a second hill I will die on. It is Brandy Broyhill. And finally, from Broken Arrow in Oklahoma in the United States, it's Ian Newton. Well, Newton had three laws, but there's a fourth one tonight, and that is I love Ian Newton.

Yes. Welcome in. Make yourselves at home. Grab yourself an exploding hors d'oeuv. Ian, Brandy, Sam, Lydia and Brendan. That's beautiful. And as we waddle off to the after party in the club, is there anything else we need to tell them before we go, Bob?

That they can suggest a topic. Anybody can. You don't have to be a Patreon to suggest a topic. There's a link in the show notes. You can also go directly to our website, which is do go onpod.com. And you can find us at do go on pod across all social media as well. Now Dave, boot this baby home. Hey, we'll be back next week when Blockbuster Tober returns with our eighth most voted for topic.

How could it be bigger than this? Well, there's eight more come and thank you so much for listening. And we'll be back then. Until then, I'll say thank you and goodbye. Later. Night. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to,

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