From Peenemünde to Paris – and where they disappeared . Tin Soldier

From Peenemünde to Paris – and where they disappeared

A timeline of the silent takeover

Year Event Background / Consequence
1944 Secret French plan ("Projet T") to take over German technology. De Gaulle approves the recruitment of German specialists after the victory.
1945–46 Around 4,000–5,000 German scientists and technicians are brought to France. Mainly aviation, chemistry, rockets, and electronics.
1946–1950 Establishment of the centers in Vernon, Toulouse, and Suresnes. Foundation for later French space program (CNES, Ariane).
1950–1953 Many families become French-French; children attend French schools. Some adopt new identities ("Karl" → "Charles").
1954–1956 Some return to West Germany; others remain in France or emigrate to the USA. Beginning of the Cold War – USA and West Germany actively recruit German specialists.
1960s Traces of the first generation disappear; Many archives sealed. Some later resurfaced in French nuclear and space programs.
1970s: France celebrates space successes (Ariane, Concorde) – without mentioning its origins. The chapter of "gray matter" remains under wraps for a long time.
Today, archive discoveries and documentaries (e.g., Bénédicte Delfaut 2023) reveal details. About a third stayed, half returned, and a small portion disappeared.
💡 Conclusion: France's rise was not only blue-white-red – but also tinged with gray.

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Hitler's Scientists – France's Secret Plan
Description:
A forgotten chapter of the postwar period – France's secret hunt for Hitler's scientists.
Like the USA with Operation Paperclip and the USSR with its own "looting raids," France also wanted to win over the best minds of the Third Reich after 1945. General de Gaulle personally approved a secret program that brought thousands of German technicians, engineers, and researchers to France between 1944 and 1946—men who had recently worked on V2 rockets, aircraft engines, and chemical weapons.

This documentary sheds light on the dark side of reconstruction:
How former Nazi scientists suddenly became pillars of French aerospace, while their past was concealed or downplayed. Contemporary witnesses, family members, and historians recount how science, guilt, and progress intersected in a morally murky space.

Director: Bénédicte Delfaut
Production: Babel Doc / Mischia Productions / LCP – Assemblée nationale / ECPAD
Year: 2023
Duration: 52 min
🎧 Technical / Creative Note
"Since many viewers don't understand French, we decided to try an experiment:
The English and German voices (Natural Reader – Adam, Anna, Hedda) are clearly, but intentionally slightly out of sync, superimposed over the original track. This preserves the original French sound as a historical soundscape.
If you wish, you can turn off the sound completely and just read the subtitles – the documentary works just as powerfully visually."
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Music at the end:
🎵 Tin Soldier – Small Faces (1968, Live, with P.P. Arnold – Bouton Rouge, Paris)
A powerful emotional finale: British rock meets the French television archive – a symbolic connection of the post-war generation.

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🧭 Main Topics in the Film

The Secret French Recruitment Program (1944–1946):
→ De Gaulle personally authorized the bringing of German specialists to France.
→ Competition with the Americans and the British – a postwar "scientist war."

Peenemünde and the Rocket Engineers:
→ The cradle of V1 and V2 technology.
→ Many later French space projects (e.g., in Vernon) were based on this knowledge.

Moral Gray Areas:
→ Collaboration with former SA/SS members.
→ Science versus ethics – how much responsibility does the researcher bear?

The "German Kindergarten" in France:
→ The engineers' families emigrated with them.
→ German children grew up in French villages – small "colonies of technology."

Remembrance & Repression:
→ Decades of silence – only contemporary witnesses break the taboo.
→ French space travel as a silent legacy of Nazi technology?

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What happened to the "Frenchified" German scientists
1️⃣ Recruitment and arrival (1945–1947)

After the end of the war, between 4,000 and 5,000 German specialists – engineers, physicists, chemists, rocket scientists – were brought to France, often "voluntarily under supervision."
Many came from Peenemünde, Mittelbau-Dora, Oberammergau, Jena, or from IG Farben complexes.
They were usually housed with their families – for example, in Normandy, in Vernon, in the South of France (Suresnes, Toulouse, Cannes), or in secret laboratories such as the LRBA (Laboratoire de Recherches Balistiques et Aérodynamiques) in Vernon.

2️⃣ The "Frenchification" (late 1940s to 1950s)

Some of these scientists were integrated into the French civil service or received contracts through front companies for the army.

Some adopted new identities or French names (e.g., "Karl" became "Charles").

Their children attended French schools, and many families became "unobtrusively French."

They worked in aviation, rocket development, chemistry, nuclear research, and electronics—areas in which France wanted to catch up.

Example:
👉 Vernon became France's "mini-Peenemünde"—it was there that the development of the Véronique and Diamant rockets, direct precursors to the Ariane space line, began.
Some of this technology came directly from V2 research and German engineering.

3️⃣ The Exodus (from c. 1952–1955)

When Germany (especially the Federal Republic of Germany) regained sovereignty and the Cold War took shape, many German specialists returned –
either to West Germany (e.g., to the aviation industry, later to Airbus, Dornier, and Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm)
or emigrated to the USA, Switzerland, or Spain, where better research funding beckoned.

Some were only allowed to leave after a five-year secrecy period; others stayed because they had married and started families in France.

4️⃣ Disappeared Names & Unanswered Questions

Yes, several dozen scientists have indeed "disappeared,"
which usually means:

They changed identities (e.g., to conceal their Nazi past),

or they were integrated into secret military projects that have not been fully disclosed to this day (e.g., in early nuclear and missile research).
Some names later resurfaced in Algerian nuclear tests, military testing programs, or NATO facilities – often without clear origins.

5️⃣ Looking Back Today

France has long remained silent about this chapter – partly out of pride ("We did it ourselves"), partly out of shame,
because the origins of many projects were "dark gray."
Only through documentaries like this (Bénédicte Delfaut, 2023) and work from the CNES archive are this slowly being unraveled.

In short:

About a third stayed in France permanently,
half returned,
and a small remainder disappeared into secret projects or under new names.

>On a similar topic, see the latest article on lefigaro.fr/international:

"Between 13 and 16 hours a day": An engineer talks about his intense work at SpaceX
By LENA
September 26, 2025, GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE - The young Pole was recruited by Elon Musk's space company and spent three exciting years designing Starship rockets before being fired. #lefigaro.fr/international/entre-13-et-16-heures-par-jour-un-engineer-raconte-son-travail-intense-et-passionnant-chez-spacex-20250926

A reader on lefigaro.fr commented:
-Anonymous on September 26, 2025, 3:06 PM
What is the purpose of this article?

-Romatou
on September 26, 2025 3:31 p.m
"To demonstrate that France, with its 35-hour workweek and its rigid procedures and standards, is beyond the competition. Ariane 6 no longer has a future in the face of such a competitor."

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🎸 Tin Soldier – Tin soldiers to the beat of the 60s

1968, French television: Bouton Rouge.
A young, fiery Steve Marriott – tiny, but with the vocal power of a volcano 🌋 – stands on stage,
next to him is the magnificent P.P. Arnold, a US soul singer with a voice like velvet and steel at the same time.

They sing "Tin Soldier" – a song about longing, love, and the feeling of
being a little tin soldier in the great game of life.

Marriott originally wrote the piece for P.P. Arnold himself, as a "heartfelt message, not a love song."
He once jokingly said:

"I'm the tin soldier – small, shiny, but easy to miss until you hear me."

And P.P. Arnold laughed:

"Then I guess I'm the drum that makes you march, baby!" 🥁✨