OMG… I wouldn’t have got the joke if you hadn’t said that!

Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959; some were former members of the Nazi Party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

p.s. also see Ministry of Space, an alternate history comic book in which the British grab all the scientists instead.

It took me a second viewing to realize that’s like 50% of the joke. Well played