Doctor von Turncoat

Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun
A man whose allegiance was ruled by expedience
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown
"Ah, Nazi, Schmazi!" says Wernher von Braun!

— Tom Lehrer, "Wernher von Braun"

It's the final stages of the war, and the army has captured the Mad Scientist responsible for building all the Big Bad's Doomsday Devices! At last, he'll face justice for the crimes his unholy inventions have wrought! The general is marching up to him, and they're... shaking hands?

Doctor von Turncoat is an enemy scientist or inventor (typically involved in the design of cutting-edge technology or top-secret weaponry) who switches sides during or immediately after a conflict, and is accepted with open arms by the receiving side. This is generally driven less by moral scruples and more by simple pragmatism—they can read the writing on the wall and want to be on the winning side, or will gladly work for anyone who funds their research. If they're faced with threats of prosecution by the victors, a choice between employment and prison (or execution) is An Offer They Can't Refuse.

There's a good amount of Truth in Television for this: in Operation Paperclip, the United States government clandestinely recruited over a thousand Nazi German scientists in the closing months of World War II—initially to help win the war against Japan, but later to win The Space Race against the Soviet Union. Expect any characters who are based on real Project Paperclip scientists to be portrayed as Herr Doktor with a Morally Ambiguous Doctorate, and their arsenals of inventions including some Stupid Jetpack Hitler-tier technology.

Other characters' reactions to Doctor von Turncoat are rarely positive. The only people excited to work with them tend to be General Rippers, salivating at the thought of turning their shiny new weapons against their unsuspecting enemies. The people who previously fought the Doctor or their employer, especially if they've lost comrades to the Doctor's weapons, may see letting them go scot-free as a betrayal of the values they fought and bled for. Things may also be awkward in their new working environment, especially if some of their new coworkers had previously fled the regime Doctor von Turncoat previously worked for. Sure, the Doctor can swear up and down that they were forced to work for the regime or Just Following Orders, but there'll always be suspicions about how easily they were coerced.

A Sub-Trope of Recruiting the Criminal and Karma Houdini. Sister trope to Boxed Crook. Compare Retired Monster, Nazi Grandpa, Can't Kill You, Still Need You, "Get Out of Jail Free" Card, and Indispensable Scoundrel. Compare and contrast Reluctant Mad Scientist, Kidnapped Scientist, and Leonine Contract.

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Examples

Comic Books

• In Avengers: The Initiative, Baron Werner von Blitzschlag is an unapologetic former Nazi scientist who was scooped up by the American government after the war under Operation Paperclip. During the days of the Initiative, he offered his expertise in cloning and genetic engineering to help create the Thor clone and cover up the death of recruit Michael Van Patrick.
• In the alternate-history comic miniseries Ministry of Space, it's the British rather than the USA who recruit Wernher von Braun and his associates, leading to a highly successful British space program and large-scale colonization of the solar system by the early 21st century. It's also revealed that the program was largely financed with stolen Nazi Gold.
• In John Byrne's NextMen, a scientist named Fleming Jorgenson works in an American base in Antarctica in the 1950s (seen in a flashback in Vol. 1). In Vol. 2, it is revealed he was previously a surgeon working for the Nazis and operating in a concentration camp some eugenics experiment.
• In the backstory of Top 10, the US government recruited several Nazi scientists to help them build Neopolis, the first city entirely populated by super-powered individuals. This went sideways when the Nazi scientists tried to use time travel to win WWII for the Nazis.

Fan Works

• Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron: After the Galra invade and occupy Earth, Lloyd Asphund jumps at the opportunity to join the Voltron Coalition. After the Coalition liberates the Olkari from the Galra, Lloyd is shown to get along quite well with them, even when they call the Lancelot primitive.
• Code Prime: After Britannia falls to the Decepticons at the end of R1, Lloyd Asphund defects to the Autobot/Black Knights alliance, primarily because the Autobots will grant him more freedom to improve the Lancelot with Cybertronian technology.
• With This Ring: With several of his family members drifting toward legitimate and semi-legitimate lines of work, and with the possibility of reuniting with his ex-wife whom he still loves, supervillain Doctor Silvana negotiates a worldwide pardon for his past crimes in exchange for his expertise in defeating the Sheeda invasion.

Film—Live-Action

• Captain America: The Winter Soldier:
  • After Hydra's defeat and the Red Skull's disappearance at the end of World War II, former Hydra second-in-command Dr. Arnim Zola was brought to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. He was able to refound Hydra with a clique of fellow ex-Nazi scientists inside S.H.I.E.L.D., which thoroughly infiltrated its highest echelons in the ensuing decades.
  • Hydra scientists taken by the Soviet Union established a branch in Russia as well, eventually linking back up with their American counterparts. They took over the Winter Soldier program, using him for decades to assassinate enemies of Hydra in secrecy.
• C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America: It's stated that the slave-owning Confederate States of America disapproved of the Nazis killing Jews instead of enslaving them, but decided to stay neutral in Europe when World War II broke out, with the C.S.A. focusing on conquering, and enslaving, Japan. When the war in Europe ended, the C.S.A. enacted "Operation Aryan Angel," with the aim of bringing as many former Nazi scientists over to the C.S.A. as possible and using their technical know-how to expand their empire.
• Dr. Strangelove: Keeping in line with the film's satire of the Cold War, the title character is a Nazi scientist who was hired as President Muffley's scientific advisor in the hopes that his skills would give America an upper hand against the Soviet Union. As it turns out, Strangelove is more "mad" than "scientist" and is more than happy to relish in the aftermath of a nuclear war if it means being able to establish a Fourth Reich.
• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: The Big Bad of the film is Dr. Jürgen Voller, a Nazi mathematician who was poached by Operation Paperclip to help with the Apollo Program and teaches at the University of Alabama (whose Huntsville campus was home to many real Project Paperclip scientists). He is still a very ardent follower of the Nazi ethos and blames Germany's loss in World War II on Adolf Hitler being a General Failure, so he seeks the eponymous Dial to go back in time and "correct" things.
• Implied to be Doctor Scott's background in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He works for the American government, and Dr. Frank N. Furter alludes to it by asking him, "Or should I say: Doktor von Scott?" Given that Scott reflexively seig heils in response, Frank appears to be correct.

Literature

• In William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy universe Mega Corps keep their top scientists in ironclad contracts that essentially make them Indentured Servants, resulting in a whole underworld industry of persuading scientists to defect to a rival corporation with deniable assets faking kidnappings to bring them over. The short story (and movie) "New Rose Hotel" and Turner's plot in the novel Count Zero are about how such jobs can go horribly wrong.
• Subverted in X-Wing: Solo Command. The New Republic captures a scientist working for Warlord Zsinj and gets her to reverse-engineer the chemical brainwashing protocols she developed to turn people into Manchurian Agents, granting immunity from prosecution in exchange for the cure. Nawara Ven then tricks her into getting caught trying to transit a New Republic port carrying sufficient Imperial currency to incur a life sentence for sedition.

Live-Action TV

• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Discussed in the flashback scenes involving Peggy Carter and Dr. Werner Reinhardt. He offers his services to the U.S. government in exchange for a pardon, noting that many other Hydra scientists were offered the same, but his human vivisection experiments were so horrifying that the he's soundly rejected.
• Babylon 5: Jha'dur, the title character of "Deathwalker," is a Mad Scientist from the Dilgar War notorious for producing bioweapons and experimenting on prisoners. After being sheltered by a Renegade Splinter Faction of the Minbari warrior caste since the war's end and the destruction of the Dilgar homeworld in a supernova, she appears on Babylon 5 carrying an Immortality Inducer she plans to sell to the Earth Alliance. After a diplomatic standoff between the senior members of the Advisory Council and the Dilgars' former victims in the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, the League agrees to let her leave in exchange for the fruits of her research. Then her ship is destroyed leaving the station on orders from Vorlon Ambassador Kosh, who—not inaccurately—tells the rest of the cast, "You are not ready for immortality."
• The Boys: Frederick Vought, the inventor of Compound V, was an ardent Nazi who defected to the United States with his wife and daughter when the course of the war started to turn against Germany. He worked with the US government to create Soldier Boy, the world's first costumed superhero, and went on to found Vought International.
• The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Wilfred Nagel, a HYDRA scientist, was recruited by the CIA to work on their super-soldier program. He doesn't succeed before the program is scrapped, so he goes to work for someone else.
• For All Mankind: Wernher von Braun becomes the scapegoat for NASA's failure to beat the Soviets to the moon, especially when the full extent of his involvement with the Nazis is revealed in a Congressional hearing. He ends up resigning in ignominy.
• The Mandalorian: Inverted by Dr. Penn Pershing, a former genetic and cloning researcher for the Imperial Remnant, who is finds employment with the New Republic at the start of season 3. However, the New Republic's laws explicitly forbid him from doing any more research in his area of expertise, resulting in him getting stuck in a dead-end office drone job instead.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: In "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," the eponymous movie features a NASA scientist named Wernher von Green, an obvious parody of Wernher von Braun. Crow cracks a few joke implying than von Green was also recruited by Operation Paperclip: he dubs von Green starting an interview (about Santa Claus' recent abduction) with an unprompted defense of his actions in the war, and later has the von Green refer to the interviewer as "mein Führer."
  Crow: (as Wernher von Green) I'm innocent! I was only following orders— Oh.
• Star Trek: Voyager: Allegorized in "Nothing Human". In order to treat a crewmate, the Voyager's Doctor generates a hologram of Dr. Crell Moset, a Cardassian xenobiologist renowned across the Federation. The Doctor learns to his horror that Moset got his medical expertise from experimenting on Bajoran civilians during Cardassia's occupation. One crew member even lost family members to Moset's experiments. The whole episode is an allegory for the real-world debate on the relative merits of Operation Paperclip, and whether it is ethical to use information gained through atrocities in peaceful applications.
• Taken: Dr. Kreutz is a former Nazi scientist brought in by Colonel Owen Crawford to study the alien ship recovered from Roswell. He first appears in "Jacob and Jesse" and is killed in "High Hopes."

Music

• Satirized by Tom Lehrer in his song "Wernher von Braun," on his album That Was the Year That Was. He sardonically praises von Braun's political flexibility, as well as the damage his V2 rockets caused to London.
  Don't say that he's hypocritical
  Say rather that he's... apolitical
  "Once ze rockets go up, who cares vhere zey come down?
  Zat's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun!
• Referenced by Flanders and Swann in the introduction to their song "The Wompom", in which the eponymous... thing is said to have been created by "a British scientist, Professor Wernher Von Lebensraum."

Tabletop Games

• Shadowrun: "Extraction" jobs are a standard variety of shadowrun inspired by Gibson's stories where runners grab one corporation's scientist and bring them to another. But, rollplayers being who they are they often skip the "persuade the scientist" stage and go straight to the Narcoject.

Video Games

• Ace Combat: Following the Belkan War many scientists and engineers left the country to develop weapons and technology for other nations. However, in Skies Unknown, Dr. Schroeder reveals that most of them secretly worked behind the scenes to escalate conflicts across the globe to avenge the fall of their homeland.
• Bioshock gives us Dr. Yi Suchong, who started out designing plasmids (gene-based weapons) for crime lord Frank Fontaine. When Andrew Ryan finally moved in and crushed Fontaine's forces, Suchong defected to Ryan's side and began making plasmids for him as well.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops:
  • Dr. Friedrich Steiner was a German scientist who helped develop Nova 6 nerve gas for the Nazis, then offered to surrender his research to the Soviets in exchange for his life. He came under the protection of General Nikita Dragovich, developing both a refined version of Nova 6 as well as brainwashing techniques for creating Manchurian Agents. When Hudson and the CIA start closing in on Steiner, he makes another offer to defect, this time to betray Dragovich, in exchange for his protection. Unfortunately for him, Alex Mason finds him first.
  • During the mission "Executive Order," the CIA agents are sent into Soviet Kazakhstan to sabotage the launch of Soyuz Two. The resulting blast sets the scientists in the control room on fire, whom Woods points out were Nazi scientists recruited by the Soviets.
    Brooks: Poor bastards...
    Woods: They're Nazi bastards, they don't deserve sympathy.
• Dishonored: The Loyalists task Corvo with kidnapping Anton Sokolov, a brilliant inventor, doctor and artist who works as the Lord Regent's physician. Though he initially shows contempt for his captors, Sokolov begins working with the Loyalists and eventually forms a partnership with fellow scientist Piero. In the low-chaos ending, the two work together to create a cure to the Rat Plague.
• Fallout 3: Anna Holt assists Dr. Li with her Project Purity to help bring fresh water back to the Capital Wasteland. She defects to the Enclave the first chance she gets because she genuinely believes that they will actually help the wastelanders. The player still loses karma if they kill her at this point.
• Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance: Izuka is a mad scientist employed by Mad King Ashnard, who experiments on laguz to turn them into feral, weaponized beasts. The sequel reveals that after the war, Izuka is given a position as Prince Pelleas' advisor, with his tactical and scientific knowledge considered too valuable to let him go.
• The Kugelstadt mission in Return to Castle Wolfenstein features a top-level nazi scientist serving under "Deathshead" who, as the OSA director puts it, wishes to defect and is desperately seeking asylum. Naturally one of your objectives becomes covering his ass so he can be extracted safely.
• The plot of both Sniper Elite and its reboot Sniper Elite V2 deals with tracking down Nazi officers involved in the German nuclear program in the final weeks of the war, making sure to kill the ones who intend to defect to the Soviet Union. V2 also includes missions where the player protects a scientist willing to defect to the US.

Western Animation

• Exosquad: Played With with Prof. Algernon. He is a genius Terran scientist who was captured by the Neosapien regime and put to work in their Venusian R&D, despite the Neos otherwise treating Terrans captured on Venus more akin to cattle. When the Terran armed forces recapture Algernon, they put him to work in their own R&D, despite him not only having built weapons for the enemy that killed thousands of Terrans, but also expressing zero remorse for that or even concern about who payrolls his research, as long as he can carry it out.
• Invincible: D.A. Sinclair, a student and scientist at Upstate University, is defeated by Invincible after he kidnaps several of his peers to turn them into cyborgs. Cecil later recruits him to the Global Defense Agency so he can continue making cyborgs for them, which are later used to slow down Omni-Man's rampage.
• Phineas and Ferb: In "The O.W.C.A. Files", Dr. Doofenshmirtz is allowed to become an O.W.C.A. agent, despite being O.W.C.A.'s Public Enemy no. 3 for the entirety of the main series.

Real Life

• After World War II, the US government's Operation Overcast and Operation Paperclip recruited some 1,600 Nazi scientists, many of them involved in aeronautics and rocketry. This included Wernher and Magnus von Braun, Kurt Debus, and Arthur Rudolph, who later became instrumental in the foundation of NASA and the Apollo rocket program. While many of those involved portrayed themselves as working for the Nazis reluctantly, scholarship in recent decades revealed that a good many of them were aware of or complicit in The Holocaust, mainly in the form of using slave labor from concentration camps in the construction of V-2 rockets. Few of them faced prosecution, and then only decades after the war's end.
• Similarly, the US granted immunity to the heads of Unit 731, a Japanese bioweapons research unit whose experiments involved extensive human experimentation on Chinese civilians. The pardon was because American scientists believed that the Unit's discoveries would be invaluable in treating diseases and injuries, but it turned out that the quality of recorded data was rather poor, and its actual usefulness was nebulous.
• The British had several operations of their own, such as the Fedden Mission and Operation Surgeon, with the goal of rounding up any Nazis they could find of particular scientific or technical expertise. They also did numerous joint programs with the US military like the Alsos Mission, which targeted the German nuclear program.
• The Soviets had Operation Osoaviakhim, which saw the deportation of over 2,500 Nazi scientists and technicians from the Red Army's German and Austrian occupation zones to the Soviet Union. They also seized the entirety of the Mittelwerk rocket center, the main production site for the V-2 rocket.

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You, too, can be a big hero
Once you learn to count backwards to zero
"In German, und Anglish, I know how to count down
Und I'm learning Chinese," says Wernher von Braun!