---
aliases:
- Samuel Goudsmit
born: 1902-07-11
category: World War II & Nazi Era
died: 1978-12-04
location: The Hague, Netherlands
summary: Samuel Goudsmit was a Dutch-American nuclear physicist who served as the
  scientific head of Operation Alsos, an elite U.S.
tags:
- Person
- WW2
- Nazi
---

Samuel Goudsmit was a Dutch-American nuclear physicist who served as the scientific head of Operation Alsos, an elite U.S. scientific intelligence effort during [World War II](/events/world-war-ii/). The mission of Operation Alsos was to investigate the German nuclear energy project and to prevent German scientific and technological knowledge from falling into Soviet hands[^1].

In July 1945, after the defeat of [Nazi Germany](/places/nazi-germany/), Goudsmit and his team sought to gain access to the former headquarters of [Heinrich Himmler](/people/heinrich-himmler/)'s Ahnenerbe Institute at 16 Pücklerstrasse in Dahlem, Berlin. Goudsmit was only vaguely familiar with the Ahnenerbe's research, which included human experiments conducted through a division called Applied War Research[^1]. He described finding "remnants of weird Teutonic symbols and rites" and "strange dummies which at first looked like bodies of victims" in the basement of the villa[^1].

Goudsmit emphasized the critical importance of preventing the Ahnenerbe's supernatural secrets from becoming part of the [Cold War](/concepts/cold-war/) arms race. He ensured that the Ahnenerbe relics were crated up and sent to U.S. Army headquarters in Frankfurt[^1].

[^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.