Beginning in the early 1960s, one after another, former Nazi scientists and engineers were targeted for assassination in an Israeli intelligence operation called “Operation Damocles.” The scientists had taken new jobs developing rockets for Egypt, and it was very clear that Mossad — Israel’s intelligence agency — didn’t want that program to continue. So Mossad agents sent mail bombs, organized drive-by shootings, and in one case, managed to make a prominent arms dealer named Heinz Krug disappear completely. As the New York Times reported at the time, “The expert, Dr. Krug, who once held a top post with a Stuttgart research institute for jet propulsion physics, disappeared in Munich on Tuesday. … He was last seen leaving his Munich office for an appointment.”
Operation Damocles was ultimately a successful program. It terrified Nazi scientists, and it certainly made the idea of working for Egypt much less appealing. It was also good practice for Mossad, which went on to conduct many more assassinations of foreign scientists — most recently in Iran. Just a few years ago, towards the end of Trump’s first term, the Mossad managed to kill Iran’s nuclear scientist using a remote-controlled, AI-enabled machine gun that was hidden in the back of a pickup truck that was parked on the side of the freeway.
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