Erich Traub

Erich Traub
Born(1906-06-27)27 June 1906
Asperglen, German Empire
Died18 May 1985(1985-05-18) (aged 78)
Rosenheim, West Germany
CitizenshipGerman, American
Alma materRockefeller Institute for Medical Research
Known forFoot-and-mouth disease
Scientific career
FieldsVirologist
InstitutionsUniversity of Giessen
Riems Island, German Reich

Erich Traub (27 June 1906 – 18 May 1985) was a German veterinarian, scientist and virologist who specialized in foot-and-mouth disease, Rinderpest and Newcastle disease. Traub was a member of the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK), a Nazi motorist corps, from 1938 to 1942. He worked directly for Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), as the lab chief of the Nazis' leading bio-weapons facility on Riems Island.[1]

Traub was transported from the Soviet zone of Germany after World War II and taken to the United States in 1949 under the auspices of the United States government program Operation Paperclip, meant to exploit the post-war scientific knowledge in Germany, and deny it to the Soviet Union.[2]

  1. ^ Carroll, Michael (2004). Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-001141-6.
  2. ^ Hunt, Hunt (1991). Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990. New York: St.Martin's Press. p. 340.