ABSTRACT
The term ‘brain drain’ is a complex and loaded one and has been applied to various exchanges of expertise and know-how throughout history, yet is often warped by a certain political slant or agenda. Operation Surgeon proved to be one of the more successful vehicles for British recruitment. In November 1945, the Board of Trade convened a meeting to form a panel which would enact the personnel exploitation of German civil industry; roughly a non-military equivalent to the Deputy Chiefs of Staff Committee. In Washington, the State Department, which had acted as the most consistent obstacle to a joint Anglo-American policy on civil-industrial recruitment. The move to ‘exclusive exploitation’ proved a sizeable success for the exploitation of German expert personnel in civil industry in Britain. The civil recruitment schemes, discussed and developed at senior levels of the British government and civil service. Trade unions actually remained among the most vocal and consistent critics of the recruitment of German specialists.
