How the historians are dealing with the reckoning a former Nazi headed the US space program until his death in 1977. Did it matter to him which country he worked with. At least 20,000 concentration camp immates died building his rockets for Germany. Did he only care about building rockets than who they killed?
7
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I think it has been pretty much agreed upon that while Von Braun was a member of the Nazi Party... He did so out of necessity to protect both his life and his life's work in science. He was more a pure scientist who did whatever he needed to do to pursue his dream of sending rockets into space. Yes... Thousands died building them and thousands died when V2s rained down in England. It's called WAR. WWII was a good reason why we shouldn't have a WWIII! But people forget what it tasted like and then we have morons like Trump who never learned from history so they repeat the mistakes!
RiverRick
Level 7
July 19, 2019
3
This is not news.
Anyone familiar with operation paper clip knows that the cream of Nazi scientists were divided up between the USA and USSR as spoils of war.
The makers of the V1 and V2 rockets, the fathers of the atomic bomb and those who would contribute to the design and building of stealth jet fighters and bombers were all former Nazis.
Like wise those sociologists and political scientists behind the founding of the EEC/Common market were also former Nazis, seen as less important they were left in Europe for the use of the French, British and Dutch.
The whole situation was parodied in Leonard Wibberley's novel "Mouse on the Moon" with "rocket scientists" being traded and defecting back and forth between the Americans, Russians and British, with "Germans" commanding a higher price than any other type.
The morally contentious matter, especially those concerning medical science, of separating the the discoveries from the discoverer and their politics has dogged the ethics of the academic mind for generations.
However unlike in medicine and the arts cold hard economics and pragmatics have held sway in the post war Capitalist economies when it came to matters of Physics and warfare.
To paraphrase Lennin "Rockets before ethics"
LenHazell53
Level 9
July 19, 2019
2
Yes, as you say we have long known about Von Braun and others’ Nazi pasts. Pragmatism won out, and I believe it was a sensible move on the Western powers to avail themselves of these very exceptionally skilled scientists. Russia of course did the same with the ones that fell into their sphere. What a terrible waste of their talents it would have been not to do so. I’m sure there may have been some true believers amongst their numbers, but it’s my belief that not many would have been actual Nazi Party members ...a distinction not always made.
@Marionville Actually, Russia got the cream of the crop and far more than the West. Hence their advantage in space until Kennedy committed huge funds to catch up.
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