lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
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Post by lenbrazil on Jun 21, 2006 14:16:26 GMT -4
Its pretty hard to imagine someone being promoted three times while refusing to play dressup in the scary deathshead uniform.Even in the middle of a war? They were a little busy at the time. But he wasn't a battlefeild commander Why lie about wearing the uniform? I'm not saying he did but doing so would have served to diminish his association with the regime. You see him as a victim of circumstances, wouldn't it have made sense to wear his uniform regularly after he was released? He knew he had powerful friends but he also had powerful enemies who suspected his dedication to the regime. If I were in his situation and didn't care one way or the other about what the Nazis were doing I would have worn my uniform every day. Len
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Post by nomuse on Jun 21, 2006 15:37:17 GMT -4
I see very little use in continuing to talk to a man who is unable to honestly image how they, themselves, would react if what happened to Germany, or Italy, or Japan (or a laundry list of other countries stretching to the present day) were to happen to their own homeland.
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Post by scooter on Jun 21, 2006 21:25:41 GMT -4
I don't know the details, but Arthur Rudolph, considered the father of the Saturn 5 development and production, was stripped of US citizenship and booted from the country. He evidently had a history in Nazi Germany V2 plants. Many of us don't remember or know the real days of the post WWII cold war. and the nation's official paranoia of the Soviet Union (what's the difference between government and media propaganda?). There were thought processes going on then that would be considered unacceptable, if not insane, in today's social mentality (i.e Northwood). We (they) knew whom they had captured in Paperclip, they knew the value of their technical expertise. Von Braun's team developed our first MRBM, the Redstone. The US was "probably" second in launching the first orbiting satellite due to misgivings of our launching our first satellite on a "weapon of war" (which the Soviets proceeded to do). It is important to consider the context of the day....which is totally different than today. I honestly question whether "youngsters" today can comprehend the life back then....gradeschoolers doing nuke attack drills (I remember a drill in the lunchroom, probably "that" October). It's all a personal judgement call...but I personally doubt that Von Braun was a "serious" Nazi, he was a rocketeer who was also a politician. I hope that he and his team felt they came into their real destiny when they came to the US...they certainly made a large contribution to getting us to the Moon.
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lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
Posts: 1,045
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Post by lenbrazil on Jun 21, 2006 22:23:19 GMT -4
I see very little use in continuing to talk to a man who is unable to honestly image how they, themselves, would react if what happened to Germany, or Italy, or Japan (or a laundry list of other countries stretching to the present day) were to happen to their own homeland. I hope that if I was in the same situation as Von Braun I would have the courage not to serve a Nazi like regime. As I understand his life he had 3 options in the 30's: 1) Move to another country and try to do rocket research there. 2) Stay in Germany and do something else. 3) Stay in Germany and work for the Nazis. He had choices the slaves from Buchenwald didn't. Before the war he probably had no way of knowing that he would end up utilizing concentration camp slave labor but he had already cast his lot with the Devil and I have see no signs that he regretted his decision. Was he a brilliant scientist? Yes. Did he make vital contributions to the history of space exploration especially the American space program? Yes. Did his contributions in helping develop ICBM’s help keep the Soviets from achieving military dominance in the 50’s? Quite possibly. Was he an evil person? Probably not, but best case scenario his dream of achieving spaceflight and ambition allowed him to cooperate with one of the most evil regimes in World history. Should he have been tried as a war criminal? Probably not, but I’m not sure. Does he deserve to be venerated as a hero? Not in my book. Len
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Post by Jason Thompson on Jun 22, 2006 6:01:35 GMT -4
no one in Germany was under any illusions about the Nazis.
Yet they were voted into power. Does that mean everyone was a Nazi? Does that mean everyone who did not actively oppose the Nazi’s was a war criminal, or at least approved of everything they did?
The Nazi regime was simultaneously the most evil and most genuinely popular political regime in history. In an episode of The World At War, a German man made possibly the best point I have ever heard on this issue. Anyone who has not lived through the total economic collapse of their country and the increasingly ineffective measures of the new democracy cannot appreciate how wonderful it is to hear someone promising to make the country strong again, and seemingly delivering on those promises. Anyone who has not lived in a dictatorship with such total media censorship cannot appreciate how easy it is to start believing the propaganda simply because no conflicting reports are allowed into the country. Anyone who has not been through what the Germans of the post-WWI period had cannot appreciate how, in the desperation to see things get better, it becomes alarmingly easy to convince yourself that the atrocities you hear about are exaggerated, isolated incidents or mere rumours. This man joined the SS, and really believed he was on the right side. Only afterwards did he realize what a mistake he had made. And remember there was never any official word about the use of slaves or the extermination camps. Most of the general population never knew about the death camps until the Allies liberated them and then paraded the civilians through to show them what the Nazis had done. It is quite conceivable that von Braun had no idea that slave labour was going to be used until he got to the camp, by which time he really was stuck.
So, it’s all very well for you to sit in judgement of him, but since you have never come close to experiencing life in the kind of economic and political background he has, I would be very careful about it.
perhaps he could have invented an excuse to visit Sweden or another neutral country.
What kind of excuse do you propose? Germany at the time had one of the best industrial frameworks in Europe, if not the world. Everything he needed to do his war work on rockets was available within the Reich. What possible reason could he come up with for visiting a neutral country that would not cast further suspicion on him? Remember, he was arrested and imprisoned for merely suggesting possible alternative applications for his rocket, which was twisted by certain SS officers into constituting sabotage because he was not devoting his full attention to the application of the V2 as a weapon of war.
There are also no signs he in anyway objected to the treatment of the prisoners or did anything to improve it.
But in some ways this is a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation. If he kicked up a stink about the facilities he used, he would be in deep trouble with his superiors. If he didn’t, later people might judge him harshly on it. A choice between getting into real trouble that could have him executed or imprisoned in the here and now, or possibly facing some tough questions and judgements later on… Well, maybe he just didn’t have the moral conviction or simple balls to put his life on the line. Was that wrong? Quite possibly, but I see no reason to condemn him too harshly for it.
Got away from whom? I’ve seen no evidence he was in danger of being detained by the German’s again.
Lol! Simply stopping what he was doing and trying to escape was treason. He was not in danger of being detained, he was in danger of being summarily executed! Even in the ‘good guys’’ armies desertion during wartime was a crime punishable by death. During WWI conscientious objectors, men who refused to fight, were vilified and sometimes detained or shot, frequently humiliated in public, and often shunned by their peers once they declared their pacifist intentions.
In short, if you work for a war-related industry, especially in a dictatorship but often even in a democracy, stopping work was seen as betrayal and punished accordingly. Von Braun may not have had SS squads waiting outside his door to arrest him if he so much as sneezed, but that doesn’t mean he was free to stop what he was doing and make an escape.
He got out because of Operation Paperclip.
Yes, which put a nice Allied force close at hand and gave him a good chance of being found by them before being found and shot for desertion by his own superiors.
He should at least have been detained, questioned and investigated for his role in crimes against humanity.
According to everything I’ve seen, he was. You seem to think he just got flown into America and put to work straight away. All his team were kept in a POW camp and interrogated regularly for months or years, at the same time as being co-opted to work on the captured V2 hardware and educate the Americans about it.
Did he ever speak out against what the Nazis had done? Did he ever express any regret for having cooperated with them?
Would it have mattered if he had? Opinion would still be sharply divided over whether he genuinely meant it or was just saying it to make himself look better. Words won’t change deeds.
If I were in his situation and didn't care one way or the other about what the Nazis were doing I would have worn my uniform every day.
‘If I ran the zoo’ fallacy. Von Braun was under no obligation to behave as you would in his situation, and I still maintain you or I cannot fully appreciate his situation.
I hope that if I was in the same situation as Von Braun I would have the courage not to serve a Nazi like regime.
High hopes are one thing, but unless you’ve been there I fail to see how you can judge effectively the actions of another man.
1) Move to another country and try to do rocket research there.
Rocket research in Germany was the best in the world. Hermann Oberth was in Germany, and he was widely regarded the world over as one of the highest authorities on the subject. Why go anywhere away from the best in the field if you want to study?
2) Stay in Germany and do something else.
He wasn’t interested in anything else.
he had already cast his lot with the Devil and I have see no signs that he regretted his decision.
Many people say regrets are pointless, as they won’t change what happened. Von Braun made some decisions that put him in a bad position. He could either spend the rest of his life apologizing for them or just put the past behind him and get on with his new life. I know which I’d rather do.
Was he an evil person? Probably not, but best case scenario his dream of achieving spaceflight and ambition allowed him to cooperate with one of the most evil regimes in World history.
That’s a very nebulous phrase. Co-operate can mean anything from actively helping the Nazis to simply not objecting openly to their policies. The difference between the two is quite marked, and therefore so is the level of culpability that associates with them.
Should he have been tried as a war criminal? Probably not, but I’m not sure.
He was interrogated. But you can’t interrogate the entire population of a country. Von Braun was not alone in failing to oppose the Nazi regime. Trying everyone who shared that fault would have been impractical.
The real question is would it have been productive to try him and have him locked up or executed, or to have him put his expertise to better use. As I said, the initial work was done effectively in a POW camp. He wasn’t brought in to the US, given freedom and citizenship, and given free reign to do as he wished.
Does he deserve to be venerated as a hero? Not in my book.
Who venerates him as a hero? Seriously, who aside from space enthusiasts even knows who he was? Most people can’t name any astronauts besides John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, never mind any other people involved in the space program.
Von Braun was a genius who had a regrettable past. I see no reason to detract from his achievements and his contribution to the space program because of it.
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Post by Jason Thompson on Jun 22, 2006 6:03:37 GMT -4
But he wasn't a battlefeild commander
That still doesn't mean they had time to play around with pomp and ceremony every time he was promoted. Promotion does not necessarily mean a big dress-up ceremony with bands and medals. Yuri Gagarin got promoted while in space. I doubt he put on his uniform while floating in Vostok to accept it.
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Post by 3onthetree on Jun 22, 2006 7:47:48 GMT -4
I think Yuri might have been proud of his uniform. The point was that any officer in any military organization has duties and responsibilities that come with the rank. In the case of an SS officer that included frequent dressing up and loud heel clicking. The SS were not known for their informality. An engineer friend of mine joined the RAN and is very proud of her lieutenants uniform, for her to make the rank of commander she will have to do a bloody good job in all aspects of being a Naval officer and engineer. What I object to is not the fact that Von Braun was a member of the Nazi party and the SS but the fact that there was an attempt to erase it from history. Or if not erase it to at least put a large spin on it. There was a fourth option for Von Braun and the rocket team, to remember the Oath they took when they joined up, when Hitler was making promises they were promising back. Grab a gun and defend the fatherland like a good Nazi. There were 1600 or so 'Paper-clippers' Von Braun is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Jun 22, 2006 8:57:51 GMT -4
He didn't wear that lot every day: he'd have done his back in ;D
On a more serious note, the SS was far from just a military organisation: the Waffen-SS was just the tip of the iceberg (although proportionately larger as the War went on). The SS also had charge of policing, so that the KriminalPolizei and the more sinister GeheimStaatsPolizei were both SS organisations. Finally there was the Allgemeine-SS, the largest part, which filled a number of roles from state administration down to a sort of members club. Of these, only the Waffen-SS and KriPo would routinely wear uniform.
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Post by gezalenko on Jun 22, 2006 9:58:30 GMT -4
Wise words Jason Thompson !
Like Lenbrazil, I like to think that if I'd been in von Braun's shoes I'd have behaved differently, but I wasn't even born then, and I've never experienced anything like that directly, so that doesn't count for much.
Bear in mind also that for many Germans, even if they knew exactly how evil Hitler and the Nazis were, they still wanted Germany to win the war. With the RAF and USAAF bombing their cities to pieces, and ground forces invading Germany from both sides, it was a natural reaction for many to want to fight back against the allies, even if they disagreed with Hitler. Von Braun's record should also be viewed in this light.
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Post by Jason Thompson on Jun 22, 2006 10:44:34 GMT -4
What I object to is not the fact that Von Braun was a member of the Nazi party and the SS but the fact that there was an attempt to erase it from history.
No such attempt was made.
Or if not erase it to at least put a large spin on it.
That's called politics, and the blame for that lies squarely with the US military and government services. The fact is that the US wanted certain services from Von Braun and he was willing to offer them. However, there was always the perceived risk that others may object to working with him given full information about his past, and that would have been pointlessly counter-productive. That this is so was adequately demonstrated by the failure to launch a US satellite ahead of a Soviet one: one of the objections to using von Braun's rocket for the purpose was the fact that it was designed and built by a group of ex-Nazis, and this might harm national pride.
There was a fourth option for Von Braun and the rocket team, to remember the Oath they took when they joined up, when Hitler was making promises they were promising back. Grab a gun and defend the fatherland like a good Nazi.
In developing a ballistic missile capable of bombing Britain from the European mainland I'd say that was precisely what they were doing right up until the point where it became apparent that Germany had lost the war utterly.
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Post by Jason Thompson on Jun 22, 2006 10:48:27 GMT -4
I have see no signs that he regretted his decision.
Another point to consider: what signs would you expect to see? Publicly sobbing his heart out on national television about his tainted past? How do you know he was not constantly haunted by visions of the slaves dying in the camp? How do you know he didn't cry to his wife every few nights because he was ashamed of his role in a slave labour facility? As I said earlier, a public apology/confession/whatever would still be regarded with distrust and suspicion by people, so why waste time agonising over the past and bringing it all into the open when it would be more productive to put it behind him and get on with things as they were?
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Jun 22, 2006 12:15:09 GMT -4
And it's not as if he was immune to criticism at the time:
"I Aim for the Stars - but Sometimes I Hit London"
"...but some say our attitude Should be one of gratitude Like the widows and cripples of Old London Town Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun"
to quote but two
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Post by Apollo Gnomon on Jun 22, 2006 18:56:07 GMT -4
Second guessing and 20/20 hindsite are easy substitutes for deep thinking.
Every day people wake up and face the world thinking "I'm one of the good guys," or at the very least we don't wake up and say "well, I'm part of the Evil Bad Guys, I'd better get ready for work." Even more so in war. Imagine for a moment having to undergo a profound personal belief system change. At some point von Baun realized he was part of the "bad guys" and had to deal with that. Did it happen when he saw who was making the rockets? Or when he realized that what he was seeing was part of a larger pattern of "evil?" We'll never know.
I think his biggest crime was being oblivious and naive.
We live in a strange postmodern age, where several Presidents of our own nation have committed grave crimes, and modern media allow everyone to be "well informed" (or so we all believe).
Try to get out of your narrow worldview of judging people in other times and places with the mores and dataset of our modern time and advanced democracies.
As for the slave labor, he had no control. He was trying to design plumbing systems and invent guidance methods. He wanted to PERSONALLY go to the moon so bad he was willing to sign on with the government to get backing, but didn't want to make weapons. That's what he got in trouble for, continuing to think about non-weapons when the weapons needed more thinking. So when his superiors breathe down his neck and demand to know why his rockets had such a high failure rate, he suggested they get workers with metalworking knowledge and skills. Did he know they were slaves culled from deathcamps, and that "his" factory was killing them off just as fast? I doubt it.
Suggesting that he had any control of the construction program is silly and naive. Ignorant fools often say about beaten wives "why don't they just leave?" Try to keep in mind that the Reich was a tyrannical entity, just like an abusive husband. Fear, domination, intimidation, threats, disempowerment.... have you any experience with these?
Von Braun still thought HE was going to the moon. I don't think he got over that until Huntsville.
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Post by 3onthetree on Jun 22, 2006 22:35:05 GMT -4
So Von Braun is a beaten wife now ! The poor frightened dominated little lamb. Silly me I thought those dudes in the Deaths-head caps were the very ones doing all the dominating,intimidating and exterminating. Now Von Braun was a member of the Algemeine S.S originally they were the unarmed part time members of the main S.S, things changed during the war. www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-03/tgmwc-03-24-01.htmlThere were undoubtedly a lot of good German people caught up in events and who were powerless to do anything but survive,however when you join that particular club that Von Braun was in I think you exclude yourself from a presumption of innocence at the very least.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 23, 2006 2:57:33 GMT -4
What I object to is not the fact that Von Braun was a member of the Nazi party and the SS but the fact that there was an attempt to erase it from history. Or if not erase it to at least put a large spin on it.
Von Braun's background was well known at the time of Apollo. Norman Mailer writes about a page on Von Braun's past in his book A Fire on the Moon. It is succinect and really a summary of the events, but does include both his meeting Hitler and his arrest and then the later escape. Von Braun rescued over 5,000 people from the Germans and approaching Soviets, managing to lead them through a war torn country and to the American lines. I'd say that compensates somewhet to what else his work did. I'd note that there were others in similar positions who joined the Nazi party and other groups to remain in their careers and industries., including one Oskar Schindler, a man who is now considered a hero in Israel. You really do need to walk a mile or two in these people's shoes before you dare judge them.
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