Promising a deal that includes citizenship, a house, a salary, and an administrative position to a Nazi scientist in exchange for their work and knowledge such that one's country can gain ground in a cold war is absolutely fine. It's absolutely totally fine.
Following through with the deal after getting the goods from the Nazi is not. Shoot the Nazi. You always shoot the Nazi.
I apologize if I'm misreading. Are you suggesting that it would be wrong to shoot a Nazi?
Von Braun was not just guilty by association he utilised concentration camp slave labout
yeah Von Braun literally ran some of his rocket research out of a fucking death camp
Ah, now I will admit to there having been a potential nuance. I certainly would want a trial before an execution, for instance. But I also think it would be wrong to assume these scientists were completely morally innocent. Maybe I could be persuaded from my earlier opinion of "You always shoot a Nazi" but there needs to be something to show. A diary entry saying "I'm not sure about this Hitler fella." Something.
The second one makes for one less Nazi. Thus less warcrimes. Dont tell me theres some magical "cycle of hate" you're beholden to, just for putting down a child-killing government operative.
What do we do with the naturally born Nazis vs the Nazis that were forced to be Nazis.
I mean, if we're going to be serious, the USSR had its own version of Operation Paperclip. Operation Osoaviakhim
...
On arrival the 302 Germans were split into several groups. A large group of 99 specialists from the Zentralwerke was installed in Podlipki in the north east section of Moscow as part of Korolev's NII-88, 76 design engineers were transferred to Gorodomlya Island, and 23 specialists to Khimki as part of Glushko's OKB-456 for the development of rocket engines.
But once the Germans had been pumped for info, they fell by the wayside. The difference between Russians and Americans was that the Russians didn't put German scientists in administrative positions. They just squeezed them for their findings and retired them. The scientists didn't end up running the fucking departments.
In fairness, the Russians had one big advantage the Americans didn't..
Russian scientists.
But my point is more that they had no compunction over taking German scientists when presented with the opportunity.
They had a lot of excellent scientists.
Fun fact, the math behind radar stealth was developed by a Russian scientists and was ignored in URSS because it had a shit title. US delayed translating it because they didn't undersrand the title. After a few years somebody at lockeed marting found it and realized what it meant. I think F-117 was developed based on that.
At least von braun and his ilk contributed to science. The same cannot be said for the japanese war criminals behind unit 731, 1855 etc. they were let off scot free for the results of their fucking evil, psychopathic, sadistic GARBAGE “science”/“experimentation” 99% of which had no debatable value whatsoever.
The soviets of course just took the research notes and therefore got rockets faster
you know that there was no actual competition called a space race. America worried by soviet advances in space technology declared an arbitrary goal after which they "won" America then proceeded to completely ignore things like the first space station
Thanks for showing me a flag of a country that no longer exists.
(⌐■_■)
You can't explain starfield's narrative weakness without citing operation paperclip. Not correctly, anyway
Actually, none of the scientists were found guilty of a crime. (And several of them were investigated.)
You actually believe that? The people who claim that people like Werner von Braun didn't commit any crimes are the CIA and Braun himself. All of the records from Germany were destroyed. It's essentially just taking his word on it to believe he was only involved because "he had to be."
He was literally a member of the SS, the wing of the nazi government that was directly responsible for the Holocaust. He was photographed repeatedly with himmler himself, in uniform. He claimed that those were just ceremonial photos that he had to participate in the keep his career. He also claimed not to agree with the Nazis politically.
Why would you believe anything that a member of the SS said? Especially one as important to the Nazis as von Braun was.
Of fucking course he was never found guilty of any war crimes, the US was actively trying to recruit him. They didn't want to prosecute their newest asset, a man who directly led to the US becoming the globally dominant force it became during the space race. He was useful so the US government deliberately didn't investigate him seriously, took him at his word that he totally wasn't a real nazi, and then used him to invent more rockets for them.
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