To be fair to Von Braun, he did have slaves build his rockets.
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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Wasn't just Von Braun and the V2. Me-262s were built with forced labor. Then there's the Comet, which was an amazingly bad idea. I'm surprised it wasn't flown by slave labor, as little as they seemed to care for the pilot's safety. The fuel was so corrosive that if it leaked the pilot would be dissolved alive.
I did a report on this in 5th grade, people thought I was making it up.
i had someone here on lemmy try to say the scientists recruited to the US via operation paperclip weren't involved in crimes against humanity. a lot of people have missed in the shuffle of the past 80 years exactly what happened during the holocaust.
I think the US media has washed their image so clean with the WW2 movies that most people have no idea about stuff like the nazi rally happened in the US and the support for eugenics in the Us, and the concentration camps in the Us.
lord… i live near two of the american concentration camps called out by name in the planning docs for auschwitz…
The US is all about realpolitik, and begins to make a lot more sense when you look at everything through a Kissinger-shaped lens (rest in piss, you evil bastard). We pretend to be ideological so our citizenry can feel good about ourselves, but the way the nation operates is purely pragmatic. Look no further than Israel-Palestine and how buddy-buddy we are with Saudi Arabia for modern examples. Even our support of Ukraine, while overlapping with an ethical imperative, is driven primarily by the interests of NATO and the relatively inexpensive degradation of Russia’s military and political standing we can participate in. We only give a shit about “human rights” when it benefits us.
Operation Paperclip was pragmatism. It creates a sense of cognitive dissonance when we try to hold in our minds that we brought Nazi scientists over and the idea that we’re “the good guys” and fought for “justice,” so our brains try to reduce that cognitive dissonance by saying those scientists weren’t behind any of the evils of the Nazis. They were, obviously. That didn’t matter to our government, but they kept the operation classified for a reason.
The US is all about realpolitik
Not to excuse the US's history of foreign diplomacy, but I think it would be naive to believe that there exists any major power who doesn't treat geopolitics with the same level of pragmatism.
The Soviets hated the Nazi even more than the US did and yet they still had their own version of paperclip. Operation Osoaviakhim brought almost double the number of Nazi scientists into the Soviet Union.
Osoviakhim was somewhat more ideologically consistent than Paperclip. The scientists weren't invited to the USSR with promises of cushy jobs and immunity from prosecution: they were forced from their homes, loaded onto freight trains, and made to work. It was part of the wider program of the Allies using the forced labour of ethnic Germans as a means of war reparations.
I mean, the Soviets didn't offer them any guarantees. But I think that's more of a byproduct of how they held leverage over the specialist, and more of a difference in how the two cultures choose to motivate employees.
Despite this, the affected specialists and their families were doing well compared to citizens of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Zone, apart from the suffering of deportation and isolation. The specialists earned more than their Soviet counterparts. The scientists, technicians and skilled workers were assigned to individual projects and working groups, primarily in the areas of Aeronautics and rocket technology, nuclear research, Chemistry and Optics. The stay was given for about five years.
The US does not currently support Ukraine or NATO, and is allied with Russia.
And when it comes to Nazi rocket scientists falling into the hands of post-WW2 America, or the USSR, I'm quite glad it was the former.
I wouldn't say we're allied with Russia lmfao, that's liberal bullshit, Trump is only looking after himself and whoever gives him the most in return. Very transactional, which means we are essentially allies with whoever gives us (him) the best offer. Whether that be literal gifts or things for his "legacy".
"liberal bullshit"
is this the Trump supporter "liberal bullshit" or the Marxist "liberal bullshit"?
Why did Trump tariff every country on earth except Russia?
Marxist lol
We already do zero trade with Russia right? (I haven't checked but we sanctioned the shit out of them right lmao)
You ever wonder why Marxists sound so much like Trump supporters these days?
In what way are we allies with Russia in your eyes?
If we were, the Ukraine / Russia war would be over already with heavy losses on the Ukraine side, instead we literally just gave them even more ammunition.
Again, it's a transactional relationship for Trump, which I'm not saying is good at all, but it is the case, and to claim we're allied with Russia is just factual incorrect.
I was actually going to commend you for not just assuming I was a trump supporter but.... Rip
Trump is allied with Putin. It's just going to take a while for him to convert the rest of the country.
Again, it's a transactional relationship for Trump,
It's more like a close friendship for him.
Trump and Putin will act in concert if their goals align so they can both personally benefit. They're both egotistical monsters though who are entirely about themselves and their legacy first and foremost. You're absolutely reaching by saying they're close friends or allies, the proof is in the pudding, Trump could have completely pulled out of Ukraine but he hasn't yet. Why do you think that is?
You're absolutely reaching by saying they're close friends or allies
He has a history of stuffing his cabinet with them too:
Trump could have completely pulled out of Ukraine but he hasn't yet. Why do you think that is?
I already said, it would piss off the rest of his administration. He has to change them slowly. Take over DC so that if the anti-Russia components revolt, it won't matter, for example. Arm DC soldiers. You see where this is going.
Bro he filled his second admin with sycophants, literally just raided Flynn with the FBI lmfao. Sorry you're incorrect and making this both too simple and too complex lmao.
What does any of that have to do with Russia?
I suppose with regard to Ukraine I should have said “our support was.”
And now the Marxist state is a fascist one.
Hmm.
And now the one that fought fascism is a fascist one.
Hmm.
Let's be honest, practically everyone is turning fascist these days, for one reason or another.
Wernher von Braun by Tom Lehrer
R.I.P. Tom Lehrer
(Heard this first in For All Mankind, an excellent show I recommend to everyone, pirate it if you don’t have Apple TV+.)
What were they supposed to do, leave them all to Operation Osoaviakhim?
the problem after WWII was there was only one christopher lee
How many were there before that?
Its the reason the USA is fucked right now, they witness protectioned a bunch of nazis and they grew familys based on evil values.
Well Wernher von Braun was a weird one... for example he opposed segregation while some local govenor clearly did not
I do not think german nazis were too motivated against africans, specially african-americans. They were ultra racist against Jewish and Slavic.
The American nazis were the ones obsessed with skin color against black people.
At least that's the impression I get when reading about those times.
Among other things