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Not just Unit 731, but a lot of America's rocketry experience was imported wholesale from Nazi Germany. We are talking 1500 scientists, technicians and engineer
by _nedR 11y ago
Not just Unit 731, but a lot of America's rocketry experience was imported wholesale from Nazi Germany. We are talking 1500 scientists, technicians and engineers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip) including Wernher Von Braun, the designer of the V2. Indeed , Von Braun had been advocating space flight since the very beginning- all the evidence suggests that his tryst with the Nazi weapons program, was merely in order to further his ambitions for human space flight.
Where would America be in the space race, had they not done this? I think in hindsight, it was a pretty clever decision - these people were probably the most valuable war bounty America got out of the whole deal.
- scott_karana 11y agoUnlike Unit 731, the scientists in Operation Paperclip were just that: scientists. Their complicitness in the war, while definitely non-zero, was markedly less.* Unit 731's doctors were more akin to Mengele: personally hacking off living humans' half-frozen arms to see how they reacted in the cold, experiments with gangrene, etc... Every single concentration camp "doctor" was deemed a war criminal. We didn't import them as a war bounty. Too bad we never did the same for Japan. ---- * The only two exceptions seem to be Kurt Blome and Hubertus Strughold, both brought over in Paperclip, who probably perpetrated some nasty shit but were "tried" and given a pass.
- _nedR 11y agoDefinitely they were not as culpable as the guys in unit 731 (Hell even Hitler was probably less sick than those guys). But their involvement (they used slave labour with people possibly tortured or worked to death) was strong enough for some of them (especially higher ups) to be put to trial.