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You merely point out a very small subset of where he was from and his employer of the time, yet zero attention to his ideals and life legacy. https://www.nasa.

You merely point out a very small subset of where he was from and his employer of the time, yet zero attention to his ideals and life legacy. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/vonbraun/bio.html https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/vonbraun/bio.h...

ahelwer 6y ago
"His employer of the time" is doing a lot of work for voluntarily joining the Nazi party, later misrepresenting that fact, voluntarily joining the SS, getting promoted a bunch of times, and regularly wearing his SS uniform to work. Lots of terrible people have accomplished great and useful things. Good for them! I'm not taking that away from them. Just leave them & their names in the past where they belong. This is standard practice in medicine, a field with its own share of past nazis.
trhway 6y ago
> zero attention to his ideals and life legacy. the one's ideals and legacy are worth less than nothing if it is built, with the one's full awareness and willful participation, by concentration camp slaves dying in droves from malnutrition, physical abuse and the hard labor while building those ideals and legacy. > employer of the time that defense line of "i was just carrying out the orders" was explicitly addressed at the Nuremberg trials.
- fastball 6y ago
  I didn't realize that concentration camp victims were building rockets?
  - zzzeek 6y ago
    well they were and it was quite horrific! > The record of Nordhausen is a most unenviable one, and we were told that 250 of the slave workers perished every day, due to overwork and malnutrition. ... They also saw stretchers heavily saturated in blood, a room in which there was a slab on which the bodies were drained of blood, and the incinerators in which the bodies were burnt. > Wernher von Braun, the Technical Director of a separate facility at Peenemünde Army Research Center, visited the Mittelwerk on 25 January 1944,[12] and a 1991 author alleged he witnessed Mittelwerk and Buchenwald war crimes.[6] but by all means name this space station after the guy who ran the whole operation and claimed to have no idea. because they just can't think of a single person besides him! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk
  - matthewdgreen 6y ago
    The V2 was built using slave labor at Mittelwerk. 250 workers perished per day at some points and their bodies were incinerated. The entire factory was built underground to escape allied bombing. It is hard to imagine a more horrible place. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk
  - AndrewBissell 6y ago
    Not surprising! Ignoring and downplaying the crimes of Operation Paperclip Nazis is a well established pastime among U.S. historians. "A Secret Agenda" by Linda Hunt is an excellent read on the subject, and goes into lots of detail about the Mittelwerk rocket factory which Von Braun ran: https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Secret_Agenda.pdf https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Secret_Agenda.pdf And if you think Von Braun was bad, wait until you hear about Kurt Blome (who after WWII worked closely with Sidney Gottlieb, the head of the CIA's MKULTRA program) or Klaus Barbie! In the 1970s, former SS officer Otto von Bolschwing was made president of a California company by its director, J. Paul Getty, Jr. (Gavin Newsom's dad William A. Newsom was also on the Board). Although it should be noted they claim not to have known about Bolschwing's SS history: https://spitfirelist.com/news/ex-nazi%E2%80%99s-brilliant-u-s-career-strangled-in-a-web-of-lies/ https://spitfirelist.com/news/ex-nazi%E2%80%99s-brilliant-u-... Whatever you do, just don't go to Wikipedia to read about this stuff ....
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    The Nazis used slave labour very extensively; it’s probably safe to assume that it was involved in most of their industrial production. In this particular case, though, it was extensive, well documented, and extremely nasty.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Wow lots of downvotes for asking a question.
    - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
      Sometimes people interpret questions about the facts as subtle challenges to the narrative. Its an interesting bit of psychology.
    - evgen 6y ago
      Maybe do a bit of research before asking a question that is both trivial to discover the answer to and which is phrased in a way that can be interpreted as dismissive of just how horrible the conditions under which von Braun's slaves were worked.
      - fastball 6y ago
        I called them victims, rather than inmates or something, so I don't agree that my phrasing was in any way dismissive.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
AndrewBissell 6y ago
NASA should be removing Von Braun's bust from in front of their Huntsville center, not publishing apologia and hagiography on their website.

ahelwer 6y ago

"His employer of the time" is doing a lot of work for voluntarily joining the Nazi party, later misrepresenting that fact, voluntarily joining the SS, getting promoted a bunch of times, and regularly wearing his SS uniform to work. Lots of terrible people have accomplished great and useful things. Good for them! I'm not taking that away from them. Just leave them & their names in the past where they belong. This is standard practice in medicine, a field with its own share of past nazis.

trhway 6y ago

> zero attention to his ideals and life legacy. the one's ideals and legacy are worth less than nothing if it is built, with the one's full awareness and willful participation, by concentration camp slaves dying in droves from malnutrition, physical abuse and the hard labor while building those ideals and legacy. > employer of the time that defense line of "i was just carrying out the orders" was explicitly addressed at the Nuremberg trials.

fastball 6y ago
I didn't realize that concentration camp victims were building rockets?
- zzzeek 6y ago
  well they were and it was quite horrific! > The record of Nordhausen is a most unenviable one, and we were told that 250 of the slave workers perished every day, due to overwork and malnutrition. ... They also saw stretchers heavily saturated in blood, a room in which there was a slab on which the bodies were drained of blood, and the incinerators in which the bodies were burnt. > Wernher von Braun, the Technical Director of a separate facility at Peenemünde Army Research Center, visited the Mittelwerk on 25 January 1944,[12] and a 1991 author alleged he witnessed Mittelwerk and Buchenwald war crimes.[6] but by all means name this space station after the guy who ran the whole operation and claimed to have no idea. because they just can't think of a single person besides him! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk
- matthewdgreen 6y ago
  The V2 was built using slave labor at Mittelwerk. 250 workers perished per day at some points and their bodies were incinerated. The entire factory was built underground to escape allied bombing. It is hard to imagine a more horrible place. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  Not surprising! Ignoring and downplaying the crimes of Operation Paperclip Nazis is a well established pastime among U.S. historians. "A Secret Agenda" by Linda Hunt is an excellent read on the subject, and goes into lots of detail about the Mittelwerk rocket factory which Von Braun ran: https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Secret_Agenda.pdf https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Secret_Agenda.pdf And if you think Von Braun was bad, wait until you hear about Kurt Blome (who after WWII worked closely with Sidney Gottlieb, the head of the CIA's MKULTRA program) or Klaus Barbie! In the 1970s, former SS officer Otto von Bolschwing was made president of a California company by its director, J. Paul Getty, Jr. (Gavin Newsom's dad William A. Newsom was also on the Board). Although it should be noted they claim not to have known about Bolschwing's SS history: https://spitfirelist.com/news/ex-nazi%E2%80%99s-brilliant-u-s-career-strangled-in-a-web-of-lies/ https://spitfirelist.com/news/ex-nazi%E2%80%99s-brilliant-u-... Whatever you do, just don't go to Wikipedia to read about this stuff ....
- rsynnott 6y ago
  The Nazis used slave labour very extensively; it’s probably safe to assume that it was involved in most of their industrial production. In this particular case, though, it was extensive, well documented, and extremely nasty.
- fastball 6y ago
  Wow lots of downvotes for asking a question.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    Sometimes people interpret questions about the facts as subtle challenges to the narrative. Its an interesting bit of psychology.
  - evgen 6y ago
    Maybe do a bit of research before asking a question that is both trivial to discover the answer to and which is phrased in a way that can be interpreted as dismissive of just how horrible the conditions under which von Braun's slaves were worked.
    - fastball 6y ago
      I called them victims, rather than inmates or something, so I don't agree that my phrasing was in any way dismissive.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

AndrewBissell 6y ago

NASA should be removing Von Braun's bust from in front of their Huntsville center, not publishing apologia and hagiography on their website.