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My understanding is that the Nazis lost the technology war because their scientists weren’t given much power and didn’t have representation in high command like

My understanding is that the Nazis lost the technology war because their scientists weren’t given much power and didn’t have representation in high command like they did with the Allies. The Nazi politicians were deciding which technology to fund and their decisions were dumb. They lost air superiority at the end of the war because the Allies had better technology… that I know for sure.

c_crank 3y ago
It seems odd to say the Nazis lost a technology war when the Allies worked very hard on recruiting Nazi scientists as soon as the war ended to harness their expertise in fields like rocketry. They had their strengths and weaknesses.
- kouru225 3y ago
  Like I said, the Nazi scientists were very capable. They just didn’t have any power or control. The movie Oppenheimer correctly points out that the Nazi politicians saw a lot of important ideas as “Jewish science” and didn’t take critical scientific innovations seriously, underfunding them in favor of more conventional innovations like “big powerful rocket.”
  - c_crank 3y ago
    The movie overdramatizes history to make Einstein seem more significant. Einstein never worked on the Manhattan project, and the Nazis were earnestly working on their own attempted nuclear device. They just didn't finish it first. The "big powerful rocket" would have been quite valuable if they did.
    - kouru225 3y ago
      There was a post on here a day or two ago that linked to a transcript of ex-Nazi scientists: https://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf https://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf As you can see, most of them were convinced that it wasn’t possible in the current time frame and seem to be thinking the nuke was more along the lines of decades away rather than years away. They also argue that there was no possible way they could’ve developed the bomb because they didn’t have even close to enough funding.
petsfed 3y ago
Its not as simple as that though. The Nazis fielded the first jet fighter, and it was overwhelmingly dominant. But because of maintenance issues and material shortages, wikipedia claims that less than 100 were operational at any given time. One hundred! I'll concede that the mainline fighters of the Allies were superior to the mainline fighters of the Nazis, but my claim is that manufacturing at scale is a technological advantage all by itself. If the Me262 is worth 3 P-51s, then one way to defeat it is to build 3 times as many P-51s (which the US did). I do wonder, maybe the reason strategic bombing of Nazi industry was ineffective was because Nazi industry (apparently) relied so heavily on manual labor. If that is true, the destruction of a factory would be less the destruction of expensive, complicated machinery, and more the destruction of a place to sit down.

c_crank 3y ago

It seems odd to say the Nazis lost a technology war when the Allies worked very hard on recruiting Nazi scientists as soon as the war ended to harness their expertise in fields like rocketry. They had their strengths and weaknesses.

kouru225 3y ago
Like I said, the Nazi scientists were very capable. They just didn’t have any power or control. The movie Oppenheimer correctly points out that the Nazi politicians saw a lot of important ideas as “Jewish science” and didn’t take critical scientific innovations seriously, underfunding them in favor of more conventional innovations like “big powerful rocket.”
- c_crank 3y ago
  The movie overdramatizes history to make Einstein seem more significant. Einstein never worked on the Manhattan project, and the Nazis were earnestly working on their own attempted nuclear device. They just didn't finish it first. The "big powerful rocket" would have been quite valuable if they did.
  - kouru225 3y ago
    There was a post on here a day or two ago that linked to a transcript of ex-Nazi scientists: https://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf https://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf As you can see, most of them were convinced that it wasn’t possible in the current time frame and seem to be thinking the nuke was more along the lines of decades away rather than years away. They also argue that there was no possible way they could’ve developed the bomb because they didn’t have even close to enough funding.

petsfed 3y ago

Its not as simple as that though. The Nazis fielded the first jet fighter, and it was overwhelmingly dominant. But because of maintenance issues and material shortages, wikipedia claims that less than 100 were operational at any given time. One hundred! I'll concede that the mainline fighters of the Allies were superior to the mainline fighters of the Nazis, but my claim is that manufacturing at scale is a technological advantage all by itself. If the Me262 is worth 3 P-51s, then one way to defeat it is to build 3 times as many P-51s (which the US did). I do wonder, maybe the reason strategic bombing of Nazi industry was ineffective was because Nazi industry (apparently) relied so heavily on manual labor. If that is true, the destruction of a factory would be less the destruction of expensive, complicated machinery, and more the destruction of a place to sit down.