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Possibly worth also including just how controversial Wernher von Braun is. Von Braun is a highly controversial figure widely seen as escaping justice for his N

Possibly worth also including just how controversial Wernher von Braun is. Von Braun is a highly controversial figure widely seen as escaping justice for his Nazi war crimes due to the Americans' desire to beat the Soviets in the Cold War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

alwa 2y ago
And if we’ve come that far, we may as well mention Tom Lehrer’s classic song “Wernher Von Braun,” which, along with the rest of his work, Lehrer so generously released into the public domain: https://tomlehrersongs.com/wernher-von-braun/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/wernher-von-braun/
- hinkley 2y ago
  That song shows up in For All Mankind.
pc86 2y ago
What does that have to do with the comment you're replying to? Edit: This is an honest question, I'm not familiar with the extent of his crimes, if any. It certainly doesn't seem like a clear-cut "he was an objectively evil man but we looked the other way" based on the Wikipedia article. It could very well be his account, which from a brief skim seems reasonable, is accurate?
- pdonis 2y ago
  > I'm not familiar with the extent of his crimes, if any. He was the Nazis' best rocket engineer, responsible for, among other things, the V2s that devastated much of London. By the standards of the Nuremberg trials, he probably should have been tried and convicted. But he was never even accused, because the US wanted his rocket expertise--by the time of the Nuremberg trials, he was already working for the US Army.
  - nwienert 2y ago
    Genuine question - unless he was directly involved with the genocide, was he not doing the exact same thing the allies were doing? It’s not a war crime to participate in a war for your country. The US bombed German civilians and Japanese civilians in mass numbers.
    - cyberpunk 2y ago
      Many would consider those war crimes also.
      - dylan604 2y ago
        yes, but that side "won". so the important take away is that if you're going to commit war crimes, you must win the war to avoid being charged
    - perihelions 2y ago
      The atrocity is that von Braun's V-2 factory was an extermination-through-labor camp. About 12,000 people were forcibly worked and tortured to death to produce those weapons—numerically more deaths than V-2, as a weapon, caused in Britain. von Braun was aware of this, complicit in this, oversaw parts of it as a high-ranking SS officer: his Wikipedia entry quotes a survivor testifying "von Braun went to the concentration camp to pick slave laborers".
      - pc86 2y ago
        Assuming this is true (I have no reason to believe it's not) it's clearly a damning indictment of von Braun himself. And it calls into question his accounts, so it seems like odds are he was "actually" a Nazi as opposed to someone affiliating with the party to avoid punishment or execution. I still don't see what that has to do with the original comment that mentioned him. If we're talking about him in depth, absolutely mention it and dig into it. I guess the thing I'm having trouble reconciling in my head is the need to, upon a passing reference to someone orthogonal to the main point, say it's "worth including" that they're a controversial figure. The controversy seems irrelevant to me. It seems to border on virtue signaling, this need to say "oh by the way, Nazis are bad" when that (objective fact) has nothing to do with anything. I see your other comment and I get the point you're trying to make but I don't think it has anything to do with speaking respectfully or with any sort of courtesy about a Nazi, just about trying to make a point.
- Teever 2y ago
  A lot of people feel a strong need to participate in a conversation whether or not they have anything to contribute. So they bring up Von Braun when the topic of space stuff comes up because they don't really know much about space but they want to participate in the conversation so they think of the closest pop culture thing that they can think of. It's one of my biggest pet peeves when talking about space stuff because I'm a super passionate layman who has taking a few astrophysics and astronomy courses.
  - jajko 2y ago
    Any adult who is even vaguely interested in space knows very well who Von Braun was and his history. This is the start of space exploration. So yes I tend to agree with you, but this is a general forum, don't expect much more.
    - Teever 2y ago
      Any recommendations on a forum better suited to the topic?
perihelions 2y ago
- "Former Buchenwald inmate Adam Cabala stated that von Braun went to the concentration camp to pick slave laborers:" - "... also the German scientists led by Prof. Wernher von Braun were aware of everything daily. As they went along the corridors, they saw the exhaustion of the inmates, their arduous work and their pain. Not one single time did Prof. Wernher von Braun protest against this cruelty during his frequent stays at Dora. Even the aspect of corpses did not touch him: On a small area near the ambulance shed, inmates tortured to death by slave labor and the terror of the overseers were piling up daily. But, Prof. Wernher von Braun passed them so close that he was almost touching the corpses.[63]" I agree with your comment. Let's never speak in respectful language about a Nazi SS officer. It's a loud silence when someone circles around the topic without mentioning it, as if there were some obligation of diplomacy—as if you owe tactfulness or professional courtesy to Nazis.
- TheVespasian 2y ago
  > It's a loud silence when someone circles around the topic without mentioning it It's a unique feature of American/Western historiography that would incline you to believe this. I find it interesting we don't have to tack on similar disclaimers when it comes to any other similarly horrible group throughout history; the brutality of the Caesars, the Chinese emperors, the Comanche -- forget about it: we can speak of them dispassionately, as non-temporal observers. But mere broaching of the subject of the Nazis requires confession that, let's repeat it in unison, they were evil.
  - the_af 2y ago
    > the brutality of the Caesars, the Chinese emperors, the Comanche [...] we can speak of them dispassionately, as non-temporal observers [...] but mere broaching of the subject of the Nazis requires confession that, let's repeat it in unison, they were evil. There's the thing about temporal closeness and impact on actual politics and ideology. Nazism and Fascism's brands of ultra rightwing ideology still looms large in part of the world. And there are still people alive who lived through some of the horrors the Nazis inflicted upon the world. None lives today who saw Caesar's dictatorship. Nobody, to my mind, seriously worships Imperial China or wants a return of the Caesars. There are no Comanche atrocities apologists (of note). But Nazism and its modern day offshoots are still worshipped by enough people that every mention of people related to Nazism must be peppered with these disclaimers. It's important to note Von Braun was an unapologetic nazi and that he should not be celebrated as a person.
codedokode 2y ago
Does this mean that Americans helped a criminal to escape justice?
- AlgorithmicTime 2y ago
  [dead]
- mkl 2y ago
  Not one, many. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#:~:text=those%20captured%20by%20the%20United%20States%20were%20secretly%20given%20immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#:~:text=those%20captu...
soperj 2y ago
They did that with all the Japanese to get info on biological weapons. Or check out the Monster of the Shōwa era (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi), who was originally held for war crimes, and then became prime minister.

alwa 2y ago

And if we’ve come that far, we may as well mention Tom Lehrer’s classic song “Wernher Von Braun,” which, along with the rest of his work, Lehrer so generously released into the public domain: https://tomlehrersongs.com/wernher-von-braun/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/wernher-von-braun/

hinkley 2y ago
That song shows up in For All Mankind.

pc86 2y ago

What does that have to do with the comment you're replying to? Edit: This is an honest question, I'm not familiar with the extent of his crimes, if any. It certainly doesn't seem like a clear-cut "he was an objectively evil man but we looked the other way" based on the Wikipedia article. It could very well be his account, which from a brief skim seems reasonable, is accurate?

pdonis 2y ago
> I'm not familiar with the extent of his crimes, if any. He was the Nazis' best rocket engineer, responsible for, among other things, the V2s that devastated much of London. By the standards of the Nuremberg trials, he probably should have been tried and convicted. But he was never even accused, because the US wanted his rocket expertise--by the time of the Nuremberg trials, he was already working for the US Army.
- nwienert 2y ago
  Genuine question - unless he was directly involved with the genocide, was he not doing the exact same thing the allies were doing? It’s not a war crime to participate in a war for your country. The US bombed German civilians and Japanese civilians in mass numbers.
  - cyberpunk 2y ago
    Many would consider those war crimes also.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      yes, but that side "won". so the important take away is that if you're going to commit war crimes, you must win the war to avoid being charged
  - perihelions 2y ago
    The atrocity is that von Braun's V-2 factory was an extermination-through-labor camp. About 12,000 people were forcibly worked and tortured to death to produce those weapons—numerically more deaths than V-2, as a weapon, caused in Britain. von Braun was aware of this, complicit in this, oversaw parts of it as a high-ranking SS officer: his Wikipedia entry quotes a survivor testifying "von Braun went to the concentration camp to pick slave laborers".
    - pc86 2y ago
      Assuming this is true (I have no reason to believe it's not) it's clearly a damning indictment of von Braun himself. And it calls into question his accounts, so it seems like odds are he was "actually" a Nazi as opposed to someone affiliating with the party to avoid punishment or execution. I still don't see what that has to do with the original comment that mentioned him. If we're talking about him in depth, absolutely mention it and dig into it. I guess the thing I'm having trouble reconciling in my head is the need to, upon a passing reference to someone orthogonal to the main point, say it's "worth including" that they're a controversial figure. The controversy seems irrelevant to me. It seems to border on virtue signaling, this need to say "oh by the way, Nazis are bad" when that (objective fact) has nothing to do with anything. I see your other comment and I get the point you're trying to make but I don't think it has anything to do with speaking respectfully or with any sort of courtesy about a Nazi, just about trying to make a point.
Teever 2y ago
A lot of people feel a strong need to participate in a conversation whether or not they have anything to contribute. So they bring up Von Braun when the topic of space stuff comes up because they don't really know much about space but they want to participate in the conversation so they think of the closest pop culture thing that they can think of. It's one of my biggest pet peeves when talking about space stuff because I'm a super passionate layman who has taking a few astrophysics and astronomy courses.
- jajko 2y ago
  Any adult who is even vaguely interested in space knows very well who Von Braun was and his history. This is the start of space exploration. So yes I tend to agree with you, but this is a general forum, don't expect much more.
  - Teever 2y ago
    Any recommendations on a forum better suited to the topic?

perihelions 2y ago

- "Former Buchenwald inmate Adam Cabala stated that von Braun went to the concentration camp to pick slave laborers:" - "... also the German scientists led by Prof. Wernher von Braun were aware of everything daily. As they went along the corridors, they saw the exhaustion of the inmates, their arduous work and their pain. Not one single time did Prof. Wernher von Braun protest against this cruelty during his frequent stays at Dora. Even the aspect of corpses did not touch him: On a small area near the ambulance shed, inmates tortured to death by slave labor and the terror of the overseers were piling up daily. But, Prof. Wernher von Braun passed them so close that he was almost touching the corpses.[63]" I agree with your comment. Let's never speak in respectful language about a Nazi SS officer. It's a loud silence when someone circles around the topic without mentioning it, as if there were some obligation of diplomacy—as if you owe tactfulness or professional courtesy to Nazis.

TheVespasian 2y ago
> It's a loud silence when someone circles around the topic without mentioning it It's a unique feature of American/Western historiography that would incline you to believe this. I find it interesting we don't have to tack on similar disclaimers when it comes to any other similarly horrible group throughout history; the brutality of the Caesars, the Chinese emperors, the Comanche -- forget about it: we can speak of them dispassionately, as non-temporal observers. But mere broaching of the subject of the Nazis requires confession that, let's repeat it in unison, they were evil.
- the_af 2y ago
  > the brutality of the Caesars, the Chinese emperors, the Comanche [...] we can speak of them dispassionately, as non-temporal observers [...] but mere broaching of the subject of the Nazis requires confession that, let's repeat it in unison, they were evil. There's the thing about temporal closeness and impact on actual politics and ideology. Nazism and Fascism's brands of ultra rightwing ideology still looms large in part of the world. And there are still people alive who lived through some of the horrors the Nazis inflicted upon the world. None lives today who saw Caesar's dictatorship. Nobody, to my mind, seriously worships Imperial China or wants a return of the Caesars. There are no Comanche atrocities apologists (of note). But Nazism and its modern day offshoots are still worshipped by enough people that every mention of people related to Nazism must be peppered with these disclaimers. It's important to note Von Braun was an unapologetic nazi and that he should not be celebrated as a person.

codedokode 2y ago

Does this mean that Americans helped a criminal to escape justice?

AlgorithmicTime 2y ago
[dead]
mkl 2y ago
Not one, many. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#:~:text=those%20captured%20by%20the%20United%20States%20were%20secretly%20given%20immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#:~:text=those%20captu...

soperj 2y ago

They did that with all the Japanese to get info on biological weapons. Or check out the Monster of the Shōwa era (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi), who was originally held for war crimes, and then became prime minister.