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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 cer

by pc86 3y 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 3y 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 3y 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 3y ago
    Many would consider those war crimes also.
    - dylan604 3y 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 3y 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 3y 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.
      - joshuahutt 3y ago
        I can see your point, but I think it's worthwhile to understand the full context, even if it's irrelevant on the surface. I wasn't familiar with von Braun before reading this thread, and I appreciate the extra info. Complex figure. Maybe even a really bad guy. But, also interesting that his work was useful in getting us to the moon. Maybe we can all appreciate that dichotomy. Even more interesting to note, is without your initial pushback, I wouldn't have read more detail about him, so I owe your resistance to actually exploring this facet of the man's alleged history to getting me to actually read a bit about it.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > The US bombed German civilians and Japanese civilians in mass numbers. Yes, agreed. I'm not arguing that the standards of Nuremberg were actually the right ones.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    A significant chunk of the adult male population of Nazi Germany was involved with the genocide. Hitler made sure there was blood on as many German hands as possible. In retrospect the Allies were extremely lenient[0] on Germany and Japan and they probably could have punished them way, way worse. As for Allied war crimes, many of those were only criminalized after-the-fact. For example, the justification for nuking Nagasaki was "well, there's a factory nearby, so that's a valid military target". [0] For example, "fiduciary duty to shareholders" was a valid excuse that saved several businessmen at Nuremburg, despite them running forced labor camps that were deadlier than Auschwicz.
    - foolswisdom 3y ago
      > For example, the justification for nuking Nagasaki was "well, there's a factory nearby, so that's a valid military target". Erm, what? The justification for nuking nagasaki was that demonstrating overwhelming might would swiftly end the war (it did) while continuing conventional war would cause many more casualties over time. Maybe you mean to say that because a lot of ships, bombs and military equipment were made there (though it wasn't merely "a factory nearby") they dropped the bomb there rather than somewhere else. Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Nagasaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - defrost 3y ago
      The justification at the time for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was field testing two different novel bomb designs .. the urgency came from Germany's surrender and unavailability to use as a test bed and from the rapid depletion of pristine targets in Japan. The H&N bombings followed close on the heels of bombing 72 other cities (including Tokyo) as part of an ongoing HE + incendiary campaign with list of targets. These specific targets were selected for atomic tested as they had not been bombed before and served as "clean" test beds for the before and after comparisons, in addition to having some containing topography. What's important to remember is that they were selected from a long list of targets that were all scheduled to be bombed, the fact that they were low priority from a military standpoint is what had "saved" then from not already having been bombed. When Hiroshima was bombed the only prior atomic test at Trinity was on a tower with a lot of external controls .. it wasn't even certain at the time that this would work as a bomb let alone "end the war". The military compulsion to battlefield test a weapon that had consumed more R&D budget than any ever before in history was intense, and the WW's were rapidly closing out with Germany defeated and Russia closing in on Japan. After the bombings, immediately after, came a lot of retro fitting justifiction, more so with the Cold War .. but it was never as clear cut and about swift endings and saving casualities as came to be believed. People forget that atomic bomb or not the US was already committed to levelling all cities within Japan. For more, and a deeper dive in the many takes on dropping the bomb, see: https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to-use-the-bomb-a-consensus-view/ https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to-u... for example (it has many references to many historic viewpoints)
- vkou 3y ago
  The damage the V2s inflicted on London paled in comparison to the destruction of continental European and Russian and Japanese cities. The V2 killed more (enslaved) people who were building it than it did in its attacks. It was only 'successful' as a propaganda weapon. ...And by the standards of the Nuremberg trials, the heads of every allied airforce, and all of their immediate subordinates and sub-subordinates should have been dancing the hemp fandango. I'll also point out that a lot of Nazi military officers and civilian leaders and industrialists, despite significant involvement in the regime's crimes were not found guilty[1] in those trials. --- [1] Even in the Soviet-ran ones - and as every loyal comrade knows, the courts of the glorious Soviet Union are the fairest, most humane, and most merciful justice system the world has ever conceived, especially when it came to the question of judging fascists.
  - octopoc 3y ago
    > And by the standards of the Nuremberg trials, the heads of every allied airforce, and all of their immediate subordinates and sub-subordinates should have been dancing the hemp fandango. That's a very good point, although the Nuremberg trials used torture to get confessions, so literally anybody could have been convicted.
    - vkou 3y ago
      Did they? Is that why so many walked? Were the ones that were hanged not actually intimately involved in orchestrating a war of aggression and the murder of human beings on a scale unprecedented in the history of the modern world? Do you have any proof of this?
- jjk166 3y ago
  > 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. Absurd. For starters, by the standards of the nuremberg trials, there's no way in hell he would be convicted. For comparison, among the men actually acquitted by the nuremburg trials were Franz von Papen, Hitler's vice chancellor from 1933 to 1934 and the man who pressured Hindenburg to appoint Hitler to power, and Hans Fritzsche, a high ranking propagandist who was in the Fuhrerbunker in the last days of the war and after his acquittal took part in a cabal attempting to re-nazify West Germany. The nuremberg trials targetted only the very highest level Nazis - only the top 5 highest ranking officers in the entire german military were indicted. Even if von Braun had been an enthusiastic Nazi (and there's quite a bit of evidence he wasn't), he was way too low level to have been tried nonetheless convicted by the Nuremberg trials.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > The nuremberg trials targetted only the very highest level Nazis The initial ones did, but there were subsequent ones targeting entire organizations--one of which was the SS, to which Von Braun belonged.
    - jjk166 3y ago
      There was only one round of Nuremberg Trials. There were subsequent Nuremberg tribunals conducted in the same courthouse, but these were a US only effort, and not what people are referring to when they say "the Nuremberg Trials" Those subsequent tribunals were still quite limited, with only about 1600 people being tried. For context, there were over a million members of the SS. Further, the punishment for most of those convicted in these tribunals was forced labor, so had Von Braun been tried and convicted at that time, odds are he still would have most likely wound up working for the US developing their rockets. So the claim that the US shielded him doesn't really make sense.
  - dullcrisp 3y ago
    > Hitler's vice chancellor from 1933 to 1934 and the man who pressured Hindenburg to appoint Hitler to power Are you saying that supporting Hitler before the war should have been a war crime?
Teever 3y 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 3y 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 3y ago
    Any recommendations on a forum better suited to the topic?

by pc86 3y ago

pdonis 3y 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 3y 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 3y ago
  Many would consider those war crimes also.
  - dylan604 3y 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 3y 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 3y 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.
    - joshuahutt 3y ago
      I can see your point, but I think it's worthwhile to understand the full context, even if it's irrelevant on the surface. I wasn't familiar with von Braun before reading this thread, and I appreciate the extra info. Complex figure. Maybe even a really bad guy. But, also interesting that his work was useful in getting us to the moon. Maybe we can all appreciate that dichotomy. Even more interesting to note, is without your initial pushback, I wouldn't have read more detail about him, so I owe your resistance to actually exploring this facet of the man's alleged history to getting me to actually read a bit about it.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > The US bombed German civilians and Japanese civilians in mass numbers. Yes, agreed. I'm not arguing that the standards of Nuremberg were actually the right ones.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  A significant chunk of the adult male population of Nazi Germany was involved with the genocide. Hitler made sure there was blood on as many German hands as possible. In retrospect the Allies were extremely lenient[0] on Germany and Japan and they probably could have punished them way, way worse. As for Allied war crimes, many of those were only criminalized after-the-fact. For example, the justification for nuking Nagasaki was "well, there's a factory nearby, so that's a valid military target". [0] For example, "fiduciary duty to shareholders" was a valid excuse that saved several businessmen at Nuremburg, despite them running forced labor camps that were deadlier than Auschwicz.
  - foolswisdom 3y ago
    > For example, the justification for nuking Nagasaki was "well, there's a factory nearby, so that's a valid military target". Erm, what? The justification for nuking nagasaki was that demonstrating overwhelming might would swiftly end the war (it did) while continuing conventional war would cause many more casualties over time. Maybe you mean to say that because a lot of ships, bombs and military equipment were made there (though it wasn't merely "a factory nearby") they dropped the bomb there rather than somewhere else. Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Nagasaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - defrost 3y ago
    The justification at the time for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was field testing two different novel bomb designs .. the urgency came from Germany's surrender and unavailability to use as a test bed and from the rapid depletion of pristine targets in Japan. The H&N bombings followed close on the heels of bombing 72 other cities (including Tokyo) as part of an ongoing HE + incendiary campaign with list of targets. These specific targets were selected for atomic tested as they had not been bombed before and served as "clean" test beds for the before and after comparisons, in addition to having some containing topography. What's important to remember is that they were selected from a long list of targets that were all scheduled to be bombed, the fact that they were low priority from a military standpoint is what had "saved" then from not already having been bombed. When Hiroshima was bombed the only prior atomic test at Trinity was on a tower with a lot of external controls .. it wasn't even certain at the time that this would work as a bomb let alone "end the war". The military compulsion to battlefield test a weapon that had consumed more R&D budget than any ever before in history was intense, and the WW's were rapidly closing out with Germany defeated and Russia closing in on Japan. After the bombings, immediately after, came a lot of retro fitting justifiction, more so with the Cold War .. but it was never as clear cut and about swift endings and saving casualities as came to be believed. People forget that atomic bomb or not the US was already committed to levelling all cities within Japan. For more, and a deeper dive in the many takes on dropping the bomb, see: https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to-use-the-bomb-a-consensus-view/ https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to-u... for example (it has many references to many historic viewpoints)
vkou 3y ago
The damage the V2s inflicted on London paled in comparison to the destruction of continental European and Russian and Japanese cities. The V2 killed more (enslaved) people who were building it than it did in its attacks. It was only 'successful' as a propaganda weapon. ...And by the standards of the Nuremberg trials, the heads of every allied airforce, and all of their immediate subordinates and sub-subordinates should have been dancing the hemp fandango. I'll also point out that a lot of Nazi military officers and civilian leaders and industrialists, despite significant involvement in the regime's crimes were not found guilty[1] in those trials. --- [1] Even in the Soviet-ran ones - and as every loyal comrade knows, the courts of the glorious Soviet Union are the fairest, most humane, and most merciful justice system the world has ever conceived, especially when it came to the question of judging fascists.
- octopoc 3y ago
  > And by the standards of the Nuremberg trials, the heads of every allied airforce, and all of their immediate subordinates and sub-subordinates should have been dancing the hemp fandango. That's a very good point, although the Nuremberg trials used torture to get confessions, so literally anybody could have been convicted.
  - vkou 3y ago
    Did they? Is that why so many walked? Were the ones that were hanged not actually intimately involved in orchestrating a war of aggression and the murder of human beings on a scale unprecedented in the history of the modern world? Do you have any proof of this?
jjk166 3y ago
> 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. Absurd. For starters, by the standards of the nuremberg trials, there's no way in hell he would be convicted. For comparison, among the men actually acquitted by the nuremburg trials were Franz von Papen, Hitler's vice chancellor from 1933 to 1934 and the man who pressured Hindenburg to appoint Hitler to power, and Hans Fritzsche, a high ranking propagandist who was in the Fuhrerbunker in the last days of the war and after his acquittal took part in a cabal attempting to re-nazify West Germany. The nuremberg trials targetted only the very highest level Nazis - only the top 5 highest ranking officers in the entire german military were indicted. Even if von Braun had been an enthusiastic Nazi (and there's quite a bit of evidence he wasn't), he was way too low level to have been tried nonetheless convicted by the Nuremberg trials.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > The nuremberg trials targetted only the very highest level Nazis The initial ones did, but there were subsequent ones targeting entire organizations--one of which was the SS, to which Von Braun belonged.
  - jjk166 3y ago
    There was only one round of Nuremberg Trials. There were subsequent Nuremberg tribunals conducted in the same courthouse, but these were a US only effort, and not what people are referring to when they say "the Nuremberg Trials" Those subsequent tribunals were still quite limited, with only about 1600 people being tried. For context, there were over a million members of the SS. Further, the punishment for most of those convicted in these tribunals was forced labor, so had Von Braun been tried and convicted at that time, odds are he still would have most likely wound up working for the US developing their rockets. So the claim that the US shielded him doesn't really make sense.
- dullcrisp 3y ago
  > Hitler's vice chancellor from 1933 to 1934 and the man who pressured Hindenburg to appoint Hitler to power Are you saying that supporting Hitler before the war should have been a war crime?

Teever 3y 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 3y 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 3y ago
  Any recommendations on a forum better suited to the topic?