bogarde73 wrote on Feb 19
th, 2014 at 3:06pm:
Not a new story but a new book is out by Annie Jacobs (?) which details the secret operation to transfer the best of the Nazi scientists to the US after the war.
The man who invented the ear thermometer was a Nazi doctor who worked in the camps. When he died at age 90 he got a glowing obituary in the NY Times.
Werner von Braun was celebrated for his work in designing the rockets which took the astronauts to the moon. He was also in the SS and had personally selected workers from Buchenwald to work at the V1/V2 rocket sites.
The chemical weapons which are being removed now from Syria were developed in the US by Nazi chemists.
It's all very interesting.
I can remember reading a while ago about many of the scientists being transferred. not in that particular book, obviously, but in some other article.
I suppose it depends on what the individual scientists did during the war. If they were personally into torture or sadistic experiments then they should have stood trial as far as I am concerned.
But if they simply got on with working for the Nazis, even on weapons or whatever, then you can't blame the US for wanting their expertise. The Nazi era was a blot on the human landscape but there is no denying that a lot of the German scientists were gifted people.
You know, I think the Germans were very lucky the war in Europe ended when it did actually, as another few weeks and the Americans would have been ready with their atomic bombs. And they would have used it too.
I doubt many scientists from ww2, or anyone in any important positions anyway, would be alive any more. My dad was in the navy, he was only 19 when the war ended, but he would be turning 89 this year, had he still been alive. That generation is almost gone. Within our lifetime there may be no one left who has any personal memory of the second world war.