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  • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    It is also a recognition that any human endeavor will be flawed.

    And I hope that you aren't seeking to say that allowing von Braun off because he was useful is in any way comparable to what the Nazis did.
    I'm not sure that abrogating the principle of "all shall be held equal under the law" can be said to establish a radical difference from any totalitarian regime.
    1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
    .
    ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
    Scripture before Tradition:
    but that won't prevent others from
    taking it upon themselves to deprive you
    of the right to call yourself Christian.

    ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

    Comment


    • Originally posted by tabibito View Post

      I'm not sure that abrogating the principle of "all shall be held equal under the law" can be said to establish a radical difference from any totalitarian regime.
      From what rogue06 has written he seems to consider that, despite being a high-ranking officer in the SS and using slave labour to build his weapons, von Braun was somehow less culpable than his fellow Nazis.
      "It ain't necessarily so
      The things that you're liable
      To read in the Bible
      It ain't necessarily so
      ."

      Sportin' Life
      Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

        From what rogue06 has written he seems to consider that, despite being a high-ranking officer in the SS and using slave labour to build his weapons, von Braun was somehow less culpable than his fellow Nazis.
        von Braun's case seems not exactly open and shut - he was arrested by the Gestapo and would have faced the death penalty but for his critical contribution to the V2 programme. This write-up is quite interesting

        Wernher von Braun, the SS, and Concentration Camp Labor: Questions of Moral, Political, and Criminal Responsibility
        German Studies Review
        Vol. 25, No. 1 (Feb., 2002), pp. 57-78

        Rogue06 might have some support for his views - the write-up seems to show something of a stereotypical egg-head so buried in his own interests that the rest of the world might well have not existed.
        Last edited by tabibito; 10-18-2021, 08:47 AM.
        1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
        .
        ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
        Scripture before Tradition:
        but that won't prevent others from
        taking it upon themselves to deprive you
        of the right to call yourself Christian.

        ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

          From what rogue06 has written he seems to consider that, despite being a high-ranking officer in the SS and using slave labour to build his weapons, von Braun was somehow less culpable than his fellow Nazis.
          It seems that once again you have misinterpreted things and run off Helter Skelter with it

          I'm always still in trouble again

          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

          Comment


          • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
            It seems that once again you have misinterpreted things and run off Helter Skelter with it
            I am shocked.

            And stunned.
            The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post

              I am shocked.

              And stunned.
              As any decadent human bean shood be

              I'm always still in trouble again

              "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
              "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
              "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

              Comment


              • Originally posted by tabibito View Post

                von Braun's case seems not exactly open and shut - he was arrested by the Gestapo and would have faced the death penalty but for his critical contribution to the V2 programme. This write-up is quite interesting

                Wernher von Braun, the SS, and Concentration Camp Labor: Questions of Moral, Political, and Criminal Responsibility
                German Studies Review
                Vol. 25, No. 1 (Feb., 2002), pp. 57-78

                Rogue06 might have some support for his views - the write-up seems to show something of a stereotypical egg-head so buried in his own interests that the rest of the world might well have not existed.
                It is not a “write up” it is an academic paper and if you actually read the entire paper you will see that your final remark is greatly over-simplified and very generalised.

                Nor can we excuse the “stereotypical egg-head” for being part of what von Braun wittingly and knowingly endorsed by his willingness to work for Hitler to produce terror weapons that were used on civilians and in doing so to exploit thousands of slave labourers to produce those weapons.

                As I have previously remarked we should consider the situation whereby a person is morally responsible for something if he was causally responsible for it, if he was in a position to know that it would come about, if what he did he did freely and without coercion, and if he was fully rational. All that self evidently applied to von Braun..


                In the paper you cited, Neufeld writes that according to notes made by General Alfred Jodl [of OKW] von Braun’s arrest was due an informant who had been reporting on him for the intelligence agency of the SS the SD [Sicherheitsdienst] since October 1943. This informant claimed that von Braun and two other associates, Riedel and Gröttrup, had been making statements “regarding the war turning out badly and regarding their weapon. Main task is to build a spaceship”. The notes by Jodl verify later post war assertions by von Braun and his defenders that “he did care more about going into space than building missiles and that he had become disillusioned about Hitler’s regime.” However, Neufeld also notes that von Braun later admitted that his jailing was “actually Himmler’s revenge for his refusal to play along in a conspiracy to have the SS supplant the army as the dominant power in the V-2 program” As Biddle notes “This was the seed of a story that would expand to shield him for the rest of his life from accusations of having been an ardent supporter of the Hitler regime.”

                In 2008 in an interview promoting the publication of his book on von Braun Neufeld comments:

                And my argument in the book is, in many ways, he had sleep-walked into a Faustian bargain—that he had worked with this regime without thinking what it meant to work for the Third Reich and for the Nazi regime. And he bears some responsibility for his own actions, therefore. In the case of concentration camp labor, there wasn’t much he could do to help. But he still bears some moral responsibility for being in the middle of that situation, seeing the concentration camp labor personally, face to face. Seeing the horrible conditions and continuing to work. And I mean, he not just continued to work, he continued to work day and night energetically for that program with total commitment—even after being arrested by the Gestapo.

                Concerning von Braun and the use of slave labour Neufeld also notes:

                He was in the underground plant at least 12 to 15 times. As I found out in the testimony that he gave for a war crimes trial in West Germany in 1969, he mentioned that he’d been through the underground sleeping quarters, which had been built in the tunnels in late 1943 for the concentration camp workers because the above-ground camp hadn’t been finished or hadn’t even really been started. And those underground accommodations were horrific. And he walked through that area and through the mining area.

                On von Braun’s personal background and obsession with space Neufeld comments:

                By the time he got to the end of World War II, when he sort of very belatedly woke up to what kind of system he was working for, he really didn’t have any choice anymore. I mean, he wasn’t in a position to quit, but it must be remembered that he didn’t want to quit. He was loyal to the army. He was a German nationalist. As demonstrated by the things he said to his American interrogators after the war, he was pretty Nazified in the way he thought about the world. Now he was influenced by this regime. He came out of a right-wing conservative family, and it was only very late that he woke up to what he was doing. But at the beginning, one of the most interesting things I discovered in doing this was that he was obsessed with going into space personally. This dream he had from the 1920s onward was not just: Space is good for the human race, we should explore space. This was: I want to go into space. I want to lead an expedition to land on the moon. He was driven by that dream. All the way through, from the 1920s at least into the 1950s, when he finally probably had to admit that he wasn’t going to be young enough to be doing that kind of thing. [https://www.airspacemag.com/space/a-...eld-23236520/]
                Last edited by Hypatia_Alexandria; 10-18-2021, 04:57 PM.
                "It ain't necessarily so
                The things that you're liable
                To read in the Bible
                It ain't necessarily so
                ."

                Sportin' Life
                Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

                  It is not a “write up” it is an academic paper


                  Even an academic paper (of this type) falls into the general category of "write-up."

                  and if you actually read the entire paper you will see that your final remark is greatly over-simplified and very generalised.
                  It was intended to be no more than a simplified and generalised remark, with the expectation that it would be recognised as such - I wasn't presenting an academic paper.

                  Nor can we excuse the “stereotypical egg-head” for being part of what von Braun wittingly and knowingly endorsed by his willingness to work for Hitler to produce terror weapons that were used on civilians and in doing so to exploit thousands of slave labourers to produce those weapons.

                  As I have previously remarked we should consider the situation whereby a person is morally responsible for something if he was causally responsible for it, if he was in a position to know that it would come about, if what he did he did freely and without coercion, and if he was fully rational. All that self evidently applied to von Braun..


                  In the paper you cited, Neufeld writes that according to notes made by General Alfred Jodl [of OKW] von Braun’s arrest was due an informant who had been reporting on him for the intelligence agency of the SS the SD [Sicherheitsdienst] since October 1943. This informant claimed that von Braun and two other associates, Riedel and Gröttrup, had been making statements “regarding the war turning out badly and regarding their weapon. Main task is to build a spaceship”. The notes by Jodl verify later post war assertions by von Braun and his defenders that “he did care more about going into space than building missiles and that he had become disillusioned about Hitler’s regime.” However, Neufeld also notes that von Braun later admitted that his jailing was “actually Himmler’s revenge for his refusal to play along in a conspiracy to have the SS supplant the army as the dominant power in the V-2 program” As Biddle notes “This was the seed of a story that would expand to shield him for the rest of his life from accusations of having been an ardent supporter of the Hitler regime.”

                  In 2008 in an interview promoting the publication of his book on von Braun Neufeld comments:

                  And my argument in the book is, in many ways, he had sleep-walked into a Faustian bargain—that he had worked with this regime without thinking what it meant to work for the Third Reich and for the Nazi regime. And he bears some responsibility for his own actions, therefore. In the case of concentration camp labor, there wasn’t much he could do to help. But he still bears some moral responsibility for being in the middle of that situation, seeing the concentration camp labor personally, face to face. Seeing the horrible conditions and continuing to work. And I mean, he not just continued to work, he continued to work day and night energetically for that program with total commitment—even after being arrested by the Gestapo.
                  Concerning von Braun and the use of slave labour Neufeld also notes:

                  He was in the underground plant at least 12 to 15 times. As I found out in the testimony that he gave for a war crimes trial in West Germany in 1969, he mentioned that he’d been through the underground sleeping quarters, which had been built in the tunnels in late 1943 for the concentration camp workers because the above-ground camp hadn’t been finished or hadn’t even really been started. And those underground accommodations were horrific. And he walked through that area and through the mining area.

                  On von Braun’s personal background and obsession with space Neufeld comments:

                  By the time he got to the end of World War II, when he sort of very belatedly woke up to what kind of system he was working for, he really didn’t have any choice anymore. I mean, he wasn’t in a position to quit, but it must be remembered that he didn’t want to quit. He was loyal to the army. He was a German nationalist. As demonstrated by the things he said to his American interrogators after the war, he was pretty Nazified in the way he thought about the world. Now he was influenced by this regime. He came out of a right-wing conservative family, and it was only very late that he woke up to what he was doing. But at the beginning, one of the most interesting things I discovered in doing this was that he was obsessed with going into space personally. This dream he had from the 1920s onward was not just: Space is good for the human race, we should explore space. This was: I want to go into space. I want to lead an expedition to land on the moon. He was driven by that dream. All the way through, from the 1920s at least into the 1950s, when he finally probably had to admit that he wasn’t going to be young enough to be doing that kind of thing. [https://www.airspacemag.com/space/a-...eld-23236520/]
                  I have no argument with any of that.
                  1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
                  .
                  ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
                  Scripture before Tradition:
                  but that won't prevent others from
                  taking it upon themselves to deprive you
                  of the right to call yourself Christian.

                  ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by tabibito View Post

                    Even an academic paper (of this type) falls into the general category of "write-up."
                    I would disagree.



                    Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                    It was intended to be no more than a simplified and generalised remark, with the expectation that it would be recognised as such - I wasn't presenting an academic paper.
                    Then you succeeded admirably.

                    Originally posted by tabibito View Post

                    I have no argument with any of that.
                    It would therefore appear that my original point still stands and your comment that "Rogue06 might have some support for his views - the write-up seems to show something of a stereotypical egg-head so buried in his own interests that the rest of the world might well have not existed" is not borne out by what is known.

                    Hence the comment by rogue06 that "And I hope that you aren't seeking to say allowing von Braun off because he was useful is in any way comparable to what the Nazis did" is therefore [and possibly unintentionally] somewhat disingenuous.

                    Von Braun was just as culpable as many of his fellow Nazis. However, along with various other scientists who had worked for the regime he and members of his team were deemed "useful" to the allies.

                    This double standard by the allies towards "useful Nazis" remains a controversial historical fact.
                    "It ain't necessarily so
                    The things that you're liable
                    To read in the Bible
                    It ain't necessarily so
                    ."

                    Sportin' Life
                    Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

                      This double standard by the allies towards "useful Nazis" remains a controversial historical fact.
                      He survived arrest by the Gestapo because he was indispensable to the Nazi rocket programme - He survived Nuremburg because he was extremely important to the American rocket programme. Yes there is a deplorable and hypocritical double standard (as I already noted). I am also aware of the Stanford Prison, and Milgram experiments.
                      1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
                      .
                      ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
                      Scripture before Tradition:
                      but that won't prevent others from
                      taking it upon themselves to deprive you
                      of the right to call yourself Christian.

                      ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by tabibito View Post

                        He survived arrest by the Gestapo because he was indispensable to the Nazi rocket programme
                        I'd recommend you look through Neufeld's book. Nor was von Braun badly treated while in prison.

                        Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                        He survived Nuremburg because he was extremely important to the American rocket programme.
                        Did America have a rocket programme in 1945?

                        Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                        Yes there is a deplorable and hypocritical double standard (as I already noted).
                        My point.

                        Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                        I am also aware of the Stanford Prison, and Milgram experiments.
                        Psychological experiments are not on the same level as crimes against humanity. The participants in both those experiments were volunteers. The slave labourers who suffered and died working for von Braun were not.
                        "It ain't necessarily so
                        The things that you're liable
                        To read in the Bible
                        It ain't necessarily so
                        ."

                        Sportin' Life
                        Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                          I'd recommend you look through Neufeld's book. Nor was von Braun badly treated while in prison.

                          Did America have a rocket programme in 1945?

                          My point.

                          Psychological experiments are not on the same level as crimes against humanity. The participants in both those experiments were volunteers. The slave labourers who suffered and died working for von Braun were not.
                          Apparently you love this flowery path of a derail.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                            I would disagree.



                            Then you succeeded admirably.



                            It would therefore appear that my original point still stands and your comment that "Rogue06 might have some support for his views - the write-up seems to show something of a stereotypical egg-head so buried in his own interests that the rest of the world might well have not existed" is not borne out by what is known.

                            Hence the comment by rogue06 that "And I hope that you aren't seeking to say allowing von Braun off because he was useful is in any way comparable to what the Nazis did" is therefore [and possibly unintentionally] somewhat disingenuous.

                            Von Braun was just as culpable as many of his fellow Nazis. However, along with various other scientists who had worked for the regime he and members of his team were deemed "useful" to the allies.

                            This double standard by the allies towards "useful Nazis" remains a controversial historical fact.
                            What von Braun did was inexcusable but he wasn't the one rounding up "undesirables" like Jews and Roma and sending them to be exterminated in concentration camps specifically designed for mass butchery of humans. If you see them as being the same thing, well...

                            I guess that's part of your desire to continuously minimize Nazi atrocities.

                            I'm always still in trouble again

                            "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                            "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                            "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                              What von Braun did was inexcusable but he wasn't the one rounding up "undesirables" like Jews and Roma and sending them to be exterminated in concentration camps specifically designed for mass butchery of humans. If you see them as being the same thing, well...

                              I guess that's part of your desire to continuously minimize Nazi atrocities.
                              I am not the one trying to play down von Braun's culpability as a potential war criminal and his role in using slave labour. Your ethical stance is also rather "selective". He did not actually round up undesirables [not many Nazi party members actually did that] and nor were were all "undesirables" automatically send to be "exterminated" as historical evidence has shown. However, von Braun knew that slave labour was being used in his weapons works and he knew the hellish conditions under which those men lived and worked.
                              "It ain't necessarily so
                              The things that you're liable
                              To read in the Bible
                              It ain't necessarily so
                              ."

                              Sportin' Life
                              Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
                                I am not the one trying to play down von Braun's culpability as a potential war criminal and his role in using slave labour. Your ethical stance is also rather "selective". He did not actually round up undesirables [not many Nazi party members actually did that] and nor were were all "undesirables" automatically send to be "exterminated" as historical evidence has shown. However, von Braun knew that slave labour was being used in his weapons works and he knew the hellish conditions under which those men lived and worked.
                                I don't suppose there's any chance we'll get back on topic any time soon, eh?
                                The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                                Comment

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