this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2025

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submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Explanation: While the US welcomed many Jewish scientists who fled Nazi Germany (not for humane, but practical reasons - many other civilian refugees were refused and suffered horrible deaths for that very reason), after WW2, a large number of Nazi scientists were offered free tickets to the US through Operation Paperclip, primarily for their rocketry work.

And what Cold War drama would be complete without the mirror effort of the opposing side, in the Soviet Operation Osoaviakhim?

One must imagine some of the NASA office meetings were a bit uncomfortable.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 days ago (1 children)

At the Nuremberg war crimes trials, witnesses for the defence and prosecution were accommodated at the same guest house.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I am not sure if I should imagine them fighting, or imagine them fucking. 🤔

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

...what?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think a movie where two scientists like that become friends would be amazing.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 days ago (2 children)

No friends with Nazis, that's my motto

[–] ininewcrow 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Unless they want to kickstart your rocket program to take you to the moon

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 days ago

I said my motto, sadly I have little influence over my government

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Right same, but what about Ex-Nazi?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

As part of Operation Paperclip, the OSS (which would soon become the CIA) quite notably did a lot of work to scrub prior existing reports classifying various Nazis as 'ardent Nazis'... by basically just retyping said documents and altering a few words, adding 'not' in front of 'an ardent Nazi'.

Thats what you call retroactive plausible deniability.

Von Braun was one of the people whose past was scrubbed in this way.

... He oversaw a goddamned series of underground slave mines and construction facilities where thousands were worked to death, to keep the Nazi rocket program going.

If he hadn't been genius rocket man and had instead been building a super tank... he would have been hanged at Nuremberg.

PS: Another 'fun' fact: IBM built the computers that tabulated the accounting of the Holocaust, managed the databases that kept track of all the 'undesirables'.

IBM shipped those computers over to Germany, and sent some of their employees over Germany to assist with technical support.

... The numbers tattooed on Holocaust Survivors?

Those are their UIDs in IBM's system.

...

What, IMO, should have happened to all these Nazis and collaborators?

Bare minimum.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Israeli scientists walks into lab of Palestinian scientist working at a US university:

"I'm taking over your lab. Get the hell out."

"But this is my lab, I've worked here for years, I funded the whole thing!"

"GTFO, this lab was promised to me."

"This is insane, I'm calling security."

"Anti-semite! Anti-semite! Anti-semite!"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

… "US deports the Palestinian scientists to Guantanamo Bay after labeling him a terrorist"

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

All those crazy Nazi experimental planes and rockets were vapor ware to keep their friends out of active service and look good to the Allies.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

vapor ware

The term used in historical contexts is wunderwaffen.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don’t know German and that’s what I assumed it meant.

“Ooo, we can fly a bomb in a straight line so the Spitfires can have target practice.”

“Ooo, let’s bomb England but kill more people building the bombs!”

“Even better, let’s build a big fucking gun that gets bombed all the time!”

I know what it looks like when engineers are wasting management’s time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I think wunderwaffen roughly literally means 'wonder weapons'... and I think the person you are replying to is being sardonic.

But also you are totally on point, haha.

Oh yes sure Mr Reagan, we can totally build a network of ICBM intercepting satellites with xray lasers, yup yup yup, just sign here on the 'cost plus' part of this document here and, haha, bingo, we'll have this ready in no time!

... no time at all...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

In the German language, the term Wunderwaffe now generally refers to a universal solution which solves all problems related to a particular issue, mostly used ironically for its illusionary nature.

Historian Michael J. Neufeld has noted that "the net result of all these weapons, deployed or otherwise, was that the Reich wasted a lot of money and technical expertise (and killed a lot of forced and slave laborers) in developing and producing exotic devices that yielded little or no tactical and strategic advantage".[4] However, a few of the weapons did prove to be successful, and have had a large influence in post-war designs.

From Wikipedia

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Hey for what its worth, I didn't downvote you...

... and also, I don't actually speak German...

But, uh here's the very first sentence of that wiki article:

Wunderwaffe (German pronunciation: [ˈvʊndɐˌvafə]) is a German word that roughly translates to "wonder-weapon" and was a term assigned during World War II by Nazi Germany's propaganda ministry to some revolutionary "superweapons".

This seems to be the original meaning and usage of the term.

Sure, maybe now, 80 years later, it has been colloquialized to mean roughly 'cure-all' or 'comprehensive all-in-one solution' in a context that is not necessarily military or armed conflict...

Now, I don't know or speak German, but as best I can tell... Hitler and the Nazis are the ones who first widely popularized the usage of 'wunderwaffe(n)'.

And also, while yes it is true that a few of these projects did actually yield very interesting, novel technologies, and a few combat effective vehicles/devices/weapons...

In totality, they probably would have been better off putting a whole lot of that money and brain power into just making slightly cheaper, slighlty simpler, more reliable, easier to repair and maintain mainstay military equipment, as well as just a more robust logistics network.

A whole lot of even the more conventional German war equipment, like say the Tiger tank... yeah, very intimidating when it is working properly, but they broke down frequently, had a whole bunch of very complex parts, and whatever specific part was needed for a repair often could not make it to where it was needed in time, leading to a lot of them just being abandoned.

[–] ininewcrow 10 points 6 days ago

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Anyone who hasn't seen Dr. Strangelove should go watch it now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

MEIN FUHRER, I CAN WALK!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

cut to the next scene of him goose stepping into the restaurant

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

while people of color - soldiers and veterans - are being told 'whites only'.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

~~NASA~~ NACA

FTFY.

(Explanation: NASA didn't exist until 1958, long after most ex-NAZIs would've been hired. Before, the agency would've been the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).)