Still, and correct me if I’m wrong, even though ‘both sides’ built them, Nazi Germany under Hitler was the first to use them against civilian populations as such a fundamental strategy. Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, and only then did the Brits start pounding Berlin.
You may say that the British would have gone after Berlin sooner had they been able, so I view Guernica as an important case, demonstrating the avowed Nazi-German military policy of terror bombing of civilians even when to be done unilaterally. Hitler went so far as to provide pilots and Stukas to do the job for the Nationalists.
Unless we’re also going to throw the B-29 leaders, people who came up with things like Operation Meetinghouse, in the same jail.
For the OP, my feelings on WvB are summed up by the informative posts by isosleepy. WvB could not but have known how hideous the conditions were in Dora. Just from looking at the continuing manpower requirements, (“Didn’t we just get 5,000 workers last week? Well, where did they go?”) However his knowledge was essential to the missile race vs the Soviets, and WvB cannily played those cards to his advantage. Similarly to how the fiends in Unit 731 were handled.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not saying the use of terror weapons is always okay, but the responsibility for their use lies with the people who ordered the missions, not the people who built the weapons.
Some have argued (with reasonable justification) that ‘Bomber’ Harris committed war crimes by ordering the firebombing of civilian populations. But even if that was a war crime, we don’t hold the designer of the Avro Lancaster responsible for that.
The V-2 could have been used for other purposes than bombing civilian populations, but in any event by the time it was being used civilian populations were already being bombed by pretty much every side. The V-1 was more effective at it as well.
And to follow up my own post, a poke through Bode and Kaiser Building Hitler’s Missiles (Christoph Links, 2008, p35) reveals that they reproduce the front page of the SS membership file opened on him in 1940.
Yes, the Germans and the English and the Americans attempted strategic bombing. Only the Americans had any kind of success (in Japan), which I’ve always thought contributed to the importance of strategic bombing doctrine in the USA post-war.
I know it’s a minority opinion, but I’ve never accepted that Guernica demonstrated anything. All through WWII, the Germans, English, and Americans demonstrated as inability to do accurately targeted bombing (the English accurately hit wide area targets: the Americans targeted specific targets and hit wide areas). The German pilots involved in Guernica claimed that they missed their target: yes, they would say that, but at that stage of technology it seems more credible than the alternative, that they actually hit what they were aiming at.
It was well known throughout the American space program that Von Braun headed the rocket research program for the Nazis. Tom Lehrer wrote a song in 1964 or 1965 about him. That makes pretty much the same point as people are making in this thread.
No one was forced to join the NSDAP, and best I know no one was asked, either. It was a privilege, which brought many benefits. A privilege which you had to ask for.
The notion that he had to join is incorrect. He chose to.
And of course he had reasons to condone, benefit from and increase terrible slave-labor projects. Because most everything is done for a reason. Certain things are nearly impossible to justify - the german slave-labor camp system certainly is. Wanting to make rockets fly doesn’t come anywhere near justifying it.
Jeffrey Dahmer killed people and cut them up. His reason was that he felt like it.
Anyway, the notion that von Braun (and a lot of others) did certain things because they had to, had no choice, would’ve endangered themselves if they hadn’t - is incorrect. And we need to keep saying this, explaining this. Because if those notions become too accepted, it just gets that much easier for repeats to happen.
Coincidentally, my sister told me a few days ago that one of her coworkers at NASA uses Von Brauns old desk. Snatched it up before the space center could claim it. I asked her if it smelled like political expediency.
Remember that his motivation was rocketry. Do you think he could have accomplished what he did if he weren’t on good terms with the power structure that controlled all the resources anybody needed? Or if he hadn’t used slave labor, like every other industry in Germany did?
What do you think his options were?
Yes, he went along, but who can honestly say they wouldn’t have done so too?
If he’d defected, then the US or UK or someone else would probably still have paid him to launch rockets. Defection wouldn’t have been much of a risk to his precious. But he couldn’t abide the notion of any risk at all, even at the cost of slave labor and London being pancaked.
You’re moving the goals posts. Your earlier post was much more flip.
I’m not a hero, nor am I’m a crazy tough guy. But I wouldn’t have used slave labor, that was partial there to use people up and kill them, to further my career goals, no.
Ohh Bullshit. You know what I said - I wrote whatever gets you through the night ElvisL1ves. I do know what I would have done, I wouldn’t have done it as I stated. Nice try.
Von Braun wasn’t some uneducated 19 year old, with a gun to his head, with his family one step from a concentration camp if he said no. Von Braun was a educated playboy who the Nazis needed and wanted. There is ample evidence of people who said ‘no’ to the regime and were somewhat cast aside and allowed to live peacefully. He chose not to do that and instead used slave labor, some who were killed in the process
That wasn’t the question. The question was: was he an ss major. He was. The op further talks about being possibly a war criminal. He certainly was.
Now, to answer your newly-introduced, goal-post-moving question: I cannot possibly know what I would have done, because no one can know what they would do in a counter-factual situation. Woops! Got me! Except of course not.
Again: He didn’t have to join the SS. Either of both times. Not joining would not have exposed him to mortal danger. It could have impacted his career negatively if he hadn’t, but not his safety.
Same for joining the NSDAP. No danger in not joining, other than to career.
Using slave labor is bad enough. Using it while being aware of the murderous conditions under which it occurs makes him doubly the war-criminal. But what must certainly carry it beyond any conceivable line is him asking for more of it.
The idea that the goal, of making rockets fly, partly or wholly justified any of this is repugnant. The notion that anyone would do this to further a career is gobsmackingly vile.
