From: wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov
Subject: Re: Controversy over V-2 anniversary
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 00:00:00 GMT

In article <SHAFER.92Oct4084155@ra.dfrf.nasa.gov>, shafer@rigel.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) writes...
>On Sun, 4 Oct 1992 03:33:00 GMT, wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov said:
> 
>> If you really want to press the point and be so high and mighty about it
>> then why did we use the rocket team to build our rockets? Krafft Erike
>> was instrumental in the Atlas design and the Von Braun Team were instrumental
>> in the development of the Redstone, Jupiter, Saturn I and Saturn V.  The
>> rocket team was a spoil of war that we took from the Germans. In past wars
>> the spoils were the wealth of a nation.  The spoils that we took in WWII were
>> the most valuable of all, technology. The Ampex tape recorders and our entire
>> television industry was taken from the Germans and developed by us after the
>> war. The Russians took the manufacturing technology of the Germans, 
>> ripping up entire factories and shipping them to Russia, including the 
>> Miettlework factory for V2's.
> 
>I certainly wouldn't have treated them like mythic heroes, the way we
>did.  This is a perfect example of the end being used to justify the
>means, with the spectre of the vile godless commies sweeping like a
>red tide over the peace-loving peoples of the free world.  (Oops, I
>think peace-loving peoples are commies--I may have gotten my propaganda
>mixed up.)
> 
>That still doesn't make it right.  Not persecuting people for crimes
>against humanity because they may be useful to you is wrong.  Period.
> 
>> There are many other examples of things that we use and rely on every day
>> that came from that sorry episode in history. No ones hands are clean and
>> to beat this horse without an understanding of the history is to grossly
>> distort reality. 
> 
>Are you old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?  I am.  I was
>in high school and I can remember going to bed not knowing if I'd wake
>up in the morning to an intact country.  
> 
>I figure that if I feel like being a moral absolutist, I have the right.
>I don't have to "understand" before I can judge.  Being illegitimate,
>being gassed in WWI, etc., don't make Hitler forgivable.  Having savage
>reparations inflicted on Germany after WWI doesn't make Kristallnacht
>OK.  That's just not how it goes.
> 
>Furthermore, I think this attitude of yours that nobody's hands are
>clean so people can't be criticized without an understanding of their
>history is in large part responsible for the decline of modern
>morality.  You have to step up and take responsibility for your actions,
>no matter what--you can't wuss out with an unhappy childhood or a mean
>mommy or "everybody's doing it".  If it's wrong, it's wrong.
> 
>Mary

You totally missed the point of my post Mary. What I was referring to is
the other things that when put in context make anything that Von Braun did
look like Zero which it was.

What about Truman's bullying of Joe Stalin at The last conference at the 
end of the war that from Soviet documents recently opened up, was the
thing that started the cold war.

What about all of the British and American Multinational corporations that
retained their ties with their German counterpart throughout the war. If
you are truly curious look up the role in IG Farbin and their partners in
the Gas Chambers and slave labor camps.

What about the role of the British Crown at the end of WWII to keep the 
Dutch concentration camp prisioners in the camps for EIGHT months after WWII
in order to cemet their own control over trade in indonesia? I have an
eye witness for that one.

What about the Japanese and the using of human guinea pigs, both Soviet and
American for cold weather studies? These studies helped the Japanese 
medical industry gain a great advantage after the war. The commandant of
the camps that did this was the president of the firm till he died.


The Russians, what about all that they did in the name of the motherland.

I would not defend Von Braun if there was any thing linking him in any way
to the concentration camps. He and the team had no control or even any
ties to the concentration camps. My source there is the book "The Rocket
Scientists" Available at the Alabama Space and Rocket Center. Buy it and
learn something about what you speak of. 

The OSI tried to railroad Arthur Rudolf, the only member of the team that had
any contacts at Meittlework. Nothing evidence was ever found linking even
him to mistreatment of concentration camp personnel.  Even Weitzman has 
publically said that the German Rocket scientist did nothing in that vein to
warrant their attention.

If The Israeli's have no evidence and the OSI has no evidence, who the heck
are you to say that he had anything to do with this subject?  Mary please,
you are an intelligent person. Quit making claims like this unless you know
what you are talking about.

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville