The even wilder thing is that the CIA actively hired former Nazis (and relocated them and their families) in Operation Paperclip after the war to aid in Cold War operations...
It's not really all that wild when you consider that they were hired for their impressive achievements in various fields and not their loyalty to the nazi party.
It becomes again wild when you remember that the Cold War was only "necessary" because of US antagonism post-war. This isn't passing judgment on Soviet policies, only a recognition that conflict might not have been so heated if we'd learned our lesson from how the disintegration of US-Japanese relations had drawn us into the previous war.
Essentially, the US seems to have a habit of being "forced" to ally with undesirable elements after some lapse in geopolitical awareness or effort leads to hostilities (sound familiar?).
In such a state, it's hard to be "respected in your field" unless you publicly pledge loyalty to the ruling party. This does not mean that all such people were all apolitical, just that their motives and outlook will vary. And that for people who were prominent when the Nazis came to power, there likely wasn't much middle ground between "leave the country, go far away" and "join the party".
"Some spies for the United States had worked at the highest levels for the Nazis.
One SS officer, Otto von Bolschwing, was a mentor and top aide to Adolf Eichmann, architect of the “Final Solution,” and wrote policy papers on how to terrorize Jews."
I think what people find "wild" is likely the blatant contradictions in rhetoric between valuing humans and valuing "impressive achievements". The US and the NAZIs are merely the best examples of valuing the latter over the former. At least, for now.
I don't think he's asserting they brought in Nazis for the fun of having them around. But it's surprising that while heightened ties to the Nazis would disqualify you from immigration eligibility, the most secretive circles of the state (and ones highly acquainted with Nazi brutality) were actively recruiting these people. Shows how deep the anti-Soviet derangement ran.
Derangement? Stalin was extremely suspicious of the west and even went so far as to accuse of us collaborating with Hitler himself. Not only that, the Soviet regime was excessively brutal. One of the worst in history despite not being mentioned much in modern history books. The treatment of captives during wartime, the Eastern Bloc in total, etc. To believe that anti-Soviet sentiment was "derangement" is extremely delusional.
Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to execute people with knowledge that would otherwise be useful to the enemy. If we didn't, the soviets would. There was a lot to learn from them that didn't have to do with their prior allegiances that proved valuable for weapons development, spycraft, and space exploration.
Even in post-war West Germany, "denazification", e.g. excluding ex-nazis from roles in the new German society, was a failed policy that got discontinued after a few years.
The Soviets did the same. Wernher Von Braun was famously recruited despite his past. Top National Socialists were not only recruited for their skills, but also to deny their expertise from the opposing sphere. Many of the common soldiers and officers who were not in the same demand joined the Foreign Legion. Some of those continued on in Africa to become mercenaries.
Otto Skorzeny allegedly worked for the Mossad after working with Nasser.
The SS was, generally, a volunteer thing; they did not conscript for the SS proper. The Wehrmacht was, at least by the period we're concerned with here, a conscript army, but the SS wasn't.
This story has been up for three hours and every comment on it has either been flagged to death or is in the process of being downvoted into oblivion.
I think it's an interesting story but I don't have a lot to comment on. This isn't the first time person with a dark history became a pillar of society and later was found out. It's human nature that people will defend those they think they know.
It's not surprising that there would be insufficient evidence to have anything to charge him with in Germany.
Directly calling me a liar like that is a flagrant violation of the site guidelines. There are a few white supremacists here who are regular commenters; they get along by following the site guidelines. Law and order, friend. Stay curious.
What a strange accusation - do you have any evidence that GP wants that?
You realize that when you say childish things like that... basically "nuh uh.... you are", you don't come across as the valliant ideological warrior that really trashy internet fanfic tries to convince you you'll be. You come across as a petulant child who's upset that the teacher won't mark their test correct when they claim 1+1 = 11, who whines and cries about how thier ideas are as good as anyone else's while being trivially proven false. A child too slow to realize that the idea they think is clever is nothing but a sad and pathetic joke, and has been for millenia prior. You know the type of kid I'm talking about, the ones that never do anything of value with their life - the ones that grow up to think they have a good life while being a drunkard with a deadend job, never using any skills or thought and constantly upset that their own lack of effort and ability must be the fault of someone else? The type that love to listen to speeches about how people must take personal accountability while blaming some other group for their own personal failings... you know, people like neo-nazis and KKK members and those sorts of trash. The ones that live in trailers and beg for government handouts in the form of shitty jobs that send them to an early grave - they type too stupid to realize that hurting themselves for another persons pocketbook is not going to help them, advocating for policy that removes them from the precious gene pool they desparately think protects them. The saddest part of those kids that make such whiny baseless statements about made up facts is that they really are deluded enough to think that that they will ever be important enough to matter, that they will one day be something other than a throwaway, useless, waste of a life.
I'm sure you aren't one of those pity cases though, you have evidence for your assertions, right?
He was “just following orders”, which has been an airtight defense for the members of Tiger Force. If they’re going to be rounded up along with all the other Americans known to be guilty of war crimes, fine prosecute nazi soldiers. But if not their immunity should be equally as strong.
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
My understanding is that the American soldiers who violated the rules of engagement or other rules of war have been rounded up and prosecuted. Can you provide any evidence to the contrary? Anyone who slipped through the cracks? Honestly asking, I haven't looked too closely.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
reply