Faustian and Mephistophelean Pact.
Photograph above. Von Braum and President Kennedy, 19 May 1963. By courtesy of The White House Washington, DC.
Subsequent to the closure of the major theatres in Europe (1945), von Braum was first considered a ‘war criminal’, or ‘security threat’ by the U.S.’s military. Nonetheless, he and 120 q.l., of his Peenemünde Nazi collaborators were spirited to the U.S., under the surreptitious “Operation Overcast” (or “Operation Paperclip”) programme. They were admitted to citizenship, and employed by the U.S., government. Official emigration criterion would have excluded them from obtaining visas, entry, and United States citizenship.
“I behave myself to my benefactors in general, and what sort of friend I am, thou wilt find by experience that we shall do and be the same to thyself, for it is but changing the names, and the firmness of friendship that we shall bear thee will not be disapproved by thee”.
Josephus, The Complete Works, ‘Antiquities of the Jews’, 93AD, bk. xv, ch. vi. p. 324.
[Speech made by Herod, to manoeuvre himself into the favour of the new master of the Roman world, Cæsar Augustus, following the defeat of his former overlord Mark Antony; at the battle of Actium ( 31BC )].
Violation of The Berne Convention (1886).
Furthermore, the U.S., et al., were, quite clearly, ignoring the international conventions, by poaching on German technology, intellectual property, and patents, with total disregard to the Berne Convention (1886) which outlined protective measures (subsequent to the Paris Convention three years earlier (1883)); regarding various types of intellectual property, and industrial designs. There is no virtue in the victors infringing these Conventions by their plundering the conquered. It is, quite clearly, theft of intellectual property, by the victors, from the vanquished.
Distorting the Veracity, and Openness of The American Democratic Processes.
Photograph above: Von Braun with fellow Nazis. By courtesy of Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive).
The “Operation Overcast” programme were clandestinely employed by the U.S., government, unbeknownst to the American electorate. This insidious programme was an indubitable gross betrayal of U.S., constitutionalism – the foundation of American democracy. Von Braun, and his unindicted co-conspirators, worked upon developing the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the US government. Prior to the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich (1945) the very same programme (titled ‘Projekt Amerika’) was under the direction of von Braum, with the principal aims and objectives to bomb New York and other US cities. Von Braun and other ex-Nazis worked on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (N.A.S.A.) project for the rocket propulsion system for Saturn V, which carried the three-manned Apollo 11 vehicle to the Moon; 16 July, 1969.
Photograph left: Dora ‘Mittelbau’ Fertigung 1945.
Von Braum was in charge of the Mittelwerk V-2 rocket plant (founded in 1943), a subsidiary company of the Mittelbau-Dora complex; near Nordhausen. Production of the rocket begun in January 1944. The company drew its unpaid forced labour, i.e., the inmates, largely of Russians, Poles, and French; from nearby Camp Dora. Von Braum, unlike the other Nazi enablers (viz., Alfried Krupp, Hans Kammler, et al.), were clandestinely sheltered under United States sponsorship, from the Trials of War Criminals at the N.M.T.
Honorariums for the former Nazin Wehrmacht Major.
Von Braum was awarded the NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal (1969). He was awarded 1975 ‘National Medal of Science’ by Gerald Ford (1913-2006) 38th president (1974-1977). And the Civilian International World Citizenship Award (1970); and 12 honorary doctorates. The International Astronomical Union (I.A.U.) honoured him by designating a lunar crater with his name. And a Huntsville concert hall, in Alabama, was named ‘The Von Braun Center’ [sic.].
Von Braum, notwithstanding that he was in charge of Mittelwerk, made the admission that he ‘frequently visited the plant’, usually accompanied by Nazi bureaucrats, and observed what he described as “repulsive” and “hellish” conditions, yet makes the incredible claim that he ‘never observed immediate maltreatment, or deaths of inmates’, whilst an estimated 20,000 maltreated forced labourers were being worked to death, allegedly unnoticed by him at his plant, from January 1944 until the end of the War in 1945. Von Braum did acknowledge ‘learning about these maltreatments and deaths in 1944’. When the camp was liberated 6,000 unburied corpse didn’t go unnoticed by the American soldiers.
Personal Avariciousness in lieu of Moral Principals.
Von Braum was born into a prosperous aristocratic family, and was morally condition by the teachings and practises of the Lutheran church. He would have understood, that the principal of the laws of the state to ‘annihilate the Jewish race in Europe’ (Reichstag, 30 January 1939). and ill-treatment of forced labourers in the unjustifiable military sine qua non was crimes in contravention of the Hague Conventions of 1907. He would have also understood that the Reichstag legislations would not exempt an individual from culpability under the Hague Conventions. He was intellectually capable of making moral, and ethical choices. And would have understood that implementation of these crimes, even with the Reichstag sanctions, would not have exonerated any individual from war crimes.
Denial of Wrongdoings.
Von Braum justified his Nazi involvement saying: “My refusal to join the party would have meant that I would have to abandon the work of my life. Therefore, I decided to join … “My membership in the party did not involve any political activities” (sic.), (U.S., Office of Military Government, United States document dated 23 April 1947.) Whilst von Braum (and his fellow Nazis) was being sheltered by the U.S., so not to “abandon the work of my [his] life” [brackets mine], Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (1907 – 67), et. al., were being served with indictments (17 November 1947), for ‘Having enabled the armament of the German military forces’. And thus having enthusiastically participated in the Nazi’s preparations for an aggressive war, and also for having used slave labourers in their companies’. Other company names include I. G. Farbenindustrie, Siemens, Steyer, and Heinkel. Companies also purchased parts of the corpse for manufacturing products, e.g., women’s hair at 15-pfennig a kilo to make cloth, other parts to make soap, and lamp shades. Krupp and his co-offenders appeared at the twelve trials of the N.M.T., in the case of: ‘The United States of America vs. Alfried Krupp, et al.’. The trials lasted from 8 December 1947 to 31 July 1948. During the trial, the principal defendant, Alfried Krupp, denied the allegations.
“Die Wirtschaft brauchte eine ruhige oder aufwärts steigende Entwicklung. Infolge des Kampfes zwischen den vielen deutschen Parteien und der Unordnung gab es keine Möglichkeit für aufbauende Tätigkeit. … Wir hatten den Eindruck, daß Hitler uns solch eine gesunde Entwicklung bescheren würde. Tatsächlich hat er das getan. … Wir Kruppianer haben uns nie viel um Ideen gekümmert. Wir wollten nur ein System, das gut funktionierte und das uns eine Gelegenheit gab, ungestört zu arbeiten. Politik ist nicht unsere Sache.”[sic.]
“The economy needed a steady or growing development. Because of the rivalries between the many political parties in Germany and the general disorder there was no opportunity for prosperity … We thought that Hitler would give us such a healthy environment. Indeed he did do that. … We Krupps never cared much about [political] ideas. We only wanted a system that worked well and allowed us to work unhindered. Politics is not our business”. [sic.]
Alfried Krupp, Golo Mann’s ms. published in Friz 1988.
Krupp was convicted and sentenced to twelve years imprisonment, and forfeiture of property, both real and personal. However, two and a half years later (31 January 1951), the U.S’s high Commissioner, in occupied Germany, John J. McCloyin, granted amnesty. And rehabilitated Krupp, and his family firm (1953), allowing him to continue “…to work unhindered”, after which Krupp amassed a fortune exceeding a thousand million dollars; in the early 1960s.
Krupp and von Braum never accepted responsibilities for supporting the Nazi party, nor were they summons to appear before the Nüremberg Tribunals. The leniency of Krupp’s sentence subsequent to the Nüremberg Tribunals, and von Braum’s protection, and laudations transcends decency. They were indubitable Nazis who participated in the largest systematic genocide programmes in history. They were involved in the wholesale premeditated slaughter of millions of men, women and children; of an incomprehensible statistical magnitude. These unremorseful, recalcitrant Nazis walked away free, with blood on their hands, with the wholehearted support of the U.S., who freed them from all accountability.
“On doit des égards aux vivants; on ne doit aux morts que la vérité”.
“We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth”.
Voltaire ( François-Marie Arouet ), ‘Premiere Lettre sur Oedipe’ in Oeuvres ( 1785 ) vol. 1
The U.S’s., leniency towards these unremorseful Nazis was an insult to the memory of those who died at their hands, and a gross disappointment at the final outcome of the judicial decisions of the Nüremberg Tribunals. The well-intentioned judicial decisions of the Tribunals were one step forward to civilization, but the subsequent miscarriage of the penalties – and the U.S’s. harbouring of former Nazi enablers from the N.M.T., were two steps backwards to pre-civilization.