Report saying America was a safe haven for Nazis after the war

[Bill Mattocks]

Likewise, consider the industries that created weapons and material for Germany and Japan during WWII. I've owned a Krups coffeemaker and a Mitsubishi automobile. Both were willing manufacturers of weapons and material for their respective country's war efforts.

What does this mean for us? What should it mean?

 

[Tez3]

Who is Brit bashing? Historic facts be historic facts not bashing and like the supplied, albeit somewhat sensationalized, link to the article about the Nazi harboring US, what I stated were facts.

But surprisingly this thread has left me in a rather strange mood... I think I need to make another thread

TBH I think you are being childish. I see nothing sensational about the link supplied, I find nothing that you should take umbrage about in it other than perhaps at your government or government dept of the time that allowed them in and to stay. You are making an argument where there is none offered from me and if anything you are being obtuse about why I find it a subject so close to my heart as well as many others.

Why, too, you should be so defensive baffles me and why you should think that it's American bashing I don't know.

If there are still these Nazis alive there are many of us that would like to see them investigated and put on trial if the evidence warrants it. These were our families that were killed and we want justice. this isn't about blaming America this is about finding these people and finding the truth about what they did. I believe you have no limit on the time you catch murderers in, so why should they not be investigated? For all you know they may have killed American prisoners of war (86 American soldiers who were prisoners of war were massacred by a Waffen SS unit on 17th Dec 1944 at Malmedy, Belgium) Wouldn't you want those SS to answer to their crimes?

"In 1980, prosecutors filed a motion that “misstated the facts” in asserting that checks of C.I.A. and F.B.I. records revealed no information on the Nazi past of Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Waffen SS soldier. In fact, the report said, the Justice Department “knew that Soobzokov had advised the C.I.A. of his SS connection after he arrived in the United States.”

From
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

"The report also examines the case of Arthur L. Rudolph, a Nazi scientist who ran the Mittelwerk munitions factory. He was brought to the United States in 1945 for his rocket-making expertise under Operation Paperclip, an American program that recruited scientists who had worked in Nazi Germany. (Rudolph has been honored by NASA and is credited as the father of the Saturn V rocket.)
The report cites a 1949 memo from the Justice Department’s No. 2 official urging immigration officers to let Rudolph back in the country after a stay in Mexico, saying that a failure to do so “would be to the detriment of the national interest.”
Justice Department investigators later found evidence that Rudolph was much more actively involved in exploiting slave laborers at Mittelwerk than he or American intelligence officials had acknowledged, the report says."

"In chronicling the cases of Nazis who were aided by American intelligence officials, the report cites help that C.I.A. officials provided in 1954 to Otto Von Bolschwing, an associate of Adolf Eichmann who had helped develop the initial plans “to purge Germany of the Jews” and who later worked for the C.I.A. in the United States. In a chain of memos, C.I.A. officials debated what to do if Von Bolschwing were confronted about his past — whether to deny any Nazi affiliation or “explain it away on the basis of extenuating circumstances,” the report said"

Can't you see how very serious this is to us, you pout and seem to think it's a case of blaming America for everything. Look at the people they let in and tell me that you think it's a trifling thing,how can we not sit up and take notice! Otto Von Bolschwing helped with plans to wipe out all Jews in German and more than likely not all other 'non desirables', can you not see how immense that is? It's not the petty oh blame America for everything 'game' you assume, this is crimes against humanity on a huge scale, the elimination of an entire population.

The New York Times article also says
"More than 300 Nazi persecutors have been deported, stripped of citizenship or blocked from entering the United States since the creation of the O.S.I., which was merged with another unit this year"

The above is very encouraging and deserves praise.

What I believe too is that the American people who had no knowledge of this at the time will as good decent people will be horrified at the thought that these monsters were allowed into their country, I believe if it had been known at the time there would have been an outcry and the bringing of these people into America would be stopped. Surely making these criminals citizens and giving them benefits of life in America is a huge slap in the face to those who fought and died for freedom. Perhaps that's what you should be mad at not me.

 

[Tez3]

Likewise, consider the industries that created weapons and material for Germany and Japan during WWII. I've owned a Krups coffeemaker and a Mitsubishi automobile. Both were willing manufacturers of weapons and material for their respective country's war efforts.

What does this mean for us? What should it mean?

Perhaps nothing to you and me, perhaps it should mean nothing.

However we are talking about men, who may well be still alive, who killed a great number of people, who planned the destruction of an entire people, who murdered and tortured their way across Europe. Shouldn't they be investigated and if there's evidence taken to stand trial for these crimes?

 

[elder999]

TBH I think you are being childish.

Pot? Kettle? See below.

Can't you see how very serious this is to us, you pout and seem to think it's a case of blaming America for everything.

In the case of exploiting slave labor, one couldn't be involved in German industry during WWII, be German, and not be involved in the use of slave labor, ala Oscar Schindler.This in itself is hardly an indictment. More to the point, the end of the war in Europe saw special units created by the Americans that were tasked with getting Nazi scientists and keeping them away from the Soviets and the British. The Soviets had units tasked with getting Nazi scientists and keeping them away from the Americans and the British.

The British had units-one led by Ian Fleming, and tasked with getting the secrets of Germany's proto-jet plane- that were tasked with getting Nazi scientists, and keeping them away from the Soviets and the Americans-who were throwing all of our weight around, running the show, and grudgingly sharing the secrets of the atomic bomb. It's more than likely that the Americans did get the lion's share of scientists-127 Nazi rocket scientists alone came to the U.S. as part of Operation Paperclip-but the British did get their share, who became, presumably, British citizens.

What I believe too is that the American people who had no knowledge of this at the time will as good decent people will be horrified at the thought that these monsters were allowed into their country, I believe if it had been known at the time there would have been an outcry and the bringing of these people into America would be stopped. Surely making these criminals citizens and giving them benefits of life in America is a huge slap in the face to those who fought and died for freedom. Perhaps that's what you should be mad at not me.

Nah. They're scientists. For a great many of them, as long as they were permitted to pursue their work, they could care less who's doing the grunt work, or what they're having for lunch, or if their hair is on fire-never mind dealing with their personal feelings about the regime they're working for, or what's being done around them. For some, like Heisenberg and a few others, the excesses of Hitler and his government caused them to surreptitiously undermine the efforts they were involved with-or leave. Those that remained wound up in foregin hands at wars end, American, Soviet and British..........
......it's just that the Brits didn't get the best ones, never really accomplished much with them, and , Soviet black-hole cone of silence notwithstanding, are better at keeping their mouths shut than we are.

 

[Blade96]

At that time, the partitioning of Germany was occurring. It was becoming clear that the Soviet Union was to become an enemy (the beginning of the 'Cold War') and we wanted to get those assets out of Germany so that they could not be used against us by the Soviets. This is my understanding of it. I do not believe that there was any favorable Nazi sentiment lingering about; we just wanted the people and the knowledge they had.

That happened. The USSR also kidnapped german scientists and took them to the USSR so get germany to pay their large war reparations.

And I think 'US became a safe haven for nazis after the war' is a bit of a misleading of what it actually was, don't you think?

 

[Tez3]

So the American soldiers who fought their way across Europe, who liberated the concentration camps wouldn't care that Nazis were going to be sitting in their country nice and safe after the war, oh well if you say they'll be fine with it I'm sure they will.

Tscherim Soobzokow wasn't a scientist, he was Waffen SS who was recruited by the CIA to spy for them.

Otto Von Bolschwing wasn't a scientist he was a high ranking SS officer, involved in planning the Final Solution.

Excuse the scientists by all means but the rest? Are you really comfortable having the SS for neighbours?

 

[Tez3]

That happened. The USSR also kidnapped german scientists and took them to the USSR so get germany to pay their large war reparations.

And I think 'US became a safe haven for nazis after the war' is a bit of a misleading of what it actually was, don't you think?

'Safe haven' were the words used by the American branch of the Simon Wiesanthal Foundation, take it up with them.

"For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter page or mobile device."


From here
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441257

 

[elder999]

So the American soldiers who fought their way across Europe, who liberated the concentration camps wouldn't care that Nazis were going to be sitting in their country nice and safe after the war, oh well if you say they'll be fine with it I'm sure they will.

Tscherim Soobzokow wasn't a scientist, he was Waffen SS who was recruited by the CIA to spy for them.

Otto Von Bolschwing wasn't a scientist he was a high ranking SS officer, involved in planning the Final Solution.

Excuse the scientists by all means but the rest? Are you really comfortable having the SS for neighbours?

Well, I dunno-were any of them arrested for murder, or molesting children, or committing atrocities?

Are any of them still alive, or not drooling and incontinent?

We actually had some German emigres in our neighborhood who were (former) Nazis, when I was a kid. I can't say that they were favorite neighbors, but they never made me particularly uncomfortable-I don't know what he did in the war, and never reallhy got along with them-especially when we were rotten teenagers working on cars out at the curb or playing guitars late into the morning hours-but, hey, I can't say that my friends and I were anybody's favorite neighbors either.....:lol:

 

[Ken Morgan]

Well in order to teach or conduct research at a German University during that time you had to be a member of the party, (If I recall correctly). Millions joined the Nazi party in order to advance their business and academic goals. Same as joining the communist party in China today, it helps your career.

As for members of the SS same thing, most of them were elite units used on the front lines as infantry and armour units, only a small percentage were concentration camp guards and such.

Tens of thousands of ex German service men immigrated to North and South America after the war, probably 99% of them were normal soldiers. The bastards who are war criminals should never have been used for any purpose, by any government, expect to test the tensile strength of a piece of rope

 

[Empty Hands]

Excuse the scientists by all means but the rest? Are you really comfortable having the SS for neighbours?

This is exactly the distinction we are trying to get at. You, or the authors you cite, are conflating "Nazi/SS/Camp Butcher" with "Scientist" so it's impossible to tell which is which. I doubt anyone here, and certainly not myself, would oppose charging former SS murderers with their crimes. However, apparently mixed in with that group, are scientists who can't be fairly described as Nazi Murderers. All I am saying, all I think anyone here is saying, is that's it's unfair to describe all the scientists gathered in the war as Nazi Murderers without knowing more about them.

These distinctions are important. Otherwise we condemn every German who lived through that time as a murderer, which is not something I'm prepared to do.

 

[Tez3]

So it's alright to profit from the scientists work because they were only scientists and wouldn't have dreamed of being Nazis? We shouldn't investigate them, we should assume they are all innocent because they are scientists?

Ken, in 1933 the SS comprised 52,000 men, in 1936 Himmler put them into key postisions in the country. In 1944 the Waffen SS were formed, it grew to 150,000 in six months, the SS Deathhead Units were also formed to man the concentration camps, in 1944 there were 24,000 in that unti and 594,000 in the Waffen SS. The Nuremburg trials declared them a criminal organisation responsible for most of the crimes against humanity.committed in the last war.
In Occupied Norway the German troops were under the command of the Waffen SS and the SS, it was the same in Occupied Holland, Danmark and the rest of Occupied Europe. Look at these lists by no means a full one and see what the SS did.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_east.html

And this one,
"THE SAGAN EXECUTIONS (March, 1944)
The Gestapo’s most cold blooded act of butchery was the murder of 50 RAF officers from the POW camp, Stalag Luft III at Sagan in Silesia. Hundreds of officers had a hand in the building of a tunnel, 28ft down below one of the huts in the British north compound. It ran for 360 feet, passing under the wire at a depth of 20ft. The breakout on March 24th. 1944, saw the escape of 79 men before the tunnel was discovered. The last three men out gave themselves up to the guards in the hope that they could delay the search for the rest. Hitler issued a personal order that fifty escapees were to be shot on recapture. Within weeks, all had been recaptured, except three who eventually managed to reach England. After their capture, the officers were confined to various jails near where the arrests took place. Early in the morning they were taken out of their cells and in groups of two or three, were bundled into cars in company with their guards, and driven out into the country. On the autobahn, near a wood, the car would stop and the prisoners allowed out to relieve themselves. While performing this natural function, the guards would sneak up behind them and shoot them in the neck. Their bodies were then taken to the nearest crematorium. Any money the officers had on them were taken to help pay for the cremation. When the urns containing the ashes of the murdered officers began arriving at Stalag Luft III, the enormity of the massacre was revealed. Most urns had the officers name, date cremated and place-names such as Gorlitz, Brux, Breslau , Liegnitz, Kiel, Munich, Saarbrucken and Danzig. Most urns had the dates, 29th, 30th and 31st March, 1944. Official Gestapo files noted that the officers were ‘shot while trying to escape’. After the war, the RAF Special Investigation Branch, led by Squadron Leader Francis P. McKenna, ex 622 Squadron from Mildenhall, began its search for the culprits. It took over three years to bring the murderers to justice. Of the 72 culprits traced, 21 were found guilty and hanged, 17 imprisoned, 11 committed suicide, the rest died, disappeared or were acquitted."

The last one was found in 1968.

http://www.rafpa.com/books.htm


Far from being just combat troops the SS and the Waffen SS were the scourge and terror of Europe.

An article from Spiegel on ordinary people committing 'Nazi' crimes.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,542245,00.html

You could also look up about this.

BELGIUM Bande 24 DEC 44 34 Village men are executed by members of members of No. 8 SS Commando for Special Duties.

Malmendy 17 DEC 44 Stavelot 18 DEC 44 130 Belgians (67 men, 47 women and 23 children) are executed for harboring wounded American soldiers

FRANCE La Paradis 26 May 1940 97 members of the Royal Norfolk Regiment are executed by members of the 2d SS Infantry Regiment Wormhoudt

27 May 1940 85 British POWs are placed in a barn by members of No 7 CO, 2d BN SS Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler Grenades are thrown in. Survivors are pulled out 5 at a time and executed

Le Mesnil-Patty 8 June 44 35 Canadian POWs executed by 12 SS Panzer Division Authie

7 June 44 40 Canadian POWs executed one by one by 26 SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment.

I've already mentioned the shooting of unarmed Americans.

 

[Tez3]

I think as far as World War Two is concerned we have a vast culteral divide between Europe and America. You see the war as the past, the Germans as being old, defeated enemies you can afford to be magnanimous to and the Nazi scientists as merely being useful, for us we have have deep deep scars and many problems in Europe that stem from the war. Many Europeans still remember the horrors of Occupation, if they don't their parents and grandparents do, it still colours much of European politics today.

When Americans say well we came and saved you, do they actually know what they saved us from? Can any sane man imagine what was going on all over Europe and not be affected? Not just the concentration camps, there was the euthanasia of the mentally and physically disabled, the rounding up of the gypsies, the trade unionists, of anyone who spoke agsint the Nazis, the terror of the knock on the door. Reprisals against villages and towns, the Germans even massacred their Allies, the Italians. Unspeakable horrors in the camps, forced labour in factories, starvation. Entire villages destoyed, possessions taken away. people led away to forests to be shot, lorries turned into mobile gas chambers, children murdered. It was endless terror and fear. Millions of Russians died, millions of people all over Europe. Do you see why we are so grateful Americans came into the war? but how we don't understand each other when it comes to the Germans of that period?

Europe at the end of the war was devastated, town, cities and villages destroyed, millions displaced, people who had been made to work for the Nazis thousands of miles away from their homes trying to get back to find loves ones, refugees, concentration camp survivors all trying to claw their way back to life. It's estimated 50 million people lost their homes. How do you think we couldn't, even now be disturbed by this? When I was born several years after the war, there was still rationing, still bomb sites all over the cities, still great poverty and people trying to rebuild their lives, well into the sixties people were still trying to recover. In some places it wasn't until the seventies that the bomb sites were finally rebuilt on. All over Europe it was the same, if you look at the memorials in European towns you will see the names of the people killed in the war, not just the soldiers but the old men and women, the children, the mothers, sister, aunts, uncles all massacred by the Nazis. There are families all over Europe with few relatives because they we killed in the war, again not as soldiers but massacred by the Nazis. Europe lost two thirds of it's civilian population. How can we not blame the Germans who were of an age to be in the war? How can we see them and see innocence? The good Germans who protested, who tried to prevent the Nazis, they were rounded up and killed, guillotined usually, the Nazis guillotined more people the French did in the Revolution.

You shrug your shoulders and think a few German scientists are harmless, useful even but you don't see what we see, that they were part and parcel of the horror that was inflicted on Europe and that there are no innocent Germans from the war time. You may think that's unfair, it's not right but think if instead of Europe it had been America. It may not be right to blame a whole generation of Germans but the truth is we do and can you tell us honestly that we should forgive them? We should forgive the millions and millions ( 60 million is a conservative estimate) of dead, the devastation of countries and the devastation of smashed lives? 60,000 people died in the Blitz alone. Warsaw had a population of 1,289,000 before the war, it was just 153,000 afterwards. Would you, could you forgive so easily?
For Europe it's never in the past, it's always just behind us, its within living memory. We still see the bullet holes from the firing squads in the walls of the houses. Think of 9/11 ground zero but country wide and millions dead, then someone rounding up survivors and killing them or putting them in camps, then think of that happening for five years. After the people who did this were defeated would you be so keen to have them back as scientists or whatever?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Perhaps nothing to you and me, perhaps it should mean nothing.

However we are talking about men, who may well be still alive, who killed a great number of people, who planned the destruction of an entire people, who murdered and tortured their way across Europe. Shouldn't they be investigated and if there's evidence taken to stand trial for these crimes?

If it turns out that George Bush is arrested for war crimes (don't think it's likely, just saying), then I was one of the guys who worked in the industries that supplied war material for the Iraq and Afghanistan war effort. I kept critical networks running. Am I a war criminal?

If so, why? If not, how is the guy who designed gears that went into a German WWII tank a war criminal?

Yes, there are real war criminals, I believe in such things. I also believe the overwhelming majority were just doing their jobs, whether they liked the administration in power or not.

 

[Tez3]

If it turns out that George Bush is arrested for war crimes (don't think it's likely, just saying), then I was one of the guys who worked in the industries that supplied war material for the Iraq and Afghanistan war effort. I kept critical networks running. Am I a war criminal?

If so, why? If not, how is the guy who designed gears that went into a German WWII tank a war criminal?

Yes, there are real war criminals, I believe in such things. I also believe the overwhelming majority were just doing their jobs, whether they liked the administration in power or not.

I knew explaining how we felt would be pointless but I had to try.

Yeah, you're right all those Germans were just doing their jobs and Europeans are just whinging.
War criminals? they were just following orders.

No German told the SS about their Jewish/communist/gay/Jehovah's Witness etc neighbours and had them taken to the camps. No German benefitted from the removal of Jewish people from jobs, schools and universities. No German threw stones at Jews in the street, no German walked passed dying people, no German smashed the windows in Jewish houses, no German joined the SS voluntarily. The whole nation were just following orders. Only a few were guilty, the rest of course they were innocent. How could I have ever thought otherwise. Silly me.

 

[Bruno@MT]

Difficult topic.

Ok the war was over and the Nazis soundly beaten.
As soon as Berlin was taken, there was a new shift in the balance of power, influence and ideologies. Everyone knew that there would a be a power struggle. So what to do?
Do you take the high road and put your country at a serious disadvantage?
Or do you take the pragmatic approach and gather as much intelligence assets as possible?

As for the 'everyone is guilty' line.
Well, yes I suppose. The war was a total war. The entire socio economic structure was bent to the war effort. It was simply impossible to exist in Germany (or UK, or...) and not be part of the war effort. And people did in fact do despicable things. What do you suggest? Executing every single German?

 

[Tez3]

Difficult topic.

Ok the war was over and the Nazis soundly beaten.
As soon as Berlin was taken, there was a new shift in the balance of power, influence and ideologies. Everyone knew that there would a be a power struggle. So what to do?
Do you take the high road and put your country at a serious disadvantage?
Or do you take the pragmatic approach and gather as much intelligence assets as possible?

As for the 'everyone is guilty' line.
Well, yes I suppose. The war was a total war. The entire socio economic structure was bent to the war effort. It was simply impossible to exist in Germany (or UK, or...) and not be part of the war effort. And people did in fact do despicable things. What do you suggest? Executing every single German?[/quote]


No I'm suggesting that Americans understand what it was like in the last war and understand why recruiting SS officers to spy for them is morally wrong. I'm suggesting they think about the total devastation left after the war ended and see why Europeans aren't inclined to be so forgiving as they are towards Germans.
Americans necessarily see it as a war where their soldiers were sent into fight, and yes we thank the lord they did come but only the soldiers saw the war, the civilians continued to live the lives they had before, they didn't suffer any bombing, terror or displacement that Europe did. It's easier for the Americans to see themselves as fighting just the German forces as in previous wars, they don't understand the role of the ordinary German people in all of this. It was a total war, everyone was involved in the horrors before and during the war. It's not a case of executing Germans but of understanding what part the 'ordinary' German played in the war. The Germans themselves understand this why can't the Americans?

http://www.historyplace.com/pointsofview/goldhagen.htm

World War Two wasn't a 'simple' war as wars had been before where two sides line up and fight, the immense anti Semitism felt by Germany involved most of the country, firends, neighbours, relatives even were denounced to the authorities and taken to the camps. Jewish businesses, schools and homes were vandalised the the occupants thrown out, Jews were attacked on the street, made to wear yellow starts as other minority and groups opposed to the Nazis were made to wear symbols. Hundreds of thousands turned up at anti jewish rallies and returned full of fervour to destroy the jews who were poisoning their country. The Holocaust wasn't an isolated act, it was the act of a country.

The actions of the SS in the Occupied countries surely means that one doesn't then invite an SS officer into ones country and give them a job? Are we so sure that the scientists were just that and had no thought to what was going on, that they didn't subscibe to it? Plenty of scientists left Germany before the war becuse they could see what was going on. Taking them in and giving them jobs without investigating them was wrong, taking them in and hiding their history was wrong. Yes employ them if they can prove what they were doing during the war was legitimate war work that didn't involve testing on concentration camps victims, that they weren't active members of the Nazi party involved in criminal acts. If they can prove they were doing scientific research or working in munitions factories etc there would be no problem employing them would there and there would be no problem in being open about it all.

 

[punisher73]

It's old news. Heck, our military used Nazi concentration camp data on "experiments" with freezing-in fact, most of what we know about how the human body reacts to freezing comes from those events.

And, a while ago Tez posted something about our space program and how we couldn't have done it without the British (or the Aussies, for that matter), but we really couldn't have done it without those Germans. Were they truly Nazis, or like many others who had to join the party, just Germans? I couldn't say.

We sure did grab as many as we could, though.....

I was going to mention the fact that ALOT of data came from Nazi scientists that could not have been learned any other way in science and medicine because they did such atrocities to other people. Usually, when it gets mentioned someone twists it as being pro-nazi. Glad it can be discussed for what it is here.

 

[crushing]

I'm suggesting they think about the total devastation left after the war ended and see why Europeans aren't inclined to be so forgiving as they are towards Germans.

Actually, the links I provided earlier in this discussion show the United Kingdom to be quite forgiving of Nazis, particularly due to the post war labor shortage. Here they are again if you missed them.

The UK: A Nazi Safe Haven

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article555186.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/feb/04/secondworldwar.germany
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/1525553.stm

 

[elder999]

[No I'm suggesting that Americans understand what it was like in the last war and understand why recruiting SS officers to spy for them is morally wrong. .

Good night, Irene!(just been dying to say that!) we have arguments on this very board about how killing Indians was ok, not genocide and "just a clash of cultures," arguments about the "real" casuses of our Civil War and how it "wasn't really over slavery, but states rights"(to slavery, duh!). We have a populace nearly completely and blissfully ignorant of their government's direct action or complicity in butchery in the Phillipines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Chile-and those are just the ones that come to mind immediately. Long before he became "an evil dictator who had rape rooms," Saddam Hussein was one of our government's pets. You should neither be surprised that we're not as outraged as Europeans, really don't care about European's ourtrage, and mostly don't care about the relative morality of using Nazis as spies after the war was over-something that started happening more than 60 years ago. We help support the House of Saud-who help support the terrorists we're fighting. We help support the Pakistani government, who help support the terrorists we're fighting. They called WWII "the war to end all wars" and the worlds been nothing BUT at war for the last 60 years, if you bother to know where to look-and always has been a gaping, supperating, pus filled open wound of suffering. We're still arguing about what happened to the Armenians was a "genocide." We make a "legal" distinction between "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing."

Is it any wonder that I really can't give a **** about 6 million Jews, dust now for 60 years?

I love my country, but compared to my own government, Hitler was a prince.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I can't argue emotion against logic, so this will be my final post in this thread.

I appreciate the points made about the complicity of everyday Germans in the Nazi atrocities. I appreciate the points made about how America, despite sending soldiers to fight and providing war material to allies, did not have the horrors of the war visited upon our shores, and so we lack the perspective of WWII that Europeans have. I get that.

However, be that as it may, we are what we are. We are not Europeans, we don't feel the same way Europeans do. All this "why can't you feel the same way we do about things" is an utter waste of time; we don't feel the same way you do, we're not likely to start, so move on.

Horrible things were done in WWII, particularly against the Jews. Many Jews live in the USA, and we are constantly on guard against that sort of thing happening again, against Jews, Muslims, or what-have-you. Every time bigotry appears to raise its pointed head, there are many voices, mine included, ready to point the finger and start raising hell. Other than that, there's not much we can (or are willing) to do in a free society; people are free to hate if they wish, they're even free to talk about their hatred; we only prevent them from acting on their hatred. Sorry if that offends sensibilities, but I actually prefer it that way and I do not apologize for it.

As to the importation of scientists and other skilled professionals who were Germans and worked for the Nazis - or were actual Nazis themselves; what is it exactly you want me to do about it? Be offended? Well, I'm not. I see that if we hadn't snatched them up, the USSR would have (and did in many cases), and their brainpower and research would have been put to work against the West (that includes free Europe, by the way).

Should we have put them in prison? Perhaps, assuming they were guilty of some crime. We didn't. It's done. They're long dead as are the people who should have would have could have investigated them or prosecuted them. It's over. We can only talk about it now, nothing anyone does can change anything.

So we hired a bunch of Nazi scientists. Shrug. I don't care, except in a historical sense. They didn't carry on being Nazis here, they only carried on being scientists.