Wernher Von Braun and Project Paperclip

[Tim Gratz]

From Wikipedia:

In 1958 Paine became employed at Bell Helicopter through his mother's second husband Arthur Young, designer of the first commercial helicopter, the Bell 47. The following year the Paines moved to Irving, Texas when Michael began work at a Bell Helicopter facility in Fort Worth.

This is how I think Paine got his job at Bell.

Remember facts are sacred.

Certainly no one posits that Dornberger was part of the plot? Merely because both he and Paine worked at Bell?

[Guest David Guyatt]

I am not so sanguine about von Braun's nazi association being a case of needs must and have seen nothing that evidences this other than his own comments thus:

"I was officially demanded to join the National Socialist Party. At this time (1937) I was already technical director of the Army Rocket Center at Peenemünde ... 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 ... in Spring 1940, one SS-Standartenführer (SS Colonel) Müller ... looked me up in my office at Peenemünde and told me that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had sent him with the order to urge me to join the SS. I called immediately on my military superior ... Major-General W. Dornberger. He informed me that ... if I wanted to continue our mutual work, I had no alternative but to join."

Aristocrats, of which von Braun was a part due to his fine pedigree, flocked to the SS. Nice stylish uniforms don't ya' know. Other attractions were unabashed power wielding and, more importantly, the emphasis placed on pure blood lines...something beloved by aristo's.

Besides this, I see that von Braun's claim above is disputed because the Waffen-SS had shown no interest in Pennemunde during 1940 -- plus the fact that he had been promoted three times by Himmler, from the joining rank of Lieutenant to that of SS-Sturmbannfuhrer (Major).

My caution here is that there does seem to be a continuing move to rehabilitate some Nazis as being good guys at heart. One need only read the obituary columns written by the major media about Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands following his death. All sorts of artifices were used to show he was not a true nazi. But he was.

[Tim Gratz]

I appreciate your perspective, David. Nazi Germany was certainly evil and we must never forget that or as you put it rehabilitate the Nazis for their deeds.

Query re Project Paperclip: Certainly President Truman must have been aware that we were recruiting ex-Nazis, even if he was not aware of the extent of the program? Is there any historical information available on Truman's knowledge?

And regarding the interesting Bon Braun quote, if the choice was to abandon his life work or join the Nazis, certainly even in 1937 there was only one moral answer to that question.

Edited November 19, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Guest David Guyatt]

Tim, re Truman, sorry but I don't know.

I do know that Gehlen was brought to the US (I believe it was Fort Hunt) immediately at the end of the War in Europe and spent almost a year there being debriefed and prepared to return to Germany (once a satisfactory agreement had been reached) to work for the US against the Soviet Union. If my memory is correct, this arrangement was undertaken by the Pentagon at most senior levels and I don't believe the US political apparatus was made aware of said arrangement.

Gehlen was an unrepentant Nazi. Just the ticket!

Thus (assuming my meory is correct) Truman may not have been brought into the circle of initiates. Just guessing, though.

David

[Pamela Brown]

A major point of connection between Wernher von Braun and JFK which almost everyone seems to overlook is the fact that Papa Joe was a Nazi appeaser and friend of Hitler while von Braun served in that regime (though he was at one point arrested because, supposedly, he was only interested in building rockets for space travel, not war). Oddly, Henry Ford was also a part of the nazi-appeaser gang, and, of course, we know that JFK was killed in a FMC (Lincoln Div) vehicle. Charles Lindbergh was another American successfully deluded by Hitler and his reich. I don't recall reading anything about this connection in Neufeld's book.