• hexaflexagonbear [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Actually saw an annoying take about operation paperclip that the Soviets also took in German scientists. And I was like okay but they didn’t build an intelligence aparatus around Nazis? Also, on the science side, there’s clearly a distinction between Wernher Von Braun, who should’ve been hanged, and other scientists who weren’t actively using Jewish slave labour to construct missiles.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      I’m pretty sure the Soviets took Nazi scientists and made them live in closed cities that were de-facto prisons, working under close supervision by Soviet intelligence. Apparently most of them were re-patriated to the GDR by '53, having been held at military labs in the USSR with order to re-produce as much of their labs and research as possible up til then. And the GDR famously did not restore Nazis to their official positions in the military, intelligence, industry, and academia after the war.

      Here’s Tom Lehrer’s Wernher Von Braun

      https://yewtu.be/watch?v=TjDEsGZLbio

    • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      Another important difference: The Soviets took in German scientists as reparations. It was not a fun or comfortable trip and once they had taught Soviet scientists what they knew they were sent back home.

      They didn’t have big careers or had conference centres named after them in the USSR, in contrast to how the yanks did.