Was Operation Paperclip Justified?

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Operation Paperclip was the decision by the US to spare some Nazi War Criminals whose skills were deemed useful to the West in the Cold War.

[GoTfan]

No. You never cooperate with Nazis under any circumstances.

[Reactionary Libertarian]

Yes. They would have worked for the USSR otherwise, so it’s really just shooting yourself in the face. Furthermore, people like Werner von Braun were not ideological Nazis but rather people who collaborated with the regime for their own personal benefits. While this is still despicable, it’s not the same as working with, say, SS members. Reality is that even after Germany was denazified the government was still overwhelmingly made up of former Nazis- simply because anyone who wanted an elite job joined the party. It’s just not practical to remove all the collaborators- and in Iraq de-Baathification was a disaster that created a power void for ISIS.

[Vosem]

Yes, of course. People living under authoritarian regimes do what they need to in order to survive and try to fulfill their dreams as best they can; this does not make them bad people and throwing away technical talent is always a waste.

To my knowledge, all of my male ancestors of a particular generation (that of my grandparents' parents) fought the Nazis, and -- as the Israel-Palestine discussion shows -- I tend to be much more aggressive in what sort of behavior I condone, or outright approve, during wartime. But this doesn't mean that everybody who lived in Germany in 1945 was a horrible person, or even that everyone who in some way worked for the regime was a horrible person. (Similarly, not everyone who lives in Gaza in 2023 is a horrible person who deserves to get bombed; my guess is that there are relatively few such people, notwithstanding polling. But that doesn't mean wars shouldn't be prosecuted until victory.)

[Ferguson97]

I don’t know if justified is the right term, but it was the correct decision to make.

[GoTfan]

Yes, of course. People living under authoritarian regimes do what they need to in order to survive and try to fulfill their dreams as best they can; this does not make them bad people and throwing away technical talent is always a waste.

To my knowledge, all of my male ancestors of a particular generation (that of my grandparents' parents) fought the Nazis, and -- as the Israel-Palestine discussion shows -- I tend to be much more aggressive in what sort of behavior I condone, or outright approve, during wartime. But this doesn't mean that everybody who lived in Germany in 1945 was a horrible person, or even that everyone who in some way worked for the regime was a horrible person. (Similarly, not everyone who lives in Gaza in 2023 is a horrible person who deserves to get bombed; my guess is that there are relatively few such people, notwithstanding polling. But that doesn't mean wars shouldn't be prosecuted until victory.)

With the exception that the majority of Nazi scientists were just that-Nazis. They were not functionaries, they were members of the Party itself.

Whitewashing them is the equivalent of whitewashing the July 20 plotters when the vast majority of them were extremely reactionary anti-Semitic German nationalists who wanted to keep killing as many Russians as they could and merely tried to overthrow Hitler because Germany was losing the war. Or, God help me, the whitewashing of the entire f**king German army.

[Independents for Nihilism]

Better to make a deal with the devil than to let the devil you know make a deal with the devil you don't... or something like that.

[Agonized-Statism]

They certainly shouldn't have been allowed to become celebrities like Von Braun. Get what you can out of the scientists and engineers through coercion or force and then try them for their crimes when they outlive their usefulness.

[LBJer]

Yes, of course. People living under authoritarian regimes do what they need to in order to survive and try to fulfill their dreams as best they can; this does not make them bad people and throwing away technical talent is always a waste.

To my knowledge, all of my male ancestors of a particular generation (that of my grandparents' parents) fought the Nazis, and -- as the Israel-Palestine discussion shows -- I tend to be much more aggressive in what sort of behavior I condone, or outright approve, during wartime. But this doesn't mean that everybody who lived in Germany in 1945 was a horrible person, or even that everyone who in some way worked for the regime was a horrible person. (Similarly, not everyone who lives in Gaza in 2023 is a horrible person who deserves to get bombed; my guess is that there are relatively few such people, notwithstanding polling. But that doesn't mean wars shouldn't be prosecuted until victory.)

With the exception that the majority of Nazi scientists were just that-Nazis. They were not functionaries, they were members of the Party itself.

Simply having been a "Nazi" in the sense of being a member of the party doesn't tell us much.  There have been Nazis recognized by Israel as "Righteous Among The Nations."

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Hell Yes it was. America's leadership knew the war against the Nazis was won, and the smartest among them knew that obsessively continuing to think as if begone wars were still ongoing is to be divorced from reality itself.
You don't win today's struggles by getting hung up trying to still fight yesterday's wars.

[GoTfan]

Yes, of course. People living under authoritarian regimes do what they need to in order to survive and try to fulfill their dreams as best they can; this does not make them bad people and throwing away technical talent is always a waste.

To my knowledge, all of my male ancestors of a particular generation (that of my grandparents' parents) fought the Nazis, and -- as the Israel-Palestine discussion shows -- I tend to be much more aggressive in what sort of behavior I condone, or outright approve, during wartime. But this doesn't mean that everybody who lived in Germany in 1945 was a horrible person, or even that everyone who in some way worked for the regime was a horrible person. (Similarly, not everyone who lives in Gaza in 2023 is a horrible person who deserves to get bombed; my guess is that there are relatively few such people, notwithstanding polling. But that doesn't mean wars shouldn't be prosecuted until victory.)

With the exception that the majority of Nazi scientists were just that-Nazis. They were not functionaries, they were members of the Party itself.

Simply having been a "Nazi" in the sense of being a member of the party doesn't tell us much.  There have been Nazis recognized by Israel as "Righteous Among The Nations."

Oh, good for them. I don't care. One good thing they might've done does not erase the 10+ years they were a member of that evil, evil organisation. Von Braun in particular was a member of the Allegemeine-SS. Like Speer, he was also fully aware of the horrific slave labour that his party put people under, and certainly aware of the concentration camps and the Holocaust.

I don't want to hear anything about people under totalitarian regimes doing what they have to in order to survive. You try telling that to people like Hans Oster or Sophie Scholl; they still found the courage and will to resist.

[LBJer]

Yes, of course. People living under authoritarian regimes do what they need to in order to survive and try to fulfill their dreams as best they can; this does not make them bad people and throwing away technical talent is always a waste.

To my knowledge, all of my male ancestors of a particular generation (that of my grandparents' parents) fought the Nazis, and -- as the Israel-Palestine discussion shows -- I tend to be much more aggressive in what sort of behavior I condone, or outright approve, during wartime. But this doesn't mean that everybody who lived in Germany in 1945 was a horrible person, or even that everyone who in some way worked for the regime was a horrible person. (Similarly, not everyone who lives in Gaza in 2023 is a horrible person who deserves to get bombed; my guess is that there are relatively few such people, notwithstanding polling. But that doesn't mean wars shouldn't be prosecuted until victory.)

With the exception that the majority of Nazi scientists were just that-Nazis. They were not functionaries, they were members of the Party itself.

Simply having been a "Nazi" in the sense of being a member of the party doesn't tell us much.  There have been Nazis recognized by Israel as "Righteous Among The Nations."

Oh, good for them. I don't care. One good thing they might've done does not erase the 10+ years they were a member of that evil, evil organisation.

Well obviously Yad Vashem disagrees with you.  And that says something considering they're Israel's national Holocaust museum.  And simply calling saving someone's life--and in some cases many people's lives--"one good thing" is more than a bit disingenuous. 

[ingemann]

I honestly don’t care whether it was justified, because it was the right thing to do to win the Cold War, and victory justifies itself.