Well now- let’s be complete here. The USA pardoned THOUSANDS of Nazis, mostly scientists and industrial or other specialists. Some diplomats and high ranking officers who gave testimony against others or revealed locations of facilities or POWS, graves, etc. AND tons of Japanese war criminals who had carried out a scale of death and rape and human atrocities that dwarfs the scale of the Holocaust (I won’t speak of relative horrors because you ant compare horrors. We will say the horrors are all just bad.) technical
Personnel largely in exchange for their research and expertise. Many got new lives and cushy jobs to boot.
But... so did Russia. The UK participated in operation paperclip as well- gathering Nazi personnel and material prior to handing over occupied territory in Europe. The UK also carries out operation T force and other cover ops in which it skipped the pardons and just straight up kidnapped who they wanted to air in the middle of the night and let them choose if they wanted to be a prisoner or an abductee.
Argentina was very close to the Germans. Lots of Germans lived there and they were officially “neutral” but their leader created smuggling channels through Spain and basically gave the Nazis a secret but open invite to come to Argentina so they could be hidden. And also Argentina and other South American countries tried to get Germans with experience in sciences, technical fields, and large scale management and industry to use to bolster their countries. Over 9500 Nazis made it to South America.
Russia grabbed them some Nazis, and other countries too- for various reasons. Of course- of the US or UK or Whoever deserves condemnation for that... for being willing to put their material betterment ahead of morality and take the pearls of Nazi wisdom.... what about the rest of the world which doesn’t have any problems benefiting from Nazi and Japanese human atrocities?
Because every day most people enjoy some sort of advancement made possible or devolved using those Nazi or Japanese scientists. If you’ve been in an airplane newer than 1950, been to the doctor in the last 60 or 70 years, had surgery, or used a host of every day items or technology... welcome to the “I benefit from sick and inhuman experiments by the Axis” club.
It doesn’t quite sit right with me, but what are you going to do? As far as America knows all our Nazis are dead. Can’t really do much about it. Most of the men who made the call to pardon the Nazis are dead. Can’t really do much to them. We could reject all the technology and advancement based on gains from them- but that’s impractical and unlikely. The modern world is built on the horrors of WW2. And... there is an unpalatable but logical school of thought that says millions died. Many thousands or hundreds of thousands were part of sick experiences you can’t ethically replicate or would take centuries to do so ethically. They’re already dead. How does not using the information gained from vivisection of these poor souls or whatever other sick things were done (lots. Spoiler. REAAAALLLY SICK.)
How does not using that horrible thing that happened and can’t be undone, to save lives now, how does that hurt the dead? It certainly hurts the living. And that’s kinda it at the end of the day. Can’t un murder all those people. Can’t unlearn what we learned. Would I have made the call to pardon those sick bastards had I been in a position to say yes or no? I honestly don’t know. I can see the logic- and the potential good that can be made from all that bad- but part of me also doesn’t like it. But it’s too late to do much, save that we could give some sort of restitution’s to surviving family of those who were used in these experiments. I don’t know what “right” it does to give them a cut of profits off their ancestors death- and maybe that’s throwing wrong at wrong- but that’s about the only thing to do about now that pandora opened the box, and then pandora died.
Personnel largely in exchange for their research and expertise. Many got new lives and cushy jobs to boot.