Okay, first; Fuck Nazis, as a whole. they suck. they are to many the literal standard of evil and have earned that. but some context is needed.
Waldheim opposed Nazis up until the start of the war, having faced abuse by them and his father being arrested, until the start of the war when he (and nearly every other German male) was not given a choice, and worked in intelligence.
von Braun couldn’t give a flying fuck about the movement. he was socially inept and gave a shit only about making things go zoom.
Hallstein was a lawyer turned soldier for the Weimar republic before the Nazis rose to power and was captured in France where he started a POW university to help german soldiers reintegrate thereafter.
Heusinger joined the Army in 1915 and stuck through the Weimar republic days all the way through because he was a career soldier, a member of the old guard who was grandfathered in.
these guys were largely nazis in name only. they were not saints; some of them were outright bastards. but once the war was over, we were facing what we believed to be our next threat; Stalin and the USSR. we needed brains, skill, leadership, and these guys were good, maybe even the best, at what they did. certainly some of the most experienced. and everyone (mostly) deserves a shot at redemption.
was it ethical that we sheltered these guys and far, FAR worse? abso-fuckin-lutely not. were they good guys? not really, nah. but did we need them? a case can be made, and when you’re looking at an enemy as big as the USSR you stack your deck as much as you can hoping it’s enough.
we defeated the nazis, but obviously we didn’t kill every last one of them. their lives were forefeit, and there was what many believed to be the next war sometime around the corner, so why not spend their lives, their smarts, their skills, in a way that gets some use out of them?
Waldheim opposed Nazis up until the start of the war, having faced abuse by them and his father being arrested, until the start of the war when he (and nearly every other German male) was not given a choice, and worked in intelligence.
von Braun couldn’t give a flying fuck about the movement. he was socially inept and gave a shit only about making things go zoom.
Heusinger joined the Army in 1915 and stuck through the Weimar republic days all the way through because he was a career soldier, a member of the old guard who was grandfathered in.
these guys were largely nazis in name only. they were not saints; some of them were outright bastards. but once the war was over, we were facing what we believed to be our next threat; Stalin and the USSR. we needed brains, skill, leadership, and these guys were good, maybe even the best, at what they did. certainly some of the most experienced. and everyone (mostly) deserves a shot at redemption.
we defeated the nazis, but obviously we didn’t kill every last one of them. their lives were forefeit, and there was what many believed to be the next war sometime around the corner, so why not spend their lives, their smarts, their skills, in a way that gets some use out of them?