Fwd: Naive Nazis duped by cunning scientists

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March 23, 2001

                   Naive Nazis duped by cunning scientists
                   Funding diverted

                   Robert Matthews
                   The Sunday Telegraph

                   LONDON - Even after all these years, the Third Reich
has lost none of its power to shock.

                   A four-part British television series that began this
week reveals the depths to which scientists sank, once
                   their intellectual curiosity was cut free of ethical
constraints. Medical researchers indulged themselves in
                   fashionable ideas of eugenics, with appalling
results. Doctors -- the biggest professional group in the SS -- no
                   longer had to content themselves with using mice as
surrogates for humans in their research; they had access
                   to vast numbers of the genuine article.

                   While the series provides a timely warning of the
dangers of giving scientists free rein, it also casts an
                   unflattering light on what they are prepared to do to
free themselves from financial constraints.

                   The final program looks at the role of the Nobel
Prize-winning Werner Heisenberg in Hitler's weapons program.
                   Heisenberg was Germany's most brilliant nuclear
physicist. He realized Hitler would bankroll research into
                   terrifying new weapons such as atomic bombs.

                   Heisenberg and his colleagues never succeeded in
making an atomic bomb. The evidence shows they never
                   really tried.

                   Not that this stopped Heisenberg and his colleagues
from portraying their work as crucial to the war effort.
                   Even as Germany collapsed around them, they extracted
funding from their wide-eyed Nazi paymasters.

                   After the war, Heisenberg claimed that he and his
colleagues had known all along how to build a bomb, but
                   had deliberately put their bosses off the scent.
Secret recordings made after their capture by the Allies reveal
                   a different story: Their real aim had been to build a
research reactor for esoteric nuclear studies. In short, they
                   bamboozled their masters into bankrolling their
academic interests while their country disintegrated.

                   But the most cynical use of military funding for
self-serving purposes was perpetrated by a scientist not
                   included in the TV series: the rocket designer
Wernher von Braun. As a teenager, he had dreamed of sending
                   men to the moon, and he had no qualms about sucking
up to the Nazis to make his dream a reality. By the
                   early 1940s, he had convinced Hitler that rockets
would make a terror weapon capable of breaking the will of
                   the Allies.

                   In a program that cost around $4-billion in today's
terms, more than 3,000 V2s were launched between
                   September, 1944, and spring, 1945, killing 5,000.

                   The V2's poor accuracy and feeble destructive power
made it the only weapon in history to have caused far
                   more deaths in its construction -- an estimated
10,000 slave labourers -- than in its deployment.

                   Some senior Nazis do seem to have been aware of von
Braun's real motives; in March, 1944, the Gestapo
                   arrested him, accusing him of being more interested
in space travel than furthering Nazism.

                   If his inquisitors had known more about physics, von
Braun might well have been executed. A
                   back-of-the-envelope calculation shows rockets are a
dismally inefficient way to deliver warheads. Unless they
                   are incredibly accurate -- or fitted with nuclear
warheads -- their chances of destroying a given target are
                   minimal.

                   Luckily for von Braun, differential equations were
beyond his captors, and he was released. Almost exactly 25
                   years later, he watched his dream become a reality as
Apollo 11 took off for the moon. It was propelled by the
                   Saturn V booster von Braun had designed with
expertise acquired from the V2 project. Never in the history of
                   human endeavour has so inspiring a goal been achieved
by such questionable means.



Kurt-Werner Pörtner