NP - W von Braun on Nazi Hunter doc

[Thomas Eckhardt]

> *Many thousands* of German business managers (as well as the SS/military
> liaisons who supplied their laborers) were deeply implicated in those
> crimes. Very few were ever charged; many continued their careers
> successfully; and some became pillars of the Wirtschaftswunder and
> German public life.

Of course. One of these business men, and a particularly egregious 
example, was Fritz Ries:

'[Fritz Ries] had a great deal of influence over Kohl. "Even if I call 
him at three o'clock in the morning, he has to jump," Ries once boasted.

But who was Ries, and where did he get his money? During the Third 
Reich, Ries made a fortune from expropriating "Aryanized" Jewish 
property and from slave labor in factories near the Auschwitz 
concentration camp. Not only was Ries never condemned for his Nazi-era 
crimes, he went on to become the patron of several conservative West 
German politicians, including Kohl, who was elected chancellor in 1982. 
As a token of his gratitude, Kohl awarded Ries West Germany's highest 
civil decoration, the Bundesverdienstkreuz or "Federal Cross of Merit."

It gets worse: (...)"

http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jun/25/opinion/op-44604

> NONE OF THIS EXCULPATES WERNHER VON BRAUN ET AL. IN THE LEAST. But just
> as the "Paperclip and Dora were a deep dark secret" meme is false no
> matter how many times it cranks up a new book or History Channel
> re-hash, so "these Peenemunde exploiters of slave labor got a unique
> free pass on their crimes" is is a gross exaggeration.

Based on the excerpts from Hunt I posted it seems to me that we should 
distinguish between Paperclip and Dora. As well known as Paperclip must 
have been since 1946, the aspect of slave labour at Dora ("Vernichtung 
durch Arbeit") appears to have been deliberately hidden from the public 
view.

The rocket scientists certainly were not unique in getting a free pass. 
Far worse war criminals were smuggled out of Europe via the Vatican/CIA 
ratline and in some cases (Klaus Barbie comes to mind) later continued 
their dirty work elsewhere. Far worse war criminals continued their 
careers after a short hiatus in the Federal Republic (e.g. in the 
military, the secret services, the police, the world of industry, the 
banking sector(see for example Hermann Josef Abs)). Denazification 
certainly was a difficult task but there can be little doubt that it 
should have been performed much more thoroughly.

Watching Wernher von Braun on Disney TV is a rather strange, not to say 
discombubulating, experience.
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l