BTZ42: WvB's epigraph and Elie Wiesel

[Smoke Teff]

Does anyone know the occasion on which WvB gives this speechlet?

On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 9:06 AM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> I was skimming some of the Weisenburger in advance of leading this next
> episode, here. Was reading the full source for *GR*'s epigraph, which
> source Weis calls "a little homily by Wernher von Braun."
>
> WvB opens: "Today, more than ever before, our survival--yours and mine and
> our children's--depends on our adherence to ethical principles. Ethics
> alone will decide whether atomic energy will be an earthly blessing or the
> source of mankind's utter destruction."
>
> He says the desire for ethical action comes from a belief in A) a Last
> Judgment and B) an immortal soul "which will cherish the reward or suffer
> the penalty decreed in a final Judgment."
>
>
> Reminds me of seeing Elie Wiesel speak maybe five or six years ago (with
> all kinds of protests going on outside the building).
>
> He said he has been persistently plagued by the question (from others and
> from himself) of how WWII Germany, then the most well-educated,
> culturally/technologically advanced civilization the world had ever known
> would also be capable of producing such atrocity. And the pursuant question
> of how something like that might be avoided.
>
> He said the answer was ethics. Germany did not make them a compulsory part
> of education, as all nations now must. Knowledge becomes is at best
> worthless, at worst dangerous, without ethics.
>
> Apologies if I've mentioned this around here before.
>
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