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18 Comments

    • Manny
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 10:44 am
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    Zack’s new hero, a former SS Officer. Good to know. (He also helped to design the Saturn rockets for the US Space Program.)

    • Steve
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 11:12 am
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    Manny-
    Wernher Von Braun was a rocket scientist (a civilian) working for the German military.
    He was never in, or part of the SS.
    Try learning history from a credible source… for once.

    • Jamie
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 1:20 pm
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    I think everyone here already basically knows who Von “I aim for the stars but I usually hit London” Braun is, Manny, but the issue is a little more complicated than you (and I, for that matter) just presented it as. I could bring up all the hisorical documents needed to make my case, but I’ll leave it at this: Walt Disney liked him, didn’t he?

    • ikabod
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 5:32 pm
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    Does it help Manny we canned our manned space project to the Moon/Mars? Perhaps Braun is rolling over in his grave.

    • Manny
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 6:29 pm
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    Really Steve? Cuz the history I’ve seen lists him as a former SS officer. Prove me wrong. He did a lot of good for our space program, I’m not denying that. I’m just pointing out that, going by right-wing standards, he should be crucified for all time if he did even one bad thing (do I really need to include a /sarc tag?)

    • Manny
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 6:30 pm
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    Oh, and give me a credible source Steve.

    • Steve
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 6:56 pm
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    Manny — it happens that von Braun was instrumental in getting the Apollo missions to the moon, not to mention his vast contributions to our military missile programs. He was also a man of faith and deep reflection about his past.
    So, being of those very important accomplishments, the problem with Zack quoting him is… what?

    When you read below, you will see that he was a civilian scientist, and a director of a German rocket program, right under the thumb of the Nazi régime.
    There is a big difference between this, and being a SS officer. However, you will see he did get into trouble with the Gestapo.
    The SS was a nasty & elite group within the German military… filled top to bottom with reprobates and sadists. von Braun was never in those units, nor was EVER a uniformed SS officer….

    von Braun, Wernher (vôn broun), 1912–77, German-American rocket expert, b. Germany, grad. Berlin Technological Institute (B.S., 1932), Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1934. After 1930, von Braun assisted Hermann Oberth in early experiments in building and firing small liquid fuel rockets. From 1937 to 1945, von Braun was technical director of the German rocket research center at Peenemünde and was research professor there from 1943. At Peenemünde he was responsible for the successful development of the German V-2 liquid fuel rocket and also for other rocket weapons. At the close of World War II, von Braun was brought to the United States,…

    — Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
    .
    .

    Von Braun, Wernher (1912–77) engineer, rocket expert; born in Wirsitz, Germany. Developer of the V-2 flying bomb that was deployed against Britain (1944), he was one of the most important of the German weapons specialists to work on rocketry and jet propulsion in America after the war. Hitler personally released him when he was imprisoned on espionage charges after refusing to cooperate with Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler’s attempted takeover of the V-2 project. Von Braun never approved of the military use of the rocket and surrendered willingly to American troops (1945). Signing a one-year contract with the U.S. Army, he was flown to America where he eventually became technical director of the U.S. Army Ordnance Guided Missile Project…

    –The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography,

    • Jamie
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 7:28 pm
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    Here is a link I found. It supports both of your sides equally. I am GREAT at begin a centrist! 🙂

    http://www.reformation.org/wernher-von-braun.html

    (If that’s even him, everyone looks really similar in uniform…)

    • Steve
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 7:58 pm
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    Jamie —
    A fascist dictatorial regime forces a civilian scientist to wear an SS uniform on one -photo opp- occasion,… and you figure this “… supports both of your sides equally”?

    • Jamie
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 8:26 pm
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    While the article does clearly state that the picture is the only time he was known to wear the uniform, it still refers to it as “his”. The sources you cite don’t really say anything conclusive about the issue. My understanding, based on the sources cited in his Wikipedia article, is that he WAS an SS officer, but that he was an incredibly reluctant and unenthusiastic one.

    • Steve
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 8:50 pm
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    Consider the source… Wikipedia is not, or ever will be, by its nature, a highly reliable & credible source.
    Sure, it probably has folks birthdays correct… and some similar outlined information.
    I use it ONLY for very basic information… how old someone is,…are they dead?… very very limited scope.

    Wikipedia is popular due to the nature in the internet… and the ‘point & click’ culture is frankly, a laziness trend.
    If you ever want / have to do some serious research, if you are foolish enough to list Wikipedia as a source, any credible or traditional peer review process will laugh you off – into a suicide watch condition.
    ( and they will never consider looking at your work again )

    Here are some useful synonyms; Wikipedia = wiki-ignorance = wiki-wrong = wiki-laziness…and lastly… = wiki-propaganda

    • Jamie
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 9:00 pm
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    …I just said that I used sources that Wikipedia linked to (like the article above) not Wikipedia itself…

    • Siegmund Wagneryann
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 9:36 pm
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    If the stink and taint of the SS is your gist,
    Note the Nazis were overtly socialist.
    Had he worn Stalin’s, would that have been better?
    how about a bomber’s Weather Underground sweater?
    “God damn America” was a Chicago preacher’s curse,
    So Braun talks about God too. Which one of them is worse?
    Well, golly gee, that Werner worked for old Uncle Walt.
    Now there’s PC’s logical triple sommersault.

    • Tetsuo
    • Posted February 8, 2011 at 10:32 pm
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    “Note the Nazis were overtly socialist”?
    Yep, just like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is democratic and Taco Bell’s beef tacos are made of beef.

    • Siegmund Wagneryann
    • Posted February 9, 2011 at 2:26 am
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    National socialism still presents a fright
    For those who’ve wanted it to represent the right.
    Dictatorship comes in many, many forms,
    But it always adheres to some very few norms.
    It’s big and controlling, expensive and coarse,
    And few protestors will ever holler themselves hoarse.
    It disallows opppositions’ voice
    And labors to make only one thing choice:
    You can toe the line or hang from it.
    That’s the substance and the sum of it.
    A call for smaller government is a threat to who?
    To socialists who argue for their social virtue.

    • Tetsuo
    • Posted February 9, 2011 at 4:52 am
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    That’s a pretty poem, Siggy, but it doesn’t address the point at all. The Nazis were about as socialist as McDonalds is organic.

    • Siegmund Wagneryann
    • Posted February 9, 2011 at 12:45 pm
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    Clever repartee which I greet as quite surreal….
    Clever as “Obama is as smart, as his grades reveal.”
    I would surely like to hear a definition sound,
    On the meaning of your socialism and where it’s to be found.

    • ikabod
    • Posted February 10, 2011 at 4:01 pm
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    That explains why the manned moon missions where all done by white boys… National Aryan Space Administration. Hell if ya just look around enough you can find them racist and Nazi’s everywhere’s!


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