The case of the von Braun team of German rocket scientists who came to the United States at the end of World War II illuminates the idea of administrative evil. It is incredible that half of the team were individuals who were Nazis in Germany. Individual who were at the core of the United States space missions in the 1960s had ties to the evil Nazi regime. One of the core members of the von Braun team was a key decision maker at the Mittel Dora slave labor concentration camp. The text notes that about a dozen of individuals who came to the US worked at Mittlewerk. The argument is that “no one could have any illusions about a factory whose production mode during most of its existence was quite simply to work its labor force to death” (84). Of particular interest is Von Braun whose work with the Mittel Dora concentration camp whose activities were critical to the scientific discoveries and work at the slave labor concentration camp.
Von Braun’s contribution to the United States’ space industry is unparalleled but how he got there shows that there are cases where governments ignore evil because dealing with it interferes with a certain mission. Von Braun and his team knew that they were talented and they took advantage of this talent to get off easily after the war. He knew that if the Russians had captured his crew, chances of them not getting punished for war crimes were very low. Surrendering to the United States however provided a great opportunity for them to start over. Von Braun played the Americans against the German. He knew that the United States was not willing to see Russia get its hands on some of the Nazi laboratories and technology. Geopolitical politics played a role in the salvation of von Braun’s team.
The process of denazification was supposed to address issues of the moral or ethical grounds to hire former Nazi members. Denazification is a process that provided legitimacy to individuals like von Braun. The United States did not bring into the country individuals who were known for war crimes but it brought people who directly participated in the Nazi war effort. The argument is that the kind of people that made it through the United States rating system were not willing participants to the slavery or extermination machine. The von Braun team consisted of individuals who were willing participants of the Nazi war effort. It is difficult to know whether individuals were coerced into doing scientific research for the Nazis or not.
The people who were part of the slavery concentration of Dora were proud participants of the German war scientific discovery team. They however knew that they had something that the United States and other allied powers like Russia needed which was scientific knowledge. According to the article “two of the CIOS technical teams were targeted at the Peenemunders because the chief of the Rocket Branch in the Ordnance Department at the Pentagon was interested in the V-2 rocket” (90). This is the most important part of the article since it proves that issues of justice for the victims of World War II was secondary to the scientific ambitions of individuals at the Pentagon. \The case of Operation Overcast also shows the extent to which issues of power were more important than justice. Operation Overcast was a way of the United States to get German expertise in making bombs that were to be used against another United States foe – Japan. Von Braun and his team were beneficiaries of operation Overcast or its later name of Paperclip. The United would stop at nothing in their quest to beat Russia in the Cold War.
The twisting and changing of United States policy behind the back of citizens reveal how unconcerned US leaders who brought von Braun and his team were about the general opinions of citizens on such delicate issues. There was the potential for individuals like von Braun to become a security threat and the ability to use their technological discoveries to the United States. As the article concludes “it was American public policy and our own public servants , however, who placed the mask on this administrative evil, under Operations Overcast and Paperclip, and brought it to the United States in the form of some of the members of the von Braun team” (105). The United States’ space mission of the 1960s is clouded by the fact that individuals who might have participated in the indiscriminate mistreatment of Jews were critical to the mission’s success.
In conclusion, the United States contributed to the salvation of individuals who were part of the Nazi regime. The desire to beat Russia in the cold war proved to be more important than the need to see to it that all people who were responsible for World War II war crimes were brought to justice. Even though Dora was not an extermination camp, it was part of the NAzi political and economic process. It relied on slave labor and slaves who were not able to perform were sent to extermination camps. This case shows that governments even liberal governments can protect evil people if those evil people fulfill some goals or expectation. The rocket mission proved to be more important the administration of justice. Von Braun became a hero for the Americans and half of his team got to live normal lives that they denied people who worked in concentration camps. They were behind evil innovations.
References
Administrative evil unmasked: From Mittelbau Dora and Peenemunde to the Marshall Space
Flight Center. Print Out.
PBS. The hunt for Nazi Scientists: Wernher von Braun. Retrieved from
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/wernher-von-braun/101/
