Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • June 1, 2011 2:20 PM

@ Robert, BF Skinner,

“proclivity for ignoring Nazi activities”

There where a couple of reasons, one being the well known “cold war” which did not start untill a few years after the cessation of hostilities in Europe.

However prior to that where the “Nazi War Crimes Scandals”. It turns out that much of the evidence provided at the trials was fabricated or tourtured out of those being tried. It included all the usuall forms of tourture we have seen of more recent times including mock trials and executions, starvation, sensory depravation, etc etc.

There was an investigation in Washington where a little known (at the time) McCarthy threw the toys out of the pram and stormed out of the investigation accusing the investigators of criminal activity.

The investigation unsurprisingly white washed as much as they could, however there was to much evidence to ignore so they went for the least they could get away with.

The simple fact was back then as now few Americans had any sympathy for those being put through the process and little stomach to accept that it was going on in their name. However back then few media outlets were interested in making it news.

However as with what has been going on in Afghanistan and Iraq, others have seen and noted it and have used it as propaganda to raise opposition to US activities or as Richard Steven Hack notes “blowback”.

Clive Robinson • June 1, 2011 11:22 PM

@ BF Skinner,

“The scientists were being rounded up by both sides before Germany’s surrender”

Hmm it was much, much more, interesting than that.

The war in Europe was at best a loose confederation of compeating Alies busy infighting each other against one nation Germany and it’s very weak axis partners (who had only “jumped on the train” when it looked like Germany was unstopable).

If you look at how the battle of the bulge nearly succeeded and the problems progressing up Italy you will get a real taste of “WTF were they doing”.

If you read the end of Prof RV Jones’s book you will find an overview of how the various Alies “scientific intelligence” teams chased after the bits and pieces of German technology whilst more seriously concerned with fighting each other and stealing each others finds.

With regards the V2 rockets you will find that the reason the Americans got what they did was because the two men in charge of the German rocket development made a very very concerted effort to surrender to the US troops and hid various caches of documents and parts around the place to use as barganing chips. In one case it was sixteen tonnes of technical documents in a disused mine.

Stalin had agreed with both The American and British leaders to allow access to the german technology. However in reality what the Russians did was closely follow the teams and steal their finds, in one case thousands of parts that had been carefully packed and put in sealed crates on being opened had been replaced with broken and rusting old aero engines. But the same was happening with the British team and the Americans. On a number of occasions the Americans stole British finds and there is a wonderful story of highway robbery to get some of them back only to lose some of them again where for some “unacountable reason” they got diverted in the docks and put on an American ship etc. Most of the invaded Western Euopean countries have similar stories of having the US “Might is Right” doctrine shoved down their throats when it came to “the spoils of war”.

Other countries in a less fortunate position of being in the East just got crushed under Stalin’s boot and whole countries were treated as “spoils of war” and turned into vasal states to act as a buffer zone against envisaged European invasion.

This later became the US as well via the likes of various agreaments that gave rise to NATO etc as the cold war started.

It’s arguable as to who’s paranoia contributed most to the build up of the cold war, and in the modern context it is quite difficult to understand the fears prevalent at the time.

It is easy to see the Russian attitude as being due to Stalin alone, but this would be to simplistic and miss the important historical lessons. For instance “ethnic purity” in it’s various forms was endemic across the whole of the western world prior to the second world war as well as anti semitic behaviour. Likewise the paranoia about communism which gave fascist organisations across Europe the legitimacy of main stream politics.

Most of the Russian hierarchy feared the Europeans fostering a “White Russian” uprising to depose them as had nearly happened in the 1917-23 Russian Civil War. And this fear was amplified by the concept of modern warfare that Germany had given rise to which had so easily got past the French defences and captured entire nations in just days.

Fascinating as the first half of the whole 20th Century European History is it takes quite concerted effort just to get a grip on one tiny part of it, and as a result what is taught in the main is vastly over simplified and in many cases portrays people incorrectly as heros and madmen.

Which is unfortunate because the real leasons to be learnt from the likes of Hitler and Stalin are being hidden, and sadly we are begining to see them repeated in other places.