He also gave us computers, jet engines, IRBMs and mature practical nuclear science, all in the space of 3 years.
With all due respect, you really can't give Hitler credit for any of that. That's a testament to great German science and engineering. To his credit, he did electrify his people enough to get germany's economy to take off, which did make these things possible, but I still do not believe he deserves credit for any of it.
The Boho also made the West's traditional "polite Antisemitism" unacceptable for 2 generations. Its only now coming back.
Coming back? huh? ...
You cant even give Germans credit for all that. Computers and nuclear science were developed in Britain and America in response to Hitler and Japan.
==
Yes. Coming back.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Well it depends on what you understand under nuclear science. Ernest Rutherford was from New Zealand, Henri Becquerel as well as Pierre and Marie Curie were French. Lise Meitner was Austrian.
Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann were Germans.
Most (not all of course) of the people involved with the Manhattan project were first or second generation (jews) that had emmigrated from Germany or Austria to the US. So I think once can say that nuclear science was pretty much international
German? Or German Americans? Well in any case, no credit to Hitler. He's as responsible for crash development of technologies used against him as Polio is for it's own vaccine. Yes, causal, but we'd rather not have had the disease in the first place.
Well von Braun was not involved with nuclear science (he built the delivery systems, more or less in the form of rockets...).
Von Braun was "very German"... [Edit, in his case credit does go to Hitler, unfortunately]
John Neumann was Austrian Hungerian (at the time of his birth anyway). Neumann is a German (or in this case Austrian)name, even though he was born in Hugria.
I had put him in with Manhatten people "the that had emmigrated from Germany or Austria to the US".
And yes, no credit to Hitler here!
MSimon wrote:Any one ever hear of Dr. Robert H. Goddard? First liquid fueled rocket. American.
von Braun was a latecomer.
Von Braun read most or all of Goddards papers, like any good student. Though Von Braun advocated for a space shuttle, space station and Moon base, IIRC, showing good vision.
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.
He also gave us computers, jet engines, IRBMs and mature practical nuclear science, all in the space of 3 years.
With all due respect, you really can't give Hitler credit for any of that. That's a testament to great German science and engineering. To his credit, he did electrify his people enough to get germany's economy to take off, which did make these things possible, but I still do not believe he deserves credit for any of it.
Without war priorities, among both the Axis and Allies, those toys would not have been developed to their 1945 maturity for 1 to 3 decades. No Hitler, no war priority developments.
Jeff Peachman wrote:
The Boho also made the West's traditional "polite Antisemitism" unacceptable for 2 generations. Its only now coming back.
Coming back? huh? ...
Check the deomonization of Israelis/"Zionists." Israeli = Jew takes about a millimeter's step on the slippery slope.
Dr. King put it well correcting one of his students: "You say Zionist, you mean Jew. You say Anti-Zionism, you mean Antisemitism."
Demonization of Israelis has dropped out of the spotlight for the last few years because everyone's hateon has been for Our Glorious Shrub. Should start ramping back up by next summer.
Duane
Last edited by djolds1 on Tue Nov 25, 2008 9:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
MSimon wrote:Any one ever hear of Dr. Robert H. Goddard? First liquid fueled rocket. American.
von Braun was a latecomer.
Anyone remember the name of the first kitbasher to build a "motorized carriage" in his garage? Everyone know Henry Ford? Edison vs Tesla, Micro$haft/Wintel vs Apple. The one who really makes an idea work and gets it into use sets the standard and gets the credit.
MSimon wrote:Any one ever hear of Dr. Robert H. Goddard? First liquid fueled rocket. American.
von Braun was a latecomer.
Anyone remember the name of the first kitbasher to build a "motorized carriage" in his garage? Everyone know Henry Ford? Edison vs Tesla, Micro$haft/Wintel vs Apple. The one who really makes an idea work and gets it into use sets the standard and gets the credit.
Duane
Agreed. Brits for the first special purpose computers (crypto). Americans for the General purpose jobs. Although Americans did a good job on Japanese codes but that effort is less well known.
Americans with Brit help: nuclear.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Well it is pretty much established that the US made it to the moon first because their "Germans were better than the Germans the Russians had".
Anyway it is pretty clear that the US has not made much if any progress since von Brauns retirement, much less since his death.
The shuttle (which IMHO was a failure in many ways) even is 70ies tech and I have yet to see anything revolutionary or new come from US rocket tech in the last 35 years.
But you can feel free to correct me here.
This is the only thing where I will argue about the Germans having paved the way. That and submarines (type 21 was a milestone)
Cant think of a better one, but then what do I know
Lets just say he was good at what he did and he did bring a lot of progress in a very short time.
You can not really give Hitler points for that though.
The US made much better use of von Brauns skills than Hitler did.
Skipjack wrote:Anyway it is pretty clear that the US has not made much if any progress since von Brauns retirement, much less since his death.
The shuttle (which IMHO was a failure in many ways) even is 70ies tech and I have yet to see anything revolutionary or new come from US rocket tech in the last 35 years.
True. We would've done far better to keep building Saturn 2s and 5s, then "downgrading" to Low Cost Heavy Boosters of the Sea Dragon type.
Americans have had a love affair with "tightest tolerances beautiful gold-plated junk" ever since the Manhattan Project. A major mistake, in virtually all fields, rockets especially. The world standard of rockets is the Russian R-7/Soyuz. Brain dead stupid and reliable.
