RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Thank you for your interest, flathead. The Pentagon didn't deliberately suppress this information, but they weren't keen on publicizing it, either. There are not many photos available connected to the scavenger hunt. I took the I. G. Farben shot while I worked for the Adjutant General's Office within that facility in Hoechst in 1947-48.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Thank you for your comments, John. Hitler and Dr. Goebbels were both fascinated with the inventions coming out of their science labs. They hoped that some miracle weapon would defeat the Allies -- but the huge Russian armies were inexorably surging across Eastern Europe toward Germany after the first Nazis army surrendered in Stalingrad in February, 1943. The Nazis were surrendering by the tens of thousands before we succeeded with the D-Day invasion in 1944. Of course, a Nazi A-bomb dropped on Moscow might have caused concern, but Hitler distrusted nuclear technology -- it was too closely linked to Jewish scientists.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Thank you, Karen! These mini-essays are hardly "lessons" but i'm trying to keep them easy to read.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Thanks for your comment on my article, Scott. You might be interested in the fact that a lot of Republicans in the 1945 Army didn't think much of President Truman either. President Roosevelt was in his fourth term (!) when he died in April 1945, dumping WW !! into Truman's lap. The VP was considered to be a run-of-the-mill Missouri politician, but he quickly proved otherwise. I doubt that Osama Bin Ladin would agree with your opinion about President Obama.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Thank you for commenting, Robert! Half the fun of compiling these vignettes is the confirming of my own memory banks with the addition of facts that were added in the years since 1945. I hope your uncle came back OK.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

I'm very pleased that you like my prose, iDoc. Like many other octogenarians, I tend to run on while describing something, but writing it enables me to trim the post. It's good to know that I'm informing my readers.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

I'm not a Catholic, but I must say the Vatican was not any "cozier" with the Nazi government than were all the other world governments, including Britain and the United States, before the invasion of Poland in 1939. Even Russia was cozy enough to join the Nazis in the invasion of Poland. Admittedly, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII in February, 1939, was a staunch Germanophile who spoke fluent German. From 1917 to 1929, he served the Vatican as apostolic nuncio (ambassador) to Bavaria and Prussia, before being named a Cardinal in the Vatican in 1929. The new Pope refused to sign a proposed encyclical planned by his predecessor, Pius XI, which would have condemned racism and anti-semitism. He insisted that he was not neutral, but impartial. Many American businesses, including Ford, GM. IBM, and the Hollywood movie giants, were ready, willing and able to deal with Goebbels and the Nazis. After the war, the Vatican collaborated with the CIA and CIC in helping selected Nazi war criminals to escape to South America. The Pope died in 1958.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

My sources don't agree with your version of events, Los-Angeles Shooter. I plan to write a whole vignette on the surrender in Bavaria of Werner von Braun, his brother, and more than 100 scientists and engineers of the V-2 team -- and their families -- who were brought to the United States as part of the top-secret Paperclip project. This had to be secret because they were all certified Nazis, and President Truman had forbidden bringing any Nazis into this country. Von Braun had been a member of the Nazi SS, but his record was quietly censored and he was "certified" acceptable. Those files are still sealed today. You might feel that it was unrealistic to reject top scientists because they were Nazis, but I'll bet you didn't live here in the 1940s. The generals involved had to commit perjury while testifying before Congress. As far as the Russians went, their access to the rocket scientists in their takeover of Germany took place in Berlin, which we did not enter until three months later. Because of the Yalta Agreements in February, 1945, we had to evacuate the Nordmende missile factory three months after we took it, so we played the same game, shipping the makings of some 90 V-2 rockets to the USA. If you didn't know, the US Army Artillery had a very dim view of rocket technology, but the Russians loved it and developed the lethal and cheap Katyusha multiple rocket launcher launcher, mounted in the bed of a truck so it could be quickly moved around on the battlefield. The Russians were -- and are -- far more skilled than a lot of Americans are willing to believe. I want to point out that the Russians gathered the German scientists into an enclave in a Berlin suburb and made them comfortable with their projects until October, 1946, when Moscow changed their mind and ordered the whole community, offices, labs, families, furniture and maids, evacuated overnight to Russia. General Patton had nothing to do with any of this. He lost his command because he defied Eisenhower by insisting that former Nazi officials should be assigned key government posts in Bavaria, which was totally unacceptable in Occupied Germany.