Fricktured Friday

I recently started reading a book about one of my favourite times in history, WWII. There is no other event in the last 100 years that essentially involved the entire globe and is still to this day absolutely shrouded in mystery.

Many of the programs and technologies the Nazis were working on in the late 30’s and early 40’s too this day remain shrouded in mystery. And at the time of their defeat many military, and scientific minds stated that German technology was at least 25 years ahead of anyone in the West...

And that’s why so many of the scientists that allied themselves with the Nazi ideology were not prosecuted after the war for war crimes, but instead HIRED, or in some cases captured and forced to work by varying governments... One of the largest and most secretive of these Nazi hiring schemes was conducted by the American government and it was called “Operation Paperclip”.

Many Nazi scientists were seen as too “valuable” to simply be tried for war crimes and thrown in prison, or even hanged... The knowledge they possessed was to be exploited and used by the countries that captured the scientists.

The most famous and well known of these scientists, at least in the west is, Wernher Von Braun. Who is Von Braun... Well he the Nazi rocket engineer most directly responsible for the V2 (Vengeance weapon 2) program. The first functioning rockets ever launched, the same ones that caused absolute havoc in British cities.

He is also the man most directly responsible for the creation of the Saturn V rockets, the very rocket that put America on the moon. He was also the Head of NASA, yep. He worked there from 1957-1972...

This just goes to show you that if your knowledge is seen to outweigh your crimes, it doesn’t matter what you did, participate in slave labour camps, work for the SS, rub shoulders with Hitler himself. None of that matters if you can put America on the moon before the Russians get there! Your knowledge is your get out of jail free card.

This book remains immensely fascinating, and the knowledge within is so dark and disturbing it’s really hard to believe that this war, and everything that happened didn’t even take place a 100 years ago...

Hope you found this as interesting as I do, cause I’ll tell you, more posts about this book are probably INCOMING! :P

Here’s another small piece I polished off today, not sure if it’s going to make into the group of 15 I’m going to use on Kickstarter, but I think it’s a strong contender! :)

Happy Friday everyone, hope you had a great week, and make the best of your weekend!

Sincerely, Bret Frick.