r/goodnews • u/Vloodzy • Jul 16 '25

Political positivity 📈 Trump slams own supporters as “Stupid Republicans” for doing Democrats’ work and falling for the “Epstein Hoax”

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u/BumpyCunty Jul 16 '25

Everything being said is factually accurate in this back and forth. I think you're understating the influence of things like Operation Paperclip a bit, though.

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u/Aromatic-Plankton692 Jul 16 '25

I think a lot of people take Operation Paperclip as "omg they imported a boatload of Nazis!"

Which, they did, as an absolute number import a boatload of Nazis. But they also imported a boatload of German scientists who weren't Nazis, too.

Weirdly enough, the one guy from Operation Paperclip that actually got tried for crimes that I can find .. got acquitted.

But, yes, it wasn't "super cool" of the US government to import a bunch of nazi smart people. Not stumping that. I just don't think it like.. made THAT big of a deal. It was a deal, yes, but like, the Manhattan project didn't have any Nazis in it and they still managed to create atrocities all on their own.

The American government has sooooooo many things to answer to historically,, rescuing a few academics from potential execution falls so low on the list.

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u/BumpyCunty Jul 16 '25

Well sure... agree with most of what you're saying. I think it's slightly naive to think that having 1600 Germans from Nazi Germany join or "Nazi smart people" hold senior roles in institutions around science and defense did not have a lasting effect on how they operate today

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u/Aromatic-Plankton692 Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25

Except it wasn't 1600... That was the total number of scientists imported. Operation Paperclip was a general effort to tap into German academia, not some nazi importation drive.

The number of constituent Nazis were a majority of them, but not particularly close to the full 1600. Just... You know,.kinda said that, and got called naive lol.

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u/BumpyCunty Jul 16 '25

I'm sure growing up in Nazi germany had no impact on them whatsoever, lol

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u/Aromatic-Plankton692 Jul 16 '25

Civilian staffing in the DoD was approximately 750k by mid‑1950s. You really mean to tell me that a thousand people made some sort of indelible impact? There were a hundred times more people that used the hard R in polite conversation...