“Only in Germany did they possess
the metals industries to fabricate
wire to our extreme specifications.
Only in Germany did they possess
chemicals industries to formulate
a fluid with the composition and
purity of its components our plans
required. We had to stay in Germany.
“Or abandon our work. Everyone felt
another war was coming. The Great War
had changed Europe. We feared that the next war
would change the world. If we did abandon
our research we feared that we could never
get an opportunity to resume.
“We felt—many people felt—horrible
changes coming. We hoped we could work fast.
We hoped to verify our theories and
construct prototypes before the next war.
“We worked fast. Made progress. But not enough.
“No matter what you might read nowadays
everyone recognized right at the start
the Nazis were evil. The White Rose group
framed all their dissent in religious terms.
For their insight they were all beheaded.
But everyone saw. Everyone, like us,
had their own reasons to stay, go along.
“Himmler himself oversaw all advanced
industrial research. But we believed
we were smart, thought we could fool the Nazis.
We thought we could show just enough progress
to continue getting resources but
withhold the foundations of our thinking.
Our reports and demonstrations were all
carefully planned. We believed we were smart.
“And for a very long while we were smart.
“We celebrated in late Forty-three.
Our experiments confirmed our theories.
Our final stage prototypes functioned well.
We contacted Allied agents. A deal
was worked out with the Americans. They
would extract us and much of our work. We
would help them develop infrastructure
to manufacture our technology.
“And we did get out. Of course Himmler still
had our reports and early prototypes
but without the knowledge inside our heads
there was no way for him to develop,
expand on and exploit what we had left.
“We felt smart, safe, successful. The Allies
were winning the war. We were in Detroit
surrounded by great industrialists
and research scientists. They understood
our theories, our prototypes. They began
the planning stages to start production.
We believed that we had fulfilled our dreams.
“We’d manipulated, fooled the Nazis.
It had never occurred to us there were
larger—almost incomprehensibly
larger—manipulations in motion
around us. We learned. Then we learned again.
“The Americans brought over von Braun.
“He was a Nazi scoundrel who didn’t
care about employing slave labor or
firing missiles at British civilians.
But von Braun was angry because Hitler
made him work on missiles and not spaceships.
The Americans promised they’d let him
work on spaceships so von Braun came over.
“But von Braun was trivial. He worked with
chemical engines. Chemical rockets.
“Why did the American make a deal
with this Nazi scum, we asked ourselves, when
America had fine chemists themselves?
“We didn’t answer that question. Not then.
We told ourselves the politics of war
must get so complicated that sometimes
individuals cannot understand
the decisions made by politicians.
“Then our world changed. Rather, something happened
which caused us to realize that the world
around us was much different than we thought.
Our world stayed the same. Our vision sharpened.
“The Americans brought over Kammler.
“Hans Kammler and his whole group. Kammler was
Himmler’s equal. Kammler had built the camps.
The slave camps. The death camps. Built and run them.
“The Americans brought over Kammler.
“Von Braun was a trivial scoundrel and
we could pretend we didn’t understand.
“But some things are so plain, bluntly evil
they can be understood regardless of
whatever complications surround them.
“The Americans brought over Kammler.
“It became clear to us, then, the Nazis
were not losing the war. We understood,
then, the Nazis were just being absorbed
into something larger. Something that could
deal with, give place to, pure human evil.
“So one by one we withdrew. Some retired.
Some went on vacation and stayed away.
“There were some individuals and groups
within the American government
as appalled as we were when the Nazis
regrouped and reappeared under new names
in the American business world and
in American academia
and even America’s politics.
These individuals and groups helped us.
They gave us what protection they could when
Kammler and his stooges tried to exact
revenge on us for leaving Germany.
“But we were done. And the Nazis were strong.
We had delivered our life’s work to them.
The very people we had escaped from.
“I slipped away, taking one prototype.
“Eventually the American
industrial base developed enough
to recreate our technology. But
they do not. At least not publicly. Why?
“I believe we were right many years back.
We were right when we feared that the next war
would destroy the world the way the Great War
destroyed Europe. The whole world was destroyed.
“Not the buildings and bridges and such stuff.
When that stuff’s destroyed it can be rebuilt.
“What we didn’t foresee—couldn’t have guessed—
was how a war could destroy ideas,
blast minds to wasteland, smash hearts to rubble.
“We were thinking of wires and chemicals.
We were thinking about things. It never
occurred to us that people who made war
simply didn’t give a damn about things.”
(Tomorrow: Free Energy! Light Without Heat! Lifts And Separates! #4: “Let Me Tell You The Good Life”)
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