Why is there 1,000 times as much attention given to the German scientists that went to the US, than the ones that went to the USSR? Because ours did a better job, of course. :p
Great work as always... this duo is fantastic....i see where Ana's attitude and energy is comming from, they both could have made a carrer in acting :D but why is Ana wearing barcelona shirt buttons? no bayern munich, ey ? :)))
Some have harsh words for this man of renown, But some think our attitude Should be one of gratitude, Like the widows and cripples of old London Town, Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.
One of may favorite jokes from the early days of the American space program was made about Werner von Braun and the biopic made about him, "I Aim at the Stars". There were times NASA engineers were heard joking in a fake German accent, "I aim at the stars, but sometimes I hit London!"
As a kid growing up in the 1960s I asked my Dad how he knew we would beat the Russians to the moon. He replied, "Because our German scientists are better than their German scientists."
In the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra, watched and enjoyed by both Richard Nixon and Howard Hughes, Patrick McGoohan's character remarks, "The Russians put our [UK] camera made by our German scientists and your [US] film made by your German scientists into their [USSR] satellite made by their German scientists."
Well, that's a great way not to recognize that the Soviets had already beaten even the Germans to creating a rocket-based weapon which is well-known to have been devastating in tactical use (Indy has already reported on it).
@@DrVictorVasconcelosI presume you mean the Katyusha sold fuel rocket. Indy was focusing on liquid fueled rockets and did not mention the pioneering work done by American scientist Robert Goddard. The fact is the Germans were ahead of the Allies in this field in the 1940s.
The reality was that Operation Paperclip netted us the German scientists, while the USSR got mostly the technicians who'd done the actual work. Theory vs. practice, as it were. Consequently, the Soviets got more immediate short-term results, while we derived benefits that resulted in winning the long race once we'd built upon the theory.
Nice use of the photo of the knocked out Strumtiger. That particular vehicle was actually taken out by a 75mm-gunned M4 Sherman which moved out a side street to ambush the Strumtiger as it was withdrawing. 3 shots into its engine put it out of action. Unusually for the late war, the Sherman crew let most of the German crew escape. The one exception was shot dead when he started to arm a hand grenade.
The end song is hilarious! Thanks for sharing it on the video. BTW, I absolutely love the mother & daughter team of "Spies & Ties." Aside from when it comes to the necessary seriousness when discussing the darker aspects of "Spies & Ties," these two ladies completely crack me up.
When my family lived in Hunstville Alabama (1968) our next door neighbor was a scientist who came over with Von Braun after the war. I was too young to remember his name but he would come over and tell my dad about his brothers time in North Africa and later the eastern front. His brother was an Oberst and served as a surgeon in the Wermacht.
Great story telling, Astrid and Anna! I was an engineer with a very famous laboratoy supporting the Apollo mission at NASA Headqurters in Washington. I went to a technical conference and had an opportunity to meet and shake hands with Werner Von Braun. After moving on, my colleague asked, "How does it feel to shake the hand of the man who shook the hand of Adolf Hitler?" I was first stunned by the revalation but also, having been a fan of Tom Lehrer, had a good laugh!!!
@@jtgd I do payroll. Somethings are beyond my access or outside my jurisdiction. I usually try and point the person to the right contact if I can though.
Amongst the Nazi research recovered was an experiment on cold water survival conducted in the Baltic using prisoners, many of whom died of hypothermia and drowning. The marine biology department of the university I attended was working to develop cold water survival suits to improve survival rates for survivors of sunken fishing boats. There was a debate at the time (1970s) about the ethics of using the Nazi research. They used it and I think it was the right call. It has saved many lives since then.
I'm fairly sure that the impact tests used to develop seat belts and safer cars used data from axis experiments as well. While any good from the research clearly does not redeem in any fashion their conduct, I don't see how not using that data to help save other innocents would do anything but compound that tragedy.
@@Onthejazz247exactly. And remember, armies ALWAYS take the guns and ammunition of enemy troops whom they have killed in combat. P.S. I like your username. Me, too.
The absolute best part about watching this video was keeping an eye on Anna as her mother was speaking, watching her valiantly try to hold a straight face and stop herself from bursting out in laughter.
You gals had way too much fun making this episode 💕Again, brilliantly fascinating. I'd never heard of "The List" before. I also didn't realize that Paperclip was an exclusively post-war operation. Seeing von Braun in an arm caste had me assume he was part of the project.
@santomiguel7513 actually for Hitler the rumor... stress on rumor... was that the Russians captured him. Is that true? Guess we have to keep watching...
von Braun was just a boy that loved rockets. He cared not where the money came from to support his interests. Thank you to my two favorite Spies wearing Ties for another entertaining story.
Thanks for another delightful Spies and Ties Astrid, Ana and Time Ghost Crew! How very appropriate as I finally watched Oppenheimer and I’ve also acquired the audiobook for Annie Jacobsen’s Operation Paperclip! great musical bonus at the end!
Thank you, Ana and Astrid. In the best way possible, you remind me of the grammar school teachers who first made knowledge my goal in life. If "I think continually of those who were truly great," and that's hardly an exaggeration, then it is because of teachers like these.
This was one of your most entertaining and informative videos! You obviously enjoyed making it! I loved your daughter's emphasis on 15,000 names; and that she was able to pronounce perfectly the "th" sound! Such a joy to watch!
Astrid and Anna are what is absolutely delightful about sharp German ladies. Entertaining, educated, confident and somewhat wry. I started watching the main Time Ghost WWII programs about six months ago with Indy, and I have got to say, this channel has sucked me into a history I thought I had heard quite enough about. The week by week presentation really hammers in the scope, and all of the associated programs are really quite good- and THERE ARE SO MANY. Why these productions are not featured on The "History" Channel is beyond my comprehension. The ratings for this would be phenomenal. Folks might actually learn about something that doesn't involve hyperbole or ancient aliens. Bah. Anyway, yes, good programs.
@@spartacus-olsson That’s an unexpected honour. Thank you very much indeed. Since I’m a bit too late for the pour le merite (although isn’t it still around in some civilian form?) and not quite British (and by far not brave) enough for a VC, that’ll do just fine! But seriously, I admire your work. The whole team does such a fabulous job and the passion and joy you have is utterly contagious. I’m glad my little joke gave a little bit of that joy back:)
I remember (just), seeing Bob Hope in the very early 60's being asked why the Soviets were ahead in the space race. "They've got better Germans than we have".
In the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra, watched and enjoyed by both Richard Nixon and Howard Hughes, Patrick McGoohan's character remarks, "The Russians put our [UK] camera made by our German scientists and your [US] film made by your German scientists into their [USSR] satellite made by their German scientists."
I enjoyed the mom-daughter duo here👍 It's not just the german scientists/engineers who will get of light on this. Some memebers on the infamous japanese army unit 731 (bio warfare and actual testing of weapons on live humans) got a job as doctors in the US and one became president of a pharmaceutical company that's still operating and known in my country for their rubbing alcohol.
You two form an amazing presentation team and really know how to engage an audience. Final nugget was finding that the song I first heard in the current TV series 'For All Mankind' was a real thing. I need to go back and watch the earlier episodes now. Thank You for all you do.
I listened to Lehrer's performances in real time on TV in the '60s. Then was a bit surprised when my son, 35 years later, took a course from him in math at UC Santa Cruz.
Another impressive tie Astrid! Oh yes, and another very interesting and informative special. You both make a great team-am so grateful for all that the Time Ghost army does!
I was given the record album with this and other protest songs by my Jewish grandmother when I was young. Von Braun was never a mystery on our family. Great video.
Astrid n Anna you two told a very amusing story with serious undertones in this video. I enjoyed it a lot. Also nice leaf lapel Astrid. It was very nice.
The Soviets were the allies which helped the Nazis start the war in the first place. Why is is surprising that these kind of people are not altruistic.
I love the way you presented this. A very thorough discussion of the US/British efforts to collect technology and information. Details about getting the list of names- best I have ever known of, and WWII is a study point of mine. It will be interesting to see how the Soviets managed their program, but it is abundantly clear that the US and Britain not only prioritized it sooner, but made it a very active action in military advances to overthrow the Reich.
I don't think I have ever laughed out loud at the information presented on this very detailed and entertaining channel before, but the idea of a complete list of all the Nazi scientific war criminals - with their home addresses being found in a toilet by a Polish prisoner is priceless! Very well delivered too.
@@42Antares42 I have confirmed that he is 95 years old as of March 4, 2024. Thank you very much for your valuable information. I'm really surprised. ❤❤
Like with the special from yesterday, the timing of this spies and ties video is fitting. For those who didn't see my comment on the video from yesterday, last week was the 25th anniversary of the biographical movie that was about one of Wernher von Braun's big fans (and his friends) and his journey from growing up in a small coal mining town in WV during the late 50s to beginning his journey toward rocket science and eventually being a part of NASA. That fan: Homer Hickam That movie: October Sky Jake Gyllenhaal plays Homer in the movie.
There was a three issue alternate history comic called 'Ministry of Space'. Which came out early in the 2000s. Collected edition can still be found on Amazon. The what if being what if when the Americans got to where they thought they'd find the rocket scientists, they find an RAF operation led by a man who is determined not to let the British Empire fall had spirited them all away back to Britain. The British space Programme thus begins. Worth a look. When that photo of Leslie Groves came up I yelled 'Matt Damon!'. It was instinctive.
The Duo is having too much fun. That used to mean Sparty and Indy, now its these two. BTW Professor Tom Lehrer was a math teacher at Harvard and ultimately MIT. Other topical songs he wrote and sang: The Vatican Rag, Who's Next (To Get The Bomb), and National Brotherhood Week.
When I was a boy in the fifties, I asked my father how we could have worked with a man like von Braun (we'd just watched a WWII documentary together, part of the information lead-up to our battle to catch up with Sputnik). He replied, "Sometimes you just have to hold your nose." He said this because he was in London in 1944, where he saw what a single V2 could do. He described to me on a different occasion, the crater made by a V2 that landed in a part of London he described as "the fish market," probably near the docks. It was as big as a city block, and human limbs were scattered everywhere. Women mostly, he said, who had been shopping when it landed. Of course, in 1944, "women mostly" describes a nation whose armed men are at war or in POW camps around the world. As he saw it, we had a clear duty to exploit von Braun and company, which meant we were obliged to "hold our noses" and smile at them, trying not to gag. I say this hoping you see that the situation was arguably "beyond good and evil," to coin a phrase.
"Like a phoenix burning bright/ In the skyyyyyyy/ I'll show there's another side to me,/ You can't denyyyyyyyy!/ I may not know what the future holds,/ But hear me when I saaaaaay/ That my past does not define me, 'Cause my past is not todaaaay!" Yes, Sunset Shimmer's redemption song from the Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks Shorts is my personal anthem for Wernher von Braun.
I'm surprised there was no mention of Boris Pash, recruited from the Manhattan Project to command Alsos. The recent film Oppenheimer (in which he's played by Casey Affleck) has Matt Damon's Groves suggest he transferred Pash to protect Oppenheimer, but as far as I can tell it wasn't Groves' decision.
More people lost their lives making the V2 that those getting hit by it. Not directly Wernher's fault, but funny how he didn't get tried for it, since he knew about it. Hypocrisy and expedience...
While the Space Race and the moon landings wouldn't be possible without the technological achievements of Van Braun, I think a lot of people conflate the founding and existence of NASA with Van Braun's technological achievements. After all, NASA was founded in 1958; Eisenhower was president, T. Keith Glennan was the first NASA administrator, and Hugh L. Dryden was the first Deputy Administrator. Its roots go all the way back to the founding of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) in 1915. The NACA transitioned into NASA in 1958 with Hugh Dryden moving from the director of the NACA to Deputy Administrator of NASA. Van Braun on the other hand, worked for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency until that agency was transferred into NASA in 1960, 2 years after NASA was founded.
There was a 60's joke that the Soviets had a satellite that tried to communicate with an American satellite in English but failed. Because the US satellite's first language was German.
The real story of Von Braun, the US Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) and NASA is quite complex and nuanced. Way beyond the scope of this video, for sure. There are several excellent academic books on the subject. I’ve read some of them. Von Braun and associates were way ahead of the US rocket efforts in the mid 1940s. By the mid 1960s, the US Military Industrial Complex were doing fine without the need for the German boffins, but they had been essential in kick starting the US efforts.
I like these ladies narrating the video! This is fantastic, it gives a european perspective to this history lesson, and their voices are ASMR quality.❤ *_Wonderful, just wonderful_*
Great Episode, loved it! Also die beiden sind so süß zusammen das macht die ganze 26 Minuten ein kleines Fest. About the v2 I believe there were several fired or launched near my house in the Netherlands, not sure but I did found loads of abwehr Geschütz shelss from '44 In the garden 😅
Grove: there is also a large air base. Fligerhorst Grove. It surendered to the famous Eric Brown and he and a friend flew back two Ardo jet bombers from there. The base is now Karup Air Base in Denmark.
There is a story going around at the predecessor institute for aerodynamics here in Braunschweig, that they buried the mechanical pressure measuring instrument for the forces in the wind tunnel in the garden and later installed them back.
Fabulous, thorough and entertaining as always. But I wonder whether you’d share your opinion on the stories surrounding the “Frau im Mond” movie, concerning Wernher von Braun. It would be nice to see your input on this, as a very trusted source, thank you.
I worked at NASIC aka NAIC, aka FTD, for a time and we had pictures and information for operation Lusty and Paperclip. Lusty was interested in he aeronautical information. That info jump started a lot of technological development after WWII.
I did as you said and looked up Busemann. Interesting. This reminds me of a discussion I had with a young woman when I was in Germany in the 1980s. We were talking about how a lot of English names came from jobs held by ancestors. I asked if German names did anything similar and she gave me a funny look. I later found out from her husband what her last name of Klomann meant and was rather embarrassed too late about it. (Those who don't know German can look it up.)
Those in the UK and Ireland with Norman origin surnames are still proportionally more wealthy than those with non-Norman surnames. Research done by the University of California.
20:07 can we get an on the homefront video that shows how all these different new projects that are being swept up from Europe and transported to the United States happens?
There's a fascinating document online called "Transcript of Surreptitiously Taped Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (August 6-7, 1945)" capturing their reactions to Hiroshima.
I looked it up, he was involved with rocket plane engines early in the war. These led later to V1, although AFAIK he did not actually work on the V1 itself.
Von Braun wasn't recruited to work on something as 'up-in-the-sky' as the Space Race (pun intended): he was employed for missile development for the US military. That and that alone.
ok, got my dose of "dawlins'" ... life is good :) ... joking aside, well done team, yet again. Always enjoy learning from these videos. Merci Mesdames :)
I recently found out that Wernher von Braun is buried about a mile from my kids' school. This amuses me because in the last couple of years our town has seen schools renamed and statues removed. And yet . . .
We recently produced a video on Wernher von Braun’s V-2 ballistic missile.
Click here to check that out: ruclips.net/video/jKDaH6_cuUI/видео.html
Why is there 1,000 times as much attention given to the German scientists that went to the US, than the ones that went to the USSR?
Because ours did a better job, of course. :p
I tried Google Translate on "Busemann" and just "buse" without result.
They we provided custard cream pies if they did. The Soviets provided boiled cabbage if they did. And a lead bullet if they didn't.
Great work as always... this duo is fantastic....i see where Ana's attitude and energy is comming from, they both could have made a carrer in acting :D but why is Ana wearing barcelona shirt buttons? no bayern munich, ey ? :)))
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department, " says Wernher von Braun.
Some have harsh words for this man of renown,
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude,
Like the widows and cripples of old London Town,
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.
He has a point, if the cost was not so high.@@francisdec1615
That's a direct quote, made during the V-2 program.
unt i'm learning Chinese says Wernher von Braun
@@francisdec1615 now that's a Tolkien level literary diss
Mother daughter duo is turning out the best thing on this channel. I wish they continue this for their Korean conflict series.
Indy will be hosting Korea, but we have plans for spies and ties...
Thanks for watching!
- Jake
@@WorldWarTwoI have the hunch that Cold War could deliver loads of topics on this subject for them to cover....
@@ramonribascasasayas7877 Definitely. The Cold War was possibly the golden age of spycraft.
@@anttibjorklund1869 when it comes to 'conventional' spycraft, YES INDEED
@@ramonribascasasayas7877 Yeah, obviously "modern" spycraft is different - or what did you mean with "conventional"?
One of may favorite jokes from the early days of the American space program was made about Werner von Braun and the biopic made about him, "I Aim at the Stars". There were times NASA engineers were heard joking in a fake German accent, "I aim at the stars, but sometimes I hit London!"
lmao
As a kid growing up in the 1960s I asked my Dad how he knew we would beat the Russians to the moon. He replied, "Because our German scientists are better than their German scientists."
Yup, and now we hope that our Chinese are better than China's Chinese.
In the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra, watched and enjoyed by both Richard Nixon and Howard Hughes, Patrick McGoohan's character remarks, "The Russians put our [UK] camera made by our German scientists and your [US] film made by your German scientists into their [USSR] satellite made by their German scientists."
Well, that's a great way not to recognize that the Soviets had already beaten even the Germans to creating a rocket-based weapon which is well-known to have been devastating in tactical use (Indy has already reported on it).
@@DrVictorVasconcelosI presume you mean the Katyusha sold fuel rocket. Indy was focusing on liquid fueled rockets and did not mention the pioneering work done by American scientist Robert Goddard. The fact is the Germans were ahead of the Allies in this field in the 1940s.
The reality was that Operation Paperclip netted us the German scientists, while the USSR got mostly the technicians who'd done the actual work. Theory vs. practice, as it were. Consequently, the Soviets got more immediate short-term results, while we derived benefits that resulted in winning the long race once we'd built upon the theory.
Nice use of the photo of the knocked out Strumtiger. That particular vehicle was actually taken out by a 75mm-gunned M4 Sherman which moved out a side street to ambush the Strumtiger as it was withdrawing. 3 shots into its engine put it out of action. Unusually for the late war, the Sherman crew let most of the German crew escape. The one exception was shot dead when he started to arm a hand grenade.
The end song is hilarious! Thanks for sharing it on the video.
BTW, I absolutely love the mother & daughter team of "Spies & Ties." Aside from when it comes to the necessary seriousness when discussing the darker aspects of "Spies & Ties," these two ladies completely crack me up.
Love to hear that you enjoy them together so much! Thanks for watching.
The whole television Denmark performance of Tom Lehr is worth a watch
...and it is available on RUclips.
Amazingly (and a reminder that WWII is not all that long since), Tom Lehrer, born in 1928, is alive today.
The Girls! What a perfect counter-balance to the episodes of Spartacus. It's truly mind boggling.
An absolute delight to have Ana and Astrid as cohosts, wonderful historical communicators, keep it up TG!
Thanks for watching!
When my family lived in Hunstville Alabama (1968) our next door neighbor was a scientist who came over with Von Braun after the war. I was too young to remember his name but he would come over and tell my dad about his brothers time in North Africa and later the eastern front. His brother was an Oberst and served as a surgeon in the Wermacht.
Great story telling, Astrid and Anna! I was an engineer with a very famous laboratoy supporting the Apollo mission at NASA Headqurters in Washington. I went to a technical conference and had an opportunity to meet and shake hands with Werner Von Braun. After moving on, my colleague asked, "How does it feel to shake the hand of the man who shook the hand of Adolf Hitler?" I was first stunned by the revalation but also, having been a fan of Tom Lehrer, had a good laugh!!!
"the comments are going to keep referencing the song so we're going to play the song" brilliant
"That's not my department." The bureaucrat's battle cry.
I use it myself, though for mundane legal reasons.
What’s your department?
As far as you know no one has died.
@@jtgd I do payroll. Somethings are beyond my access or outside my jurisdiction. I usually try and point the person to the right contact if I can though.
Amongst the Nazi research recovered was an experiment on cold water survival conducted in the Baltic using prisoners, many of whom died of hypothermia and drowning. The marine biology department of the university I attended was working to develop cold water survival suits to improve survival rates for survivors of sunken fishing boats. There was a debate at the time (1970s) about the ethics of using the Nazi research. They used it and I think it was the right call. It has saved many lives since then.
I'm fairly sure that the impact tests used to develop seat belts and safer cars used data from axis experiments as well. While any good from the research clearly does not redeem in any fashion their conduct, I don't see how not using that data to help save other innocents would do anything but compound that tragedy.
@@Onthejazz247exactly. And remember, armies ALWAYS take the guns and ammunition of enemy troops whom they have killed in combat.
P.S. I like your username. Me, too.
The absolute best part about watching this video was keeping an eye on Anna as her mother was speaking, watching her valiantly try to hold a straight face and stop herself from bursting out in laughter.
You gals had way too much fun making this episode 💕Again, brilliantly fascinating. I'd never heard of "The List" before. I also didn't realize that Paperclip was an exclusively post-war operation. Seeing von Braun in an arm caste had me assume he was part of the project.
There was a joke in the 60s TV show Get Smart where someone asked why everyone in an American rocket base was speaking German…
@santomiguel7513 actually for Hitler the rumor... stress on rumor... was that the Russians captured him. Is that true? Guess we have to keep watching...
These two are a delight
Thanks for the kind words!
von Braun was just a boy that loved rockets. He cared not where the money came from to support his interests. Thank you to my two favorite Spies wearing Ties for another entertaining story.
Thanks for another delightful Spies and Ties Astrid, Ana and Time Ghost Crew! How very appropriate as I finally watched Oppenheimer and I’ve also acquired the audiobook for Annie Jacobsen’s Operation Paperclip! great musical bonus at the end!
There are several hours of Annie Jacobsen on RUclips.
I love how those two play so well off of each other, especially towards the end of the video. You can tell they are genuinely having fun together.
If you'd like to see more of them together, check out the last episode of Spies and Ties! Thanks for watching 🙂
Thank you, Ana and Astrid. In the best way possible, you remind me of the grammar school teachers who first made knowledge my goal in life. If "I think continually of those who were truly great," and that's hardly an exaggeration, then it is because of teachers like these.
This was one of your most entertaining and informative videos! You obviously enjoyed making it! I loved your daughter's emphasis on 15,000 names; and that she was able to pronounce perfectly the "th" sound! Such a joy to watch!
Astrid and Anna are what is absolutely delightful about sharp German ladies. Entertaining, educated, confident and somewhat wry. I started watching the main Time Ghost WWII programs about six months ago with Indy, and I have got to say, this channel has sucked me into a history I thought I had heard quite enough about. The week by week presentation really hammers in the scope, and all of the associated programs are really quite good- and THERE ARE SO MANY.
Why these productions are not featured on The "History" Channel is beyond my comprehension. The ratings for this would be phenomenal. Folks might actually learn about something that doesn't involve hyperbole or ancient aliens. Bah. Anyway, yes, good programs.
Wow! After all those centuries humanity mastered alchemy and made pure gold out of educational youtube videos. 🙂
🎖️ this is my personal award to you for the cleverest compliment of the month.
@@spartacus-olsson
That’s an unexpected honour. Thank you very much indeed. Since I’m a bit too late for the pour le merite (although isn’t it still around in some civilian form?) and not quite British (and by far not brave) enough for a VC, that’ll do just fine!
But seriously, I admire your work. The whole team does such a fabulous job and the passion and joy you have is utterly contagious. I’m glad my little joke gave a little bit of that joy back:)
I think crypto currencies are more like making gold out of electrons, but yes, education on YT is a good thing.
@sdec1615 In an ideal world crypto wouldn't exist and anyone who would be pushing it would be in prison but sadly we don't live in that world.
A great video. I don't know what was more enjoyable, the information or the hosts...
I remember (just), seeing Bob Hope in the very early 60's being asked why the Soviets were ahead in the space race. "They've got better Germans than we have".
In the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra, watched and enjoyed by both Richard Nixon and Howard Hughes, Patrick McGoohan's character remarks, "The Russians put our [UK] camera made by our German scientists and your [US] film made by your German scientists into their [USSR] satellite made by their German scientists."
Your collaboration is a delight to witness and singularly informative. Thank you!
I enjoyed the mom-daughter duo here👍
It's not just the german scientists/engineers who will get of light on this. Some memebers on the infamous japanese army unit 731 (bio warfare and actual testing of weapons on live humans) got a job as doctors in the US and one became president of a pharmaceutical company that's still operating and known in my country for their rubbing alcohol.
You two form an amazing presentation team and really know how to engage an audience. Final nugget was finding that the song I first heard in the current TV series 'For All Mankind' was a real thing. I need to go back and watch the earlier episodes now. Thank You for all you do.
Love your show- always informative and great eye candy!
I listened to Lehrer's performances in real time on TV in the '60s. Then was a bit surprised when my son, 35 years later, took a course from him in math at UC Santa Cruz.
Brilliant, as usual, but I am personally disappointed that you did not mention Number 30 Commando Unit, "Ian Fleming's Red Indians."
Another impressive tie Astrid! Oh yes, and another very interesting and informative special. You both make a great team-am so grateful for all that the Time Ghost army does!
Huge Tom Lehrer fan whose day has been topped up by this episode :D
Thanks for watching!
I was given the record album with this and other protest songs by my Jewish grandmother when I was young. Von Braun was never a mystery on our family. Great video.
Astrid n Anna you two told a very amusing story with serious undertones in this video. I enjoyed it a lot. Also nice leaf lapel Astrid. It was very nice.
With this war ending, the Allies' goals are looking less and less altruistic by the day.
The Soviets were the allies which helped the Nazis start the war in the first place. Why is is surprising that these kind of people are not altruistic.
@@nairpic7360 I suppose the fact that Britain, France and the USA were also empires of their own probably explains their own selfish goals too.
Some more than others. If it weren't for USA we'd still only know them as empires. @@extrahistory8956
Excellent response.@@nairpic7360
Nations don't have friends.
They have goals.
I love the way you presented this. A very thorough discussion of the US/British efforts to collect technology and information. Details about getting the list of names- best I have ever known of, and WWII is a study point of mine. It will be interesting to see how the Soviets managed their program, but it is abundantly clear that the US and Britain not only prioritized it sooner, but made it a very active action in military advances to overthrow the Reich.
Was fully expecting a new Sabaton song at the end.
I don't think I have ever laughed out loud at the information presented on this very detailed and entertaining channel before, but the idea of a complete list of all the Nazi scientific war criminals - with their home addresses being found in a toilet by a Polish prisoner is priceless! Very well delivered too.
24:06 A song " in praise " of Mr. Wernher von Braun...I couldn't help but listen to it over and over again 10 times. 😬😬
You may be surprised to learn that Tom Lehrer is still alive. ❤
@@42Antares42 I have confirmed that he is 95 years old as of March 4, 2024. Thank you very much for your valuable information. I'm really surprised. ❤❤
WONDERFUL ! I've never had such an enjoyable history lesson !
Appreciate the lovely comment!
Like with the special from yesterday, the timing of this spies and ties video is fitting.
For those who didn't see my comment on the video from yesterday, last week was the 25th anniversary of the biographical movie that was about one of Wernher von Braun's big fans (and his friends) and his journey from growing up in a small coal mining town in WV during the late 50s to beginning his journey toward rocket science and eventually being a part of NASA.
That fan: Homer Hickam
That movie: October Sky
Jake Gyllenhaal plays Homer in the movie.
Hi Astrid and Anna
Awesome story to hear.
And end song about werner is comical.
Thanks for sharing
I think my great Aunt as a German worked as a translator documenting all the stuff being sent to the US during this operation.
There was a three issue alternate history comic called 'Ministry of Space'. Which came out early in the 2000s. Collected edition can still be found on Amazon. The what if being what if when the Americans got to where they thought they'd find the rocket scientists, they find an RAF operation led by a man who is determined not to let the British Empire fall had spirited them all away back to Britain. The British space Programme thus begins. Worth a look.
When that photo of Leslie Groves came up I yelled 'Matt Damon!'. It was instinctive.
The Duo is having too much fun. That used to mean Sparty and Indy, now its these two. BTW Professor Tom Lehrer was a math teacher at Harvard and ultimately MIT. Other topical songs he wrote and sang: The Vatican Rag, Who's Next (To Get The Bomb), and National Brotherhood Week.
Puts a different meaning to “I’ve Got a Little List” from The Mikado
This is a great series and this is one of my favorite episodes. Great job ladies!
When I was a boy in the fifties, I asked my father how we could have worked with a man like von Braun (we'd just watched a WWII documentary together, part of the information lead-up to our battle to catch up with Sputnik). He replied, "Sometimes you just have to hold your nose." He said this because he was in London in 1944, where he saw what a single V2 could do. He described to me on a different occasion, the crater made by a V2 that landed in a part of London he described as "the fish market," probably near the docks. It was as big as a city block, and human limbs were scattered everywhere. Women mostly, he said, who had been shopping when it landed. Of course, in 1944, "women mostly" describes a nation whose armed men are at war or in POW camps around the world. As he saw it, we had a clear duty to exploit von Braun and company, which meant we were obliged to "hold our noses" and smile at them, trying not to gag. I say this hoping you see that the situation was arguably "beyond good and evil," to coin a phrase.
'The widows and orphans of old London Town / Owe their fat pensions to Werner von Braun' - Tom Lehrer
Outstanding episode ladies !!! Canadian science nerd here.
Glad to hear you enjoyed!
"Like a phoenix burning bright/ In the skyyyyyyy/ I'll show there's another side to me,/ You can't denyyyyyyyy!/ I may not know what the future holds,/ But hear me when I saaaaaay/ That my past does not define me, 'Cause my past is not todaaaay!"
Yes, Sunset Shimmer's redemption song from the Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks Shorts is my personal anthem for Wernher von Braun.
I'm surprised there was no mention of Boris Pash, recruited from the Manhattan Project to command Alsos. The recent film Oppenheimer (in which he's played by Casey Affleck) has Matt Damon's Groves suggest he transferred Pash to protect Oppenheimer, but as far as I can tell it wasn't Groves' decision.
More people lost their lives making the V2 that those getting hit by it. Not directly Wernher's fault, but funny how he didn't get tried for it, since he knew about it. Hypocrisy and expedience...
While the Space Race and the moon landings wouldn't be possible without the technological achievements of Van Braun, I think a lot of people conflate the founding and existence of NASA with Van Braun's technological achievements. After all, NASA was founded in 1958; Eisenhower was president, T. Keith Glennan was the first NASA administrator, and Hugh L. Dryden was the first Deputy Administrator.
Its roots go all the way back to the founding of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) in 1915. The NACA transitioned into NASA in 1958 with Hugh Dryden moving from the director of the NACA to Deputy Administrator of NASA.
Van Braun on the other hand, worked for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency until that agency was transferred into NASA in 1960, 2 years after NASA was founded.
There was a 60's joke that the Soviets had a satellite that tried to communicate with an American satellite in English but failed. Because the US satellite's first language was German.
The real story of Von Braun, the US Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) and NASA is quite complex and nuanced. Way beyond the scope of this video, for sure. There are several excellent academic books on the subject. I’ve read some of them. Von Braun and associates were way ahead of the US rocket efforts in the mid 1940s. By the mid 1960s, the US Military Industrial Complex were doing fine without the need for the German boffins, but they had been essential in kick starting the US efforts.
Great episode. Thanks always for the excellent history content
This was a great video. Astrid and Anna looked like they were having so much fun.
Love the Tom Lehrer reference in the beginning of the video.
I like these ladies narrating the video! This is fantastic, it gives a european perspective to this history lesson, and their voices are ASMR quality.❤
*_Wonderful, just wonderful_*
Thank you for watching, if you want to see more then check out our last few Spies and Ties episodes!
Nice presentation, again. 👏
Thank you for watching!
Great Episode, loved it! Also die beiden sind so süß zusammen das macht die ganze 26 Minuten ein kleines Fest.
About the v2 I believe there were several fired or launched near my house in the Netherlands, not sure but I did found loads of abwehr Geschütz shelss from '44 In the garden 😅
Grove: there is also a large air base. Fligerhorst Grove.
It surendered to the famous Eric Brown and he and a friend flew back two Ardo jet bombers from there.
The base is now Karup Air Base in Denmark.
Thank you for this episode of Spies & Ties as always World War Two Team!
There is a story going around at the predecessor institute for aerodynamics here in Braunschweig, that they buried the mechanical pressure measuring instrument for the forces in the wind tunnel in the garden and later installed them back.
Well done to the polish bloke who had the sense to save the documents from the toilet
Brilliant episode Darlings ❤
Fabulous, thorough and entertaining as always.
But I wonder whether you’d share your opinion on the stories surrounding the “Frau im Mond” movie, concerning Wernher von Braun. It would be nice to see your input on this, as a very trusted source, thank you.
That song is freaking awesome! I also love the mother - daughter co-hosting!
I worked at NASIC aka NAIC, aka FTD, for a time and we had pictures and information for operation Lusty and Paperclip. Lusty was interested in he aeronautical information. That info jump started a lot of technological development after WWII.
It’s depressing that all of this amazing technology was developed for such grotesque purposes.
Thats quite the song, fantastic episode.
Much appreciated, thanks for watching!
I did as you said and looked up Busemann. Interesting. This reminds me of a discussion I had with a young woman when I was in Germany in the 1980s. We were talking about how a lot of English names came from jobs held by ancestors. I asked if German names did anything similar and she gave me a funny look. I later found out from her husband what her last name of Klomann meant and was rather embarrassed too late about it. (Those who don't know German can look it up.)
Those in the UK and Ireland with Norman origin surnames are still proportionally more wealthy than those with non-Norman surnames. Research done by the University of California.
Very strange episode, so much of modern life started out as prototypes being discovered in empty labs, next to mass Graves, what a world
20:07 can we get an on the homefront video that shows how all these different new projects that are being swept up from Europe and transported to the United States happens?
You gals are having SUCH fun! Does the heart good!
Adolf Busemann surname translates to Boogey Man in Norwegian. Thanks Anna.
There's a fascinating document online called "Transcript of Surreptitiously Taped Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (August 6-7, 1945)" capturing their reactions to Hiroshima.
He doesn’t look like a gourmand.
Tom Lehrer's name was mentioned. Today is a good day.
Thank You for this content.
And thanks for watching.
Came for the history, stayed for the "Darlings!"
I do not think Von Braun was involved with the V1, but I could be wrong
I looked it up, he was involved with rocket plane engines early in the war. These led later to V1, although AFAIK he did not actually work on the V1 itself.
Great stuff again lady's!!!!
Like mother, like daughter... Thank you for another episode..... Looking forward greatly to the new foray into the Korean war.
I love Spies & Ties
Von Braun wasn't recruited to work on something as 'up-in-the-sky' as the Space Race (pun intended): he was employed for missile development for the US military. That and that alone.
the last aero journal has an interesting article on the me P1101 with another good one on the polish aces in the USAAF with a bunch of testimonies
ok, got my dose of "dawlins'" ... life is good :) ... joking aside, well done team, yet again. Always enjoy learning from these videos. Merci Mesdames :)
Thank you.
You two are amazing..
Check out our last few Spies and Ties episodes for more of them co-hosting!
I recently found out that Wernher von Braun is buried about a mile from my kids' school.
This amuses me because in the last couple of years our town has seen schools renamed and statues removed. And yet . . .
i just love how Astrid tells the years haha 🤩
Excellent work Ana, Astrid, & team. You were particularly entertaining this episode.
😳 That song in the end.
Funny…. But scary at the same time.
Ahhh, those cufflinks on Anna's shirt! (FC Barcelona) 🤦♂ . Greetings from Madrid, Spain😘
Fortunately Hitler set scientists in competition with each other to build an atomic bomb instead of making it a joint project.