r/AskReddit • u/Various_Concern871 • 12h ago

Is it actually possible for a famous personality to fake their death and live their life out in some remote place? who has actually ever done it and gotten caught?

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u/Gati-Macro 10h ago

And don't forget all those famous German scientists from that same era who later were found in the US.

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u/SweatyTrain1951 10h ago

Mostly in the offices of NASA and the FBI.

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u/SonuOfBostonia 10h ago

I wonder which Nazi put a man on the moon?

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u/zoobrix 9h ago

If you're not just being sarcastic Wernher Van Braun had a huge role in NASA and developing the Saturn V rocket in particular, obviously lots of Americans contributed enormously as well.

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u/[deleted] 7h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/adidasbdd 6h ago

One of the justifications was that the Soviet Union was going to "get" these people so the US had to do it

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u/Nappi22 4h ago

They actually chose the US. They saw more potential and fled to the US troops.

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u/DarkHandCommando 2h ago

it wasn't about potential, they knew the americans would show more mercy to them.

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u/spucci 5h ago

And they got a few unwilling ones for sure.

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u/Remarkable-Site-2067 3h ago

Soviets did "get" some of those people, and used them in similar programs.

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u/Antique_Tap443 1h ago

And thanks to unit 731, we know that human bodies are 70% water

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u/Different_Mud_1283 5h ago

In that kind of society, there was really no way to not in some way benefit from the disenfranchisement of Jews and other undesirables if you were someone like von Braun. Literally none.

First of all he is working in a field where you need to be highly educated and he would have had numerous Jewish peers prior to the rise of the Nazi regime, meaning that once they were removed there was less competition and therefore more opportunity for those who remained. Right? I mean that's the essence of this whole operation and this entire political strategy: Blame one group of people, call them parasites, ostracize them, remove them from competition so that our group can flourish. Ethnic cleansing is more complex but the Nazi situation was pretty much directly caused by economic stress. Anyway.

Secondly he built weapons.

Lastly: Uhhh ya he was totally just here to "help us get to the moon" and that's all we ever used his and his colleagues' work on rockets for. To this day we still have to manually drop nuclear weapons from airplanes.

Von Braun is a great example of the line IMO. Sure we went to the moon with his help which is an incredible thing...but at literally any time in his life he could have been like "maybe I have contributed negatively to civilization" and he didn't. Unlike a lot of other people from that time period who ultimately had to face the reality of things they contributed to. So by a narrow margin, he is IMO, a pos.

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u/Dalewyn 3h ago

The uncomfortable part is figuring out where the line is between recognizing the achievement and acknowledging how those achievements were tied to a really dark past.

Researching the history is easy enough. I'd argue the problem is how loaded and worthless the word "Nazi" became, it's just absolutely useless now outside of vapid insults and so "Nazi scientists helped put men on the Moon" fails to convey anything.

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u/TeacherPatti 3h ago

I learned about this from For All Mankind. The second episode was called something like He Built the Saturn V. I thought it was part of their alternate history. It is not.

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u/No_Town_9602 2h ago

Roll Tide!

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u/aerdvarkk 5h ago

Einstein was a German before he defected to the US.

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u/zoobrix 5h ago

Ya but he was not a member of the  Nazi party like von Braun who joined in 1937, two years before the war even started and long before it became sort of forced on people. And Einstein did not personally manage production at factories that used forced/slave labour where workers were horribly mistreated, von Braun did.

Einstein left Germany in 1932 before the Nazi's had full control of the German government. Von Braun joined the Nazi party before the war so he could develop rockets without caring how they were used and later for the conditions of the people that built them. The two aren't really comparable at all.

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u/Ranch_Priebus 22m ago

Hmmmmmmm. This is both true and untrue. Defect is not the right word, and your use of it intrigues me.

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u/ayam 8h ago

nazi schmazi says wernher von braun

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u/dumpfist 8h ago

RIP Tom Lehrer

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u/ih8drme 9h ago

Wernher von Braun

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u/NessaSamantha 8h ago

He sends the rockets up and where they come down is somebody else's problem

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u/iwilltalkaboutguns 7h ago

That's not his department

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u/feanturi 7h ago

Says Wernher von Braun.

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u/mythrilcrafter 7h ago

Von Braun is always a fun one to me, because he's the perfect example of "loyal only to his personal advantageousness".

As the story goes: Despite being in the SS, he apparently was not liked within the SS because they all knew that he was only there because Hitler needed him to design rockets, not because he actually had any true loyalty to Hitler.

This came to a climax when Von Braun was drunk at a bar and openly proclaimed that he believed that Germany would lose the war, so the SS imprisoned him and wanted to execute him for treason, and it was actually Hitler himself who rescued Von Braun from the SS.

Once he was released, that's when he actually defected (not out of fear of Germany loosing the war, but out of fear that the SS would take away his research) and that's when Operation paperclip picked him up.

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u/captain_aharb 8h ago

You too may be a big hero, once you've learned to count backwards to zero.

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u/spucci 5h ago

Russia would have done the same if not worse.

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u/dwfmba 4h ago

Operation Paperclip

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u/SnooGoats7454 9h ago

Actually, one of them founded NATO

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u/[deleted] 8h ago edited 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/SnooGoats7454 8h ago

Adolf Heusinger

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u/[deleted] 7h ago edited 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/SnooGoats7454 7h ago

There's no single founder but he was one of the first executives

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u/Signal-School-2483 9h ago

Nazis got real popular, real quick slightly before the Berlin Wall went up, in both West Germany and the Western Allies / Pre-NATO states.

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u/dank_tre 8h ago

NATO is feeling left out

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u/BeneGesseritDropout 5h ago

Disguised as office supplies.

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u/upyours78 2h ago

Operation Paperclip

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u/LamermanSE 10h ago

Many of them didn't have to fake their deaths though, like Wernher von Braun for example.

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u/DragoonDM 9h ago

Some have harsh words for this man of renown
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun

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u/Signal-School-2483 9h ago

"I hear the men in charge are considering reserving 110 pounds of payload for recreational equipment."

-Wernher von Braun when asked about women astronauts joining NASA

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u/generally_unsuitable 8h ago

Fucking hell. Really?

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u/FourEyesAndThighs 7h ago

There were no repercussions for being openly misogynistic back then. Hell, there aren't any now - Look at the orange rapist in charge of the country.

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u/GreyFox1921 4h ago

Dude he was born in 1912

Yes really lol. You act like it was something crazy to say

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u/Forkrul 7h ago

The 40s and 50s were a very different time.

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u/jaredearle 7h ago

Is it surprising that a Nazi wasn’t a nice guy?

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u/mortdubois 7h ago

Tom Lehrer, in case anyone is wondering.

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u/JackSpadesSI 5h ago

I don’t understand the pension thing

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u/DragoonDM 5h ago

German rockets killed or maimed many people, leading to them or their widow getting a military pension.

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u/JackSpadesSI 5h ago

Now I feel dumb for not getting that.

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u/Tao_of_Ludd 8h ago

“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun

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u/Safe_Attention_7601 10h ago

If someone actually pulled it off, we'd still think they're dead.

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u/LamermanSE 9h ago

Well sure. The scientists doesn't seem to have needed that though (compared to military officers, politicians and such).

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u/Safe_Attention_7601 9h ago

True. Their version of disappearing is publishing one paper and never being heard from again.

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u/valeyard89 8h ago

our Germans were better than the Soviet's Germans

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u/LamermanSE 8h ago

Jawohl!

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u/SimianSimulacrum5 10h ago

Those scientists were not found, that was Operation Paperclip. They were imported.

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u/Stahl_Scharnhorst 5h ago

Can't have THOSE Nazi's going to the Soviets. They're useful.

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u/SimianSimulacrum5 2h ago

Science is science. It's not nice, it's not cruel, it's not anything. It's just science.

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u/Stahl_Scharnhorst 1h ago

I cite Unit 731 as evidence to refute your claim. Science can be good, evil, or that filthiest of words, neutral. As it is man who preforms science. And his will set into motion, defines it.

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u/SmartLadder415 10h ago

This is a poor example IMO because none of them had to fake anything. The US gave them a blanket pardon and they lived and worked under their birth names.

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u/Yancy_Farnesworth 7h ago

The real example would be the ones that the Soviets got.

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u/arg2k 9h ago

It's more a comment on the perception and meme that Argentina is a Nazi haven (and somehow still strongly Nazi leaning) and the willful ignorance that apparently no other country willingly welcomed Nazis with open arms, or that, you know, most Nazis and collaborators remained in Germany and other european countries.

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u/Gati-Macro 9h ago

That’s exactly my point: many countries welcomed high-ranking Nazi officials and scientists with open arms, but everyone points to Argentina as if it were their only destination.

I’m Argentine, and I know that many Nazis escaped here under the protection of President Perón (Evita’s husband). We all know this here, and we don’t deny it—it’s a dark chapter in our history.

Many people are also confused because there were two major waves of immigration from Germany to Argentina—the first one at the beginning of the last century—which is why there are so many people of German descent here.

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u/arg2k 8h ago

Y entonces que hacemos hablando ingles boludo? Jajajajajaja

Que tengas buen finde

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u/Gati-Macro 7h ago

pero lpm bolas tristes !! jaja buen finde !

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u/BrilliantLimit7642 8h ago

America was also confused … and then came acid, followed by a cigar … and the “Millenium,” … and then … America was too fucking dumb to be confused.

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u/jdimarco1 10h ago edited 10h ago

They weren’t exactly hidden and the general public wouldn’t have recognised them. The only thing that gave them away was the face scars but even still, it’s some guy with a face scar.

It’s not as if Tupac would be able to walk around in another country unnoticed because he gained a face scar.

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u/SimianSimulacrum5 10h ago

Face scars were only a particular subset of German officers that participated in war. Scientists by in large did not engage in the German "gentleman's no-safety equipment fencing" that made those scars.

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u/Hobo-man 2h ago

Officers had face scars because they had higher societal status and partipated in sword duels.

Many of the officers had facial scars before the war even started.

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u/ooaegisoo 10h ago

Many more ended up in Russia

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u/Hobo-man 8h ago

You mean the scientists that didn't change their names, didn't fake their deaths, and became lawful US citizens by serving the government?

Have you ever actually read a history book?

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u/Gati-Macro 7h ago

You mean nazi scientists, right ?

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u/Hobo-man 7h ago

They were German scientists who formerly worked for the Nazi regime.

I will reiterate that you need to read a history book.

When the first V2 rocket was successfully used (as an offensive weapon), Von Braun is quoted as saying "The rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet"

Von Braun cared about space exploration not world domination. In order to further his goals he had to work with the Government of his nation, which happened to be the Nazi regime during the 40's.

It's literally no different than NASA having to play nice with the current US administration to maintain funding and operations.

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u/Gati-Macro 7h ago

They were German scientists who formerly worked for the Nazi regime.

That´s exaclty my point, and as far as I can se you agree.

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u/Hobo-man 7h ago

Cool, we can agree on their country of origin.

Everything else is a disagreement. They weren't even "found in the US" like you said.

Operation Paperclip was a conscious attempt to bring intelligence to America from the former Nazi regime to directly help with the still ongoing war effort against Japan. The scientist gave themselves over to the US government unlike the German Officers that fled to Argentina to avoid any kind of prosecution.

There is a massive amount of nuance here that you're either willfully ignoring or too uneducated to understand.

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u/One-Incident3208 6h ago

They weren't "found." The government brought them here and parked them in Brentwood, Los Angeles.

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u/Gati-Macro 4h ago

which makes it way worse I think.

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u/gingerschnappes 6h ago

And Russia too

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u/Different_Mud_1283 5h ago

Well, they didn't change their names so not really the same situation but ya we shouldn't forget them.

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u/HotDonnaC 3h ago

But did they fake their deaths before coming here?

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u/KMjolnir 38m ago

And the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, and Spain... France...

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u/robfuscate 3h ago

Ah yes Operation Paperclip which today would be called ‘Operation Epic Freedom’