Posted on 02/06/2008 3:02:13 AM PST by the scotsman
He was a rocket engineer working for the Nazis, helping create one of the most terrifying weapons of the Second World War.
But the infamy of Klaus Riedel would surely have been lost to all except historians of Hitler's atrocities but for the bizarre decision by a German town to name one of its schools in his honour.
Riedel was head of the V2 laboratory at Peenemunde on the Baltic, where the so-called "wonder weapons" which killed nearly 3,000 Britons in the closing months of the war were designed.
In all, the rockets claimed 30,000 lives in Europe and Southern England. And it is reckoned 20,000 slave labourers at the underground factory of Mittelbau-Dora in central Germany died making the rockets.
But Riedel's grim contribution to the 2,386mph V2, which carried a ton of high explosive and was meant to bring Britain to its knees, seems to have been ignored by councillors in Bernstadt, eastern Germany, where the old Middle School has become the Klaus Riedel School.
The decision has caused anger in Britain and left many Germans aghast. Henry Bellingham, the Conservative justice spokesman, condemned Bernstadt's "insensitivity".
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
As a confederate I know what it is like to have your world renamed.
Accept it and find peace.
We celebrated a lot of these same guys through the US space program. Engineering is engineering. Policy is somebody else’s department.
I guess that means that Werner von Braun worked for him? I don't think so!
I’m not going to complain when there is a statue of Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris in the Strand.
As far as I can tell, he had no part in any Nazi atrocities and was merely a part of the ‘legitimate’ German war effort....
According to the Daily Mail I am apparently furious about this.
No, I am not. Riedel did what he had to do as part of the legitimate German war effort. This smacks of an attempt to criminalise war.
To quote Tom Lehrer, paraphrasing another Raketenmeister,
" Vuntz die rockets go up,
Who cares vere dey come down?
Dat's not my depardment
Sez Wernher Von Braun."
Ok, you have to speak English or I don’t get it.
/tin-foil hat!
Werner Von Braun aimed for the stars.....unfortunately, sometimes he hit London.
For one thing, what do the British care what Germany decides to name a school?
I don't recall Germany complaining when the US named a destroyer after Churchill.
Soccer team: “The Riedel Rockets.”
NEWS FLASH! No one in britain actually cares about this, its another example of the media trying to create a story........
There hasn’t been any confederates around these parts in years. You must be really old!
I went to Jefferson Davis Jr. High.
You remember Jeff? President of the CSA?
Does that make me old too?
Or too old?
I see nothing wrong with it
Shouldn’t Britain worry about threats to its existence in 2008 versus threats from 60+ years ago?
He must have made football helmets after the war.
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