Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 February 17

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February 17

Ex-nazi advisers after WWII

A few weeks ago I asked you guys about how many nazi war criminals were still at large and got some answers. But I ended up reading about Alois Brunner, who is dead now but seems to be one of the worst guys who got away with it (sounds like a really bad guy that the world is better without). But I read his bio and I was like "holy crap, old man Assad had his own Dr Strangelove?" - I didn't know that. So, I was wondering - how many of these former Nazis ended up as advisors or special consultants to various powers in the 60 years after the war? I know about Von Braun, SS-Sturmbahnfuher turned "humble rocket enthusiast" - but who else had one? Did the Russians? The British? The Chinese? Any other countries who'd take in some fairly bad guys or bad guy adjacents and forget that they were bad guys in exchange for their expertise? 146.200.129.62 (talk) 08:35, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Von Braun was only one of over 1,600 German scientists brought to the US in Operation Paperclip (one of them was the grandfather of a classmate of mine). The Soviets had a similar program, see Operation Osoaviakhim. The Brits had Operation Surgeon. Cheers ❖ _hugarheimur 09:24, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Johann von Leers was welcomed in Egypt because he was a Nazi (not despite being a Nazi). A number of cases of those who found refuge in Argentina, Arab countries etc. lack the extenuating circumstances of rocket scientists welcomed in the United States and the Soviet Union because of their specific technical knowledge (though there were some problematic aspects to that also). AnonMoos (talk) 09:29, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

NOT a reliable source, but to the point. Matt Deres (talk) 14:55, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? --T*U (talk) 15:52, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• The modern german intelligence service, 'Bundesnachrichtendienst', is built pretty much entirely on former nazis who were deemed useful in the climate of the cold war. Reinhard Gehlen was the founding president of the service. In other words, West Germany itself gladly put on the blinders, fully supported by the US, in cases where it was 'useful'. Alois Brunner, whom you named above, was on the payroll, as was Emil Augsburg or the captor of Anne Frank, Karl Silberbauer, among others. And i am not sure if you ask exclusively about war criminals. But nazis in general were hardly prosecuted in West Germany and 'denazification' was quickly abandoned by Konrad Adenauer and his conservative party in the west with many nazis in positions of power all over the country, from minor bureaucrats, people in the judiciary and police to army officers and business people or teachers. The vast majority got free passes, and even those that were punished got mostly only token punishments and were mostly released well before their sentences ended and ended up living pretty normal lives, bothered by no one (some notable exceptions there, like Joachim Peiper getting burned alive on bastille day '76; bastard deserved worse). So, the country employing the most former nazis in all imaginable roles certainly was West Germany. And a large number of those had to be war criminals, just due to the nigh unimaginable scale of murder, the depravity and criminality of the nazi regime. 85.16.43.210 (talk) 17:17, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Oddly enough, East Germany, which basically just painted over the brown with red, was more thorough and much much harsher on individuals despite keeping a fair bit of the 'structures', which the west did not. More or less just renaming things like the hitler youth to 'Freie Deutsche Jugend', commonly known as FDJ in german, as one example. So, both systems did not really rid themselves of nazism totally and took what they viewed as advantageous, supported by their major power 'benefactor', for lack of a better word. People in the west and structures for indoctrination, among other things, in the east. Surely there were exceptions to that rule though. 85.16.43.210 (talk) 17:45, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Otto Skorzeny:

In 1953, he was offered a job as a military advisor to Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, which he did not take up. He was an advisor to Argentinian president Juan Perón. In 1963, Skorzeny was allegedly recruited by the Mossad and conducted operations for the agency.

Several Palestinian refugees also received commando training, and Skorzeny planned their raids into Israel via the Gaza Strip in 1953–1954. One of these Palestinians was Yasser Arafat

There is some mentions to other activities and to other former Nazis working with him.

There is also the Colonia Dignidad in Chile.

--Error (talk) 20:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

"Korean obsession with relative age"

Paul Robinson's TV and the Failure of Russian Soft Power says:

So, yes, you can criticize the work of K-culture for being less than high art. If you like, you can call it pulp. But it's addictive, attractive pulp. And along the way, you get to pick up a lot of Korean culture - you learn some words, you discover lots of foods, you get to know the country's history, you pick up cultural quirks, such as Koreans' obsession with relative age, and so on.

I don't follow Korean culture, so I have no idea what is "Koreans' obsession with relative age". Is that a Korean version of the "Half-your-age-plus-seven" rule? Age disparity in sexual relationships has nothing about Korea. DuckDuckGo tells me about Korean obsessions with tallness, beauty and blepharoplasty but not with relative age. Can you tell me what Robinson means? --Error (talk) 19:55, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

See BBC - Where asking someone's age isn't rude. Alansplodge (talk) 23:49, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Thorough explanation. I don't remember seeing any of this in the Korean films I can call to mind (Parasites, Ode to My Father, The Handmaiden). It was maybe too subtle for me. --Error (talk) 00:12, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

As in Japan (and to a much lesser extent, China), age = rank. Yes, there are many other sources of rank, but all else being equal (it never is), the elder gets more respect than the younger. Hence, knowing someone's age helps with honorifics and other cultural signals. It's a Confucian thing. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:25, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Error -- There's some mention of Korea on article Senpai and kohai (mainly about Japan)... AnonMoos (talk) 02:29, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

What was Renoir’s first work acquired for a museum collection?

My notes say it was Lise (Lise – La femme à l'ombrelle, or Lise with a Parasol), which Karl Ernst Osthaus acquired in 1901 for the Museum Folkwang—just less than a decade before an American museum acquired their first Renoir. I don’t have any sources for this claim (I either lost them or misplaced them). If anyone has the answer, please share. Viriditas (talk) 23:13, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Just an (American) aside: According to this book, Madame Charpentier and Her Children was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1905; another source says 1907. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:53, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Bal du moulin de la Galette says that it became the property of the French Republic upon Gustave Caillebotte's death in 1894 and "From 1896 to 1929 the painting hung in the Musée du Luxembourg." Clarityfiend (talk) 23:59, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Young Girls at the Piano was completed in 1892 as an informal commission for the Musée du Luxembourg.[1] Clarityfiend (talk) 00:06, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. This makes a lot more sense. 1901 was far too late, and your research confirmed my suspicions. Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 00:11, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• I have (what I now realise is) a copy of La femme à l'ombrelle on my wall at home. Naturally, I always assumed it was the original, but reading the above I'm now terribly deflated. Thanks for nothing, Wikipedia. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:08, 18 February 2022 (UTC)