There are probably a lot of Russians who fled to Germany after WWII only to end up in Huntsville, Al with a 9 year gap in their resume starting in 1941..., right?
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/russia-hitler-white-russian-emigres-and-german-soviet-war
Defeated by the Red Army in the Russian Civil War of 1918–20, the Whites spent the next two decades in exile in Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, and beyond, yearning to liberate Russia from what they saw as the godless rule of Jews and Bolsheviks. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, many Russians sought to join his forces, blind to the fact that he aimed not to liberate Russia but to subjugate it. The Nazi regime, in turn, regarded these Russians with suspicion and enlisted only a fraction of them, mostly as interpreters and civil engineers. The Whites refused to see their homeland as anything but a victim of communism or to admit that Red Army soldiers were defending their country against Nazi aggression.
https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Roots-Nazism-Socialism-1917-1945/dp/0521070058
This book examines the overlooked topic of the influence of anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic Russian exiles on Nazism. White émigrés contributed politically, financially, militarily, and ideologically to National Socialism. This work refutes the notion that Nazism developed as a peculiarly German phenomenon: it arose primarily from the cooperation between völkisch (nationalist/racist) Germans and vengeful White émigrés. From 1920–1923, Adolf Hitler collaborated with a conspiratorial far right German-White émigré organization, Aufbau (Reconstruction). Aufbau allied with Nazis to overthrow the German government and Bolshevik rule through terrorism and military-paramilitary schemes. This organization's warnings of the monstrous 'Jewish Bolshevik' peril helped to inspire Hitler to launch an invasion of the Soviet Union and to initiate the mass murder of European Jews. This book uses extensive archival materials from Germany and Russia, including recently declassified documents, and will prove invaluable reading for anyone interested in the international roots of National Socialism.wrote last edited by [email protected]Unless this book talks about Shpakovsky specifically - and I assume you'd have mentioned it if it did - this is not proof of anything at all. You cannot take, "a lot of Russians joined up with the Nazis after the October Revolution," to show that one specific guy was a Nazi; this is the ecological fallacy at best, even if we assume that most white emigres did that. Like, it would be absurd to call Alexander Kerensky a Nazi, and yet your logic here does exactly that.
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He blanked for nine years then very briefly surfaced in Germany before somehow coincidentally ending up in the same middle of nowhere town in the U.S. where the U.S. government hid other Nazis to avoid trial in exchange for expertise they could offer that they didn't want falling in the hands of the Soviet Union. Mainly to help further develop nuclear weapons and other atomic technology, but in general anything that they felt could give the U.S. and capitalism an advantage over the soviets and communism.
As I replied to you elsewhere, your own post does not say that he moved to Hunstville in 1951. Additonally, being a WWII refugee with useful skills is not an indicator of Naziism.
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Sure if you also ignore the fact we can't seem to account for what he actually did during the war or following the war before he suddenly pops up in this middle of nowhere town where the U.S. happened to be hiding other Nazis.
I would be very curious to read this report though if you can find it for me: Berezino district party committee report on the case of Ia. A. Shpakovskii, 24 May 1946
Bc it does seem that he was at least accused of Nazi collaboration at some point.
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So Hans Anatol von Spakovsky was an immigrant anchor baby?
More of a paperclip baby
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Sure if you also ignore the fact we can't seem to account for what he actually did during the war or following the war before he suddenly pops up in this middle of nowhere town where the U.S. happened to be hiding other Nazis.
I would be very curious to read this report though if you can find it for me: Berezino district party committee report on the case of Ia. A. Shpakovskii, 24 May 1946
Bc it does seem that he was at least accused of Nazi collaboration at some point.
wrote last edited by [email protected]He does not pop up in the middle of nowhere. As I have already said to you, your own post says he retires there after living in America for over a decade and working in Jacksonville,
FloridaAlabama (thanks to derfunkatron for the correction)Being unaccounted for in the middle of fucking WWII is not evidence that someone was an active Nazi
Is there any indication that that report is even about the guy we're talking about? What does the Ia stand for? Is there some evidence he was in Belarus?
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Not sure why most commenters are shitting on you. It is an interesting possibility. The apple not falling far from the tree is an expression for a reason.
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It's like saying the birthplace of antifascism was Fascist Germany or Italy... Like, yeah... It be like it do, because of how it did?
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Exactly my thought when I read that.
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Not sure why most commenters are shitting on you. It is an interesting possibility. The apple not falling far from the tree is an expression for a reason.
Yeah it's almost kinda weird how defensive people are getting with this.
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Not sure why most commenters are shitting on you. It is an interesting possibility. The apple not falling far from the tree is an expression for a reason.
Because they're making huge unfounded leaps of logic and then doing things like accusing people of defending Nazis for questioning the logic
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I read almost every reply. The general tone of responses are "you can't prove that so be quiet! Also I'm smarter than you"
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I read almost every reply. The general tone of responses are "you can't prove that so be quiet! Also I'm smarter than you"
That seems like a very uncharitable way to describe people pointing out that OP hasn't actually presented any evidence and has seemingly misread their own source. I think there needs to be something stronger than "was a Russian emigrant who was unaccounted for after the Axis invaded his home" to call someone a member of the Nazi party
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I read almost every reply. The general tone of responses are "you can't prove that so be quiet! Also I'm smarter than you"
Read through as well, it does seem like OP is wrong. Can't assume all anti-Communists are Nazis, and the records that do exist don't put him in suspicious places for the timeline. I can understand the desire to make connections to explain his son's views, though.
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wrote last edited by [email protected]
Idk that's why I would like to read the report. Maybe it was another Soviet Nazi with the same initials and last name.
Also, 1941-1950 is not the middle of WWII. Wtf was he doing between the time the war ended and the time he came to Florida (which is actually another location Von Braun was shuffled) and then Alabama? We have nothing except the word of his son, which has proven to be very unreliable testimony for most things, even while under oath.
But if you want to defend this random guy, who raised quite the piece of shit, be my guest. Not really my problem.
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Von Braun and his fellow German scientists were more progressive than the Americans there.
Most of the Americans there would have been fascist shit stains. But let's be very clear, there is no way in hell Von Braun deserves the title of more progressive than any other racist shit stain while hiding from justice after performing horrific Nazi experiments on human beings. A Nazi shit stain is a Nazi shit stain. It might not have been your intention, but it just really rubs me the wrong way to hear anybody try and paint this monster in any kind of positive light.
The reason he was hidden in Huntsville vs somewhere more progressive, is bc it was the middle of nowhere and the U.S. government wanted to keep him and the atomic technology he was helping to create, a secret. This is also why it would be a very strange coincidence for Von Spakovsky to end up in Huntsville of all places.
I don't believe a word his son says about him, but I'd love to read any info you may have found in addition to his son's rose colored memories.
I'm particularly interested in reading this report that is mentioned in a citation footnote from an article titled ‘What Did You Do during the War?’
Berezino district party committee report on the case of Ia. A. Shpakovskii, 24 May 1946
It might not have been your intention, but it just really rubs me the wrong way to hear anybody try and paint this monster in any kind of positive light.
Von Braun was a Nazi and likely committed war crimes, most likely the usage of forced labour. But ultimately he himself did not seem to hold the Nazi ideology that close to heart. He was especially alienated after his arrest by the Gestapo.
The man lacked principles, and seemed fine with using slave labour as long as he could play rocketman. A shitstain, sure. Nonetheless, he doesn't appear to have held any (strong) racial prejudices, afaik not even antisemitism or something.
What I was pointing out is that the shitstains in Alabama were even more racist than the former Nazi immigrants were. So even if Hans turned out to be a racist shitstain, that might not necessarily be because his dad was; it might also be caused by the racists that were around during his upbringing.
I'm not sure what that citation you mentioned contains, but the context it's used in makes it a little ambiguous:
Appealing to the authorities to reclaim property that people believed was unlawfully taken by local officials in the weeks right after the war was also dangerous. After all, investigations would ensue, which could backfire on those who had sought justice from the state. When F. Borisevich from Slutsk (eastern Belorussia) wrote a letter to Ponomarenko, complaining that NKVD officers had taken several of her possessions, among them money and clothes, the Slutsk authorities began to look into the issue. They found out that Borisevich’s husband had been arrested in 1937 and sentenced to forced labor. During the war, Borisevich had shared a house with two local policemen—one of them her grandson, who stole from “partisan and Jewish families.” Slutsk authorities concluded that she had acquired most of her possessions unlawfully during the war, and they decided to pass the case on to a higher court
So either dad did steal from partisans or Jews, or he was merely tried for doing so after seeking justice from authorities. The timeline is weird though, when would this case have taken place? In 1945 he had already left for Germany, so how was he tried by the Soviets? Or was he tried in his absence? Or is that citation referring to a different person?
Spakovsky ended up in Huntsville, likely to join the rest of the Germans who went there. He was a sociologist, not a rocket scientist, so maybe not a priority for operation Paperclip or something.
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Idk that's why I would like to read the report. Maybe it was another Soviet Nazi with the same initials and last name.
Also, 1941-1950 is not the middle of WWII. Wtf was he doing between the time the war ended and the time he came to Florida (which is actually another location Von Braun was shuffled) and then Alabama? We have nothing except the word of his son, which has proven to be very unreliable testimony for most things, even while under oath.
But if you want to defend this random guy, who raised quite the piece of shit, be my guest. Not really my problem.
It's not even the same initials, though‽ You haven't read the report, you don't know that it's even about the guy in question, and yet you're still leaning on it to say "it does seem that he was at least accused of Nazi collaboration at some point."
1941 is absolutely the middle of WWII and that's when he goes missing.
We have nothing except the word of his son, which has proven to be very unreliable testimony for most things, even while under oath.
We have nothing saying he's a Nazi in the first place!
I do not care about defending this guy. I know nothing about him, I haven't read his work. I care about opposing the flinging around of unjustified accusations of Naziism; that shit is serious and should be treated seriously. Insisting that someone was an actual member of the Nazi party on the "evidence" you have provided is playing directly into the hands of the fascists that whine that people on the left call everyone Nazis these days. You actually are doing that.
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You linked a source saying his mother was German, not that she was a Nazi.
I linked a source saying she was a German refugee from 1945 who emigrated to a township staffed full of Nazi emigres. Also, his father was White Russia - 100% a fascist.
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It's like saying the birthplace of antifascism was Fascist Germany or Italy... Like, yeah... It be like it do, because of how it did?
wrote last edited by [email protected]It’s like saying the birthplace of antifascism was Fascist Germany or Italy…
Post-WW1 Italy had one of the largest and most active Communist Parties in Europe. I don't think it is reasonable to say "Italians are just fascist because of where they grew up" when you've got an enormous contrary datapoint. Neither is it reasonable to say Alabama produces racists ex nihilo. In the case of Redstone Arsenal, the federal government effective created a Fascist Reservation System and cultivated European extremist refugees like it was some kind of political petri dish.
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You linked a source saying his mother was German, not that she was a Nazi.
I linked a source saying she was a German refugee from 1945 who emigrated to a township staffed full of Nazi emigres. Also, his father was White Russia - 100% a fascist.
They did not move straight to Huntsville.
It's also absolutely ridiculous to call all White emigres Nazis. Was Alexander Kerensky a Nazi?
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God this is fucking exhausting. Good thing this guy's not on trial and this is an Internet forum.
Sure thing chief. You're right it's ridiculous to think a criminal who completely changed the spelling of his birth name, might begin using his middle name as his first while escaping justice. It's ridiculous to think there's anything strange about this guy or his son. He's completely innocent. He was a great man and will forever be remembered as a totally normal guy that nobody should look into any further. He was so innocent of any wrong doings that I find it weird anyone would even suggest or think there's anything weird to even look into. Case closed. Congrassions.
