'Patriot' .. isn't that the name of a missile ?

Earlier this week the press was getting it’s knickers in a twist about a town in Germany which wants to name a school after Klaus Riedel, a scientist who was involved in the development of the V2 rockets which rained down on Britain towards the end of World War II.

It seems that Riedel was not a Nazi, but a scientist and engineer of exceptional talent, and although his work led to the deaths of thousands of people, I suppose that it could be said that he was just doing his ‘patriotic duty’.

What I find strange is that in this country few people protest about the hundreds of streets, buildings, schools etc. which are named after some of the biggest mass killers in history, along with the statues and monuments which glorify the the kings, generals, field marshals and assorted adventurers who slaughtered millions on the battlefields of Europe and during the process of building and defending the British Empire. I suppose that they were also just doing their ‘patriotic duty’.

One of Riedel’s wartime colleagues who became a bit of a ‘hero’ in the USA, being awarded the National Medal of Science, was ex-Nazi Party member and SS Sturmbannfüehrer Wernher von Braun, who having admitted to using slave labour to build his ‘terror weapons’, was snapped up by the Americans and whisked off to the United States to continue his research into rockets that could now be used to kill Russians should the ‘Cold War’ ever hot up. He later became an American citizen and a very ‘big shot’ in the NASA space programme: and guess what ? … those ‘good ole’ boys’ down in Huntsville, Alabama  named a multipurpose indoor arena after him … Sounds like a good place to hold one of those …

…   old time ‘patriotic’ rallies.