> German engineer
Why does von Braun get such a pass from his Nazi past? Because he was useful?
People who are extremely succesful in certain fields get an impressive amount of leeway to break every conventional rule, law or protocol.
Allowing nazis to clean up their past and work for NASA is not the only horrible things the US did during the war or immidietly after either...
Partly it's because his Operation Paperclip dossier was conveniently misplaced before it could be declassified.
Who knows what was in there? Not historians, that's who...
Source: https://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-330-def...
Plus, people-controversy is a topic that's actively avoided in writing for a lot of audiences, especially if it invites fault-spreading, like if it's going to end up as a big whataboutism-fest.
Difficult topic in its way. Including of course the WW2-and-prior way involving terrible aspects like forced labor working under him, etc. So, less of a defense of a person here and more of a guess about rationale in authorship.