(Cold War) Politics makes strange bedfellows, indeed

American essayist Charles Dudley Warner once said "Politics makes strange bedfellows". The United States government was quite ambivalent towards former Nazis in the period after World War II, as highlighted in the book "Useful Enemies: John Demjanjuk and America's Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals".

Author Richard Rashke contends that the government found former Nazis useful in the struggle against Communism. Among the war criminals is John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian-American living in the Cleveland area who once worked as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Poland. Also discussed is German scientist Wernher von Braun, who helped produce V-2 rockets used against Great Britain during the War. Von Braun went on to receive the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service in 1959.