[squilliam]

German engineers during WWII seems to refute this claim. History shows that talented engineers drafted machines of mass murder with smile, as long as it would fund their departments and I'm sure there were other considerations in their decision to comply as well.

[petra]

Many world leading scientists fled Germany after 1933: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.2018092...

And 15% of the scientists that we're fired from universities were responsible for 64% of academic citations.

Also, many ways Germany had the inferior war technology and progress: encryption. nuclear. Soviet tanks we're better. Germany didn't have long range bombers. British anti-aircraft systems were better.

And all that from a country that led the world in science and engineering before WWII.

[hutzlibu]

"Also, many ways Germany had the inferior war technology and progress: encryption. nuclear. "

But superior in conventional warfare at the beginning of WW2. Stukas, tanks and infanterie well (radio) coordinated.

MG42, the basemodel is still in use as MG3 today

Also later: ME262 (first jet engine), STG44 (first assault rifle), V1 and V2 (rockets)

So given the size, german wartechnology was very advanced.

But it was because this was the sole focus of the ruling nazi party: war tech.

Basic university research is about anything and mostly civilian and the nazis were no academics: they cared about war technology and "scientific" proof, that the aryans are superior. So they did not feel the loss of the fleeing jewish based intellectuals so hard.

"And all that from a country that led the world in science and engineering before WWII."

And this statement is probably more likely true before WWI.

[unlinked_dll]

To the contrary, I'd argue that the expulsion of Jewish academics and their ultimate exodus or execution directly led to the Nazi's failure to develop atomic weapons.

As well there are notable examples of Germans who didn't build weapons "with a smile" for the Nazis, and the usage of slave labor in the war machine harmed their industrial capacity through sabotage.