Von Neumann was ethnically Jewish and his relatives or friends literally went from respected citizens to extermination in unfathomably short order; so one would not be surprised if his calculus pertaining to collateral damage in decimating the Nazis would be rather unforgiving.
Definitely does not make for justification but I am helping us understand why [hopefully hyperbolic] comments of a political nature by Von Neumann [or other Jewish contemporaries] are often rather objectionable by universal or nominal moral standards.
