It’s hard to imagine that the man responsible for the Nazi’s deadly V2 weapon was also
responsible for NASA’s majestic Saturn V rocket.
We have liftoff.
Liftoff on Apollo 11.
Wernher von Braun is one of the most CONTROVERSIAL scientists in history.
He wasn’t just any scientist at NASA.
He was THE scientist who got us to the moon.
So, how did the man who worked for Adolf Hitler become an American hero?
Werner von Braun was born on March 23, 1912 in the small town of in present-day Poland
which was then part of the German Empire.
(Prussia)
He came from a wealthy, aristocratic family.
When he was young, the Braun family settled in Berlin where his father worked at the Ministry
of the Interior.
His mother encouraged his curiosity by giving him a telescope when he was a teenager.
It helped fuel his interest in astronomy and space.
You’d think that as a rocket scientist he would have aced math and physics.
But he didn’t do all that well in school - at least not at first.
The turning point came when he read The Rocket into Planetary Space by rocket pioneer Hermann
Oberthand decided to apply himself to calculus and trigonometry so he could master the physics
of rocketry.
While studying mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, von Braun
joined an amateur rocket association and caught the attention of the German army which recognized
his talent.
They offered to finance his PhD research if he helped develop liquid-fuel rockets for
the military.
He got his doctorate in 1934, a year after Hitler came to power.
With war on Hitler’s mind, rocketry became a top priority for the German government.
And who better to lead the program than von Braun, whose ambitions were out of this world?
While a student, he attended a presentation by Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard, famous
for his hydrogen balloon flights.
Afterward, von Braun approached Piccard and said: "You know, I plan on traveling to the
Moon at some time."
Piccard is said to have responded with encouragement.
Although he would never go to space himself, von Braun is responsible for getting the first
humans to the moon on the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
At the time, the American public knew very little if anything about his past as a member
of the Nazi Party and an SS officer.
There is no existing photo of von Braun in which he can clearly be seen wearing his uniform.
The closest is this photo of him wearing the Nazi party badge on his suit lapel, although
even this isn’t all that clear.
The U.S. government largely hid his background until after his death.
He was among hundreds of German scientists, engineers, and technicians recruited as part
of “Operation Paperclip” at the end of WWII.
Although President Truman forbade recruiting Nazi members or supporters, U.S. intelligence
agencies eliminated or whitewashed incriminating evidence of possible war crimes from their
records.
Von Braun was the star recruit.
He was the brains behind the Nazi’s V2 ballistic missile – the first object to go into space
- defined as 62 vertical miles out or 100 km - and effectively launched the space age.
Von Braun led the team that developed the V2 at a secret laboratory at Peenemünde located
on a northern German island.
From there, they built and tested the rockets by launching them into the Baltic Sea.
The V in V2 stands for the German word Vergeltungswaffen which means “Vengeance”.
This was Vengeance Weapon Number 2.
V2s attacked Allied cities in retaliation for the Allied bombings against German cities.
They were used in the latter stages of the war and were a last-ditch effort by the Germans
to ward off defeat.
The V2 was a totally new kind of weapon.
It was the world's first large-scale liquid-propellant rocket.
Instead of weapons with 100 pounds of thrust, it had 55,000 pounds of thrust.
The Nazis launched over 3,000 V2s equipped with a one-ton warhead, targeting Western
Europe, mostly Britain and Belgium.
They flew at more than 3,000 miles an hour or 4,800 km/h and could reach London in five
minutes.
Because they came in at over three times the speed of sound, the V2 made absolutely no
sound until after it hit.
So, it crashed and exploded without warning and is estimated to have killed between 5,000
to 9,000 civilians and soldiers.
Yet more than twice as many people are believed to have died producing them.
The Nazis forced prisoners from concentration camps to build the rockets at the Mittelwerk
factory underneath a mountain in central Germany to avoid enemy air attacks.
Prisoners did 12 hours a day of backbreaking labor, pushing heavy equipment, in areas filled
with dust and noxious gasses from the blasting to widen the tunnels.
Conditions were far worse than depicted in this Nazi propaganda photo.
They slept in the tunnels they dug.
Their only toilets were oil barrels cut in half with boards over them.
Because there weren’t enough, many relieved themselves in the tunnels.
The stench was intolerable.
Starvation and poor hygiene exacerbated outbreaks of typhoid and tuberculosis.
The Nazis recruited prisoners who had technical skills such as welding to build the rockets.
Those accused of sabotaging their production were hanged from cranes above the rocket assembly
lines.
When von Braun was later asked by a reporter if he was aware of the slave labor that built
the V2s, he said:
“Well, you're misinformed.
The slave camp was about 400 miles from where I worked…I learned later on that there were
atrocities taking place there, but I was not involved in this whole operation…I have
nothing to hide, I have nothing to hide.”
However, historians are certain Wernher von Braun saw the horrific conditions with his
own eyes.
Michael J. Neufeld, author of the book Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War found
through his research that von Braun was in the tunnels at least a dozen times.
Neufeld said that when von Braun testified at a war crimes trial in West Germany in the
late sixties, he mentioned he’d been through the underground sleeping quarters.
Von Braun later claimed in interviews that he really had no choice but to join the Nazis.
Interviewer: I believe you were forced to join the Nazi party as I understand it?
Von Braun: No this isn’t quite right.
I got a letter one fine day which said, ‘We understand you would like to join the party’.
And here’s the application form.
But the circumstances were such that the message would have been very loud and clear had you
not sent it in.
He continued to stick to the line that he was simply a scientist who wanted to pursue
the noble goal of going into space.
He would later recall that he never liked Hitler, referring to him as “Hitler was
still only a pompous fool with a Charlie Chaplin mustache.”
He was also vocal about the fact that he was arrested by Nazi Germany’s secret police,
the Gestapo, in March 1944 after he went to a party and while drunk, allegedly said that
he foresaw the war ending badly for Germany.
This was akin to treason and he was imprisoned for about two weeks until Hitler’s men released
him to continue producing V2s.
The following year, in 1945, Germany surrendered.
Von Braun had been planning for the postwar era and went south to American-occupied territory
in the Alps, where he made the shrewd decision to surrender.
The Americans were more than happy to snap up the brilliant mind behind Germany’s advanced
military arsenal.
The US and the Soviet Union had never seen anything like it.
They captured many V2s for research to develop their own space programs, propelling the former
allies into an arms race in the fifties.
For fifteen years after the war, von Braun worked with the U.S. Army to develop ballistic
missiles and launch vehicles, first in Texas before stationing in Huntsville, Alabama.
While settled in America, he sailed to Europe in 1947 to bring back his bride.
He married his first cousin, Maria, in southeastern Germany.
He was 35, she was 18.
They had three children.
Here’s a model, my design for a four-stage orbital rocket ship.
He became one of the most prominent advocates of space exploration in the fifties and was
even featured in a Disney TV show on space travel.
In 1958, President Eisenhower created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NASA - a federal agency dedicated to space exploration.
The US didn’t want to fall behind the Soviets, who surprised everyone by launching Sputnik,
the world’s first artificial satellite and man-made object into Earth’s orbit in 1957.
The following year, America answered by putting its first satellite into space
Explorer is in orbit
Under the direction of von Braun and his team.
America’s ambitions would be even bigger.
President John F. Kennedy gave America the ultimate challenge.
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is
out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.
Von Braun became the chief architect of the Saturn V rocket that would propel Americans
to the lunar surface on July 20, 1969.
That’s one small step for man.
One giant leap for mankind.
Apollo 11 also fulfilled von Braun’s lifelong ambition.
Though, he would have loved to have gone to space himself.
In 1970, when he prepared to leave Huntsville to take a job with NASA in Washington, he
addressed a crowd and said:
“My friends, there was dancing in the streets of Huntsville when our first satellite orbited
earth.
There was dancing again when the first Americans landed on the moon.
I’d like to ask you, don’t hang up your dancing slippers.”
He left NASA two years later to work at a private aerospace manufacturing company.
He continued to work ever after being diagnosed with kidney cancer.
The cancer caught up with him and he was too ill to attend the White House when President
Gerald Ford awarded him the country’s highest science honor, the National Medal of Science
in 1975.
Two years later, on June 16, 1977, he died of cancer at a hospital in Alexandria, Virginia.
He was 65 years old.
Von Braun was known for two achievements that were polar opposites.
One was part of Hitler’s inhumanity – the other a giant leap for humanity.
It’s easy to label someone a hero or a villain, to see things as black and white.
But real life is complicated.
And so was von Braun.
What was clear is that above all else, von Braun loved space.
While a student, he read an article imagining a trip to the moon and recalled:
“It filled me with a romantic urge.
Interplanetary travel!
Here was a task worth dedicating one's life to.
Not just stare through a telescope at the Moon and the planets but to soar through the
heavens and actually explore the mysterious universe.
I knew how Columbus had felt.”
Von Braun achieved his dream because of his determination to master calculus and trigonometry
so he could understand the physics of rocketry.
If you’d like to improve your STEM skills, Brilliant is my go-to platform to improve
my critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
And, it’s FREE for you to try out.
I know my viewers love their Scientific Thinking course where you can explore the laws of physics
and the principles of engineering by learning as you play.
It’s super interactive.
There’s something for everyone on Brilliant - no matter your age or experience level.
You can start your Algebra journey with an introduction to variables and equations with
their pre-Algebra course.
Or begin your math journey by seeing fractions, percentages, and ratios in everyday contexts
with their Everyday Math course.
If you’re ever stuck on a problem, you can view the explanation for more.
Brilliant is FREE for you to try out if you head to my custom link: brilliant.org/newsthink
which is in my description.
And the first 200 people who sign up with my link will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual
Premium subscription which gives you access to all of their course offerings.
Thanks for watching.
For Newsthink, I’m Cindy Pom.