Engineer and rocket expert, born in Wyrzysk, Poland (formerly Wirsitz, Germany). Developer of the V-2 flying bomb that was deployed against Britain (1944), he was one of the most important of the German weapons specialists to work on rocketry and jet propulsion in the USA after the war. Hitler personally released him when he was imprisoned on espionage charges after refusing to co-operate with Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler's attempted takeover of the V-2 project. Von Braun never approved of the military use of the rocket and surrendered willingly to American troops (1945). Signing a one-year contract with the US Army, he was flown to America, where he eventually became technical director of the US Army Ordnance Guided Missile Project in Alabama (1950). He was chiefly responsible for the manufacture and launching of the first American artificial earth satellite, Explorer I (1958). As director of the Marshall Space Flight Center (196070), he developed the Saturn rocket for the Apollo 8 moon landing (1969). Good-looking and outgoing, he was occasionally the butt of both humorous and serious attacks aimed at the very notion of former German scientists working for the US space programme.
For other uses of "von Braun", see von Braun (disambiguation).Dr. Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977) was one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the United States.
Early life
Wernher von Braun was born in Wirsitz, Province of Posen (now Poland), second of 3 sons with an impressive pedigree. Upon Wernher von Braun's Lutheran confirmation, his mother gave him a telescope, and he discovered a passion for astronomy and the realm of space. They settled in Berlin where at first von Braun did not do well in physics and mathematics until he acquired a copy of the book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space) by rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth. One anecdote from this period is the time the 12-year-old von Braun, when inspired by speed records established by Max Valier and Fritz von Opel, caused a major disruption by firing off a toy wagon to which he had attached a number of firecrackers.
In 1930 von Braun attended the Berlin Institute of Technology where he joined the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR, the "Spaceflight Society") and assisted Oberth in liquid-fueled rocket motor tests.
German career
The rocketeer
While von Braun was working on his doctorate, an artillery captain, Walter Dornberger, arranged an Ordnance Department research grant for him, and von Braun then worked next to Dornberger's existing solid-fuel rocket test site at Kummersdorf. Wernher von Braun used Goddard's plans from various journals and incorporated them into building the A-4 series of rockets--better known as the V-2.. In 1963, von Braun reflected on the history of rocketry, and said of Goddard's work: "His rockets ... Goddard confirmed his work was used by von Braun when, after the war ended, Goddard inspected captured German V-2s, and recognized many components which he invented. This location was chosen partly on the recommendation of von Braun's mother, who recalled her father's duck-hunting expeditions there. Dornberger became military commander at Peenemünde and von Braun was technical director.
In November 1937 (other sources: December 1, 1932) von Braun joined the Nazi Party. An OMGUS (Office of the Military Government - United States) document dated April 23, 1947 states that von Braun joined the SS (Schutzstaffel) horseback riding school in 1933, then the Nazi Party on May 1, 1937 and became an officer in the SS from May 1940 to the end of the war.
Amongst his comments about his Nazi membership von Braun has said:
"I was officially demanded to join the National Socialist Party. Also, the assertion that persons in von Braun's position were pressured to join the Nazi party, let alone the SS, have been disputed. Von Braun admitted visiting the plant at Mittelwerk on many occasions, and called conditions at the plant "repulsive", but claimed never to have witnessed firsthand any deaths or beatings, although it became clear to him that deaths had occurred by 1944 . Wernher von Braun also saw everything that went on every day. Wernher von Braun never once protested against this cruelty and brutality."
and
"On a little area beside the clinic shack you could see piles of prisoners every day who had not survived the workload and had been tortured to death by the vindictive guards. Wernher von Braun just walked past them, so close that he almost touched the bodies." (Ref 6)
On August 15, 1944, von Braun wrote a letter (Ref 7) to Albin Sawatzki, manager of the V-2 production, admitting that he personally picked labor slaves from the Buchenwald concentration camp, who, he admitted 25 years later in an interview, had been in a "pitiful shape".
In Wernher von Braun: Crusader for Space numerous quotes from von Braun show he was aware of the conditions, but felt completely unable to change them. From a visit to Mittelwerk, von Braun is quoted by a friend:
"It is hellish. (Page 44)
Arrest by the Nazi regime
There are three different versions of von Braun's arrest. Himmler called von Braun, an SS officer, to come to his Hochwald HQ in East Prussia sometime in February 1944. He therefore recommended that von Braun work more closely with Kammler to solve the problems of the V-2, but von Braun claimed to have replied that the problems were merely technical and he was confident that they would be solved with Dornberger's assistance.
Apparently von Braun had been under SD surveillance since October 1943 and a report on him and his colleagues Riedel and Gröttrup was being prepared. In it von Braun and his colleagues were said to have expressed regret at an engineer's house one evening that they were not working on a spaceship and that they felt the war was not going well (a 'defeatist' attitude). A young female dentist later denounced them for their comments and, combined with Himmler's false charges that von Braun was a Communist sympathizer and had attempted to sabotage the V-2 program, this led to his arrest. Kammler, highly dedicated to Himmler, was also instrumental in von Braun's arrest by the Gestapo.
The unsuspecting von Braun was arrested on March 22 (or March 14) 1944 and was taken to a Gestapo cell in Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland), where he was imprisoned for two weeks without knowing the charges leveled against him. It was only through the Abwehr in Berlin that Dornberger was able to obtain von Braun's conditional release and Albert Speer, Reichsminister for Munitions and War Production, convinced Hitler to release von Braun so that the V-2 program could continue.
Surrender to the Americans
The Soviet Army was about 160 km from Peenemünde in the spring of 1945 when von Braun assembled his planning staff and asked them to decide how and to whom they should surrender. Afraid of the Soviet cruelty to prisoners of war, von Braun and his staff decided to try to surrender to the Americans. After using forged papers to steal a train, von Braun led 500 people through war-torn Germany toward the American lines. Upon finding an American private, von Braun's brother and fellow rocket engineer, Magnus, greeted him with the words "My name is Magnus von Braun. Much of von Braun's production team, however, was captured by the Russians.
American career
U.S. Army career
On June 20, 1945, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull approved the transfer of von Braun and his specialists to America. Since the paperwork of those Germans selected for transfer to the United States was indicated by paperclips, von Braun and his colleagues became part of the mission known as Operation Paperclip, an operation that resulted in the employment of many German scientists who were formerly considered as war criminals or security threats (like von Braun) by the U.S. Army
The first seven technicians arrived in the United States at New Castle Army Air Base, just south of Wilmington, Delaware, on September 20, 1945. Later, with the exception of von Braun, the men were transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland to sort out the Peenemünde documents.
Finally, von Braun and his remaining Peenemünde staff were transferred to their new home at Fort Bliss, Texas, a large Army installation just north of El Paso. Since they were not permitted to leave Fort Bliss without military escort, von Braun and his colleagues began to refer to themselves only half-jokingly as "PoPs", "Prisoners of Peace".
During his stay at Fort Bliss von Braun mailed a marriage proposal to his first cousin, 18-year-old Maria von Quistorp. In total, the von Brauns had three children: Iris, Margrit and Peter.
In 1950, von Braun and his team were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, his home for the next twenty years. Between 1950 and 1956, von Braun led the Army's rocket development team at Redstone Arsenal, resulting in the Redstone rocket. In 1955 von Braun became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Still dreaming of a world in which rockets would be used for space exploration, in 1952 von Braun published his concept of a space station in a Collier's Weekly magazine series of articles entitled Man Will Conquer Space Soon! These articles were illustrated by the space artist Chesley Bonestell and were influential in spreading his ideas. In the hope that its involvement would bring about greater public interest in the future of the space program, von Braun also began working with the Disney studios as a technical director, initially for three television films about space exploration.
As Director of the Development Operations Division of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), von Braun's team then developed the Jupiter-C, a modified Redstone rocket.
Despite the work on the Redstone rocket, the twelve years from 1945 to 1957 were probably some of the most frustrating for von Braun and his colleagues. In the Soviet Union Sergei Korolev and his team plowed ahead with several new rocket designs and the Sputnik program, while the American government was not very interested in von Braun's work or views and only embarked on a very modest rocket-building program. In the meantime the press tended to dwell on von Braun's past as a member of the SS and the slave labor used to build his V-2 rockets. After the U.S. Navy's attempt at building a rocket to lift satellites into orbit resulted in the very unreliable Vanguard, American authorities recognized they needed von Braun and his team's experience, so quickly had them transferred to NASA. Two years later NASA opened the new Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and transferred von Braun and his development team there from the ABMA at Redstone Arsenal. Presiding from July 1960 to February 1970, von Braun became the Center's first Director. Wernher von Braun's dream to help mankind set foot on the Moon became a reality on July 16, 1969 when a Marshall-developed Saturn V rocket launched the crew of Apollo 11 at the start of its historic eight-day mission. At the time of the first moon-landing von Braun publicly expressed his optimism that the Saturn rocket would continue to be developed, advocating manned missions to Mars in the 1980s based on the Saturn V.
During the late 1960s, von Braun played an instrumental role in the development of the U.S. Space &
In 1970, von Braun and his family relocated from Huntsville to Washington, D.C. However, with the truncation of the Apollo program, von Braun retired from NASA in June 1972, as it became evident that his and NASA's visions for future U.S. space flight projects were different.
Career after NASA
After leaving NASA, von Braun became a vice-president of Fairchild Industries in Germantown, Maryland, where he helped establish and promote the National Space Institute, a precursor of the present-day National Space Society. Von Braun was eager to cultivate interest in human spaceflight and rocketry particularly with students and a new generation of engineers. On one such visit to a small college in Pennsylvania in 1974, Von Braun revealed a more personal, down-to-earth side of himself as a man in his early 60's, beyond the public persona most saw, including an all-too-human allergy to feather pillows and a subtle, if not humorous disdain for some rock music of the era.
In 1976 von Braun learned he had cancer. On June 16, 1977, Wernher von Braun died in Alexandria, Virginia at the age of 65.
Honors
National Medal of Science in 1975Posthumous recognition
Apollo space program director Sam Phillips was quoted as saying that he did not think that America would have reached the moon as quickly as it did without von Braun's help. The von Braun crater on the moon was so named by the IAU in recognition of von Braun's contribution to space exploration and technology. The Von Braun Civic Center (built 1975) is named in von Braun's honor.Cultural references
On film and television
Wernher von Braun has been featured in a number of movies and television shows or series about the Space Race:
I Aim at the Stars (1960), also titled Wernher von Braun and Ich greife nach den Sternen ("I reach for the stars"): von Braun played by Curd Jürgens). Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964): Dr Strangelove is usually held to be based at least partly on von Braun. Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmare) (1977): Director and star Kidlat Tahimik is president of a Wernher von Braun club and is fascinated with "First World" progress, particularly von Braun's efforts in the U.S. space program. Mobile Suit Gundam (1979): The largest Lunar city in the Universal Century era is called 'Von Braun City'. The Right Stuff (1983): The Chief Scientist, played by Scott Beach, was clearly modeled on von Braun. From the Earth to the Moon (TV, 1998): von Braun played by Norbert Weisser. October Sky (1999): In this film about American rocket scientist Homer Hickam, who as a teenager admired von Braun, the scientist is played by Joe Digaetano. Space Race (TV, BBC co-production with NDR (Germany), Channel One TV (Russia) and National Geographic TV (USA), 2005): von Braun played by Richard Dillane. Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965, directed by Jean-Luc Godard): Howard Vernon plays Professor Von Braun (also known as Leonard Nosferatu), the inventor of the "Alpha 60" super-computer which rules Alphaville. Additionally, the character Wernher Locksmith, the director of the mission, is possibly based on von Braun. The West Wing (2005): President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen) tells Leo McGarry (John Spencer) that "Wernher von Braun called his autobiography I Aim for the Stars, he should have added "...only sometimes I hit London", in reference to the Mort Sahl quotation. It was a satire on what some saw as von Braun's cavalier attitude toward the consequences of his work: "'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? / That's not my department', says Wernher von Braun."
User Comments Add a comment…