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Worcester Polytechnic Institute

December 2011

Wernher von Braun: An Ethical Analysis

Joshua Richard Trudeau

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Crowley, I. F., & Trudeau, J. R. (2011). Wernher von Braun: An Ethical Analysis. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/iqp-
all/2342

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 WPI

Wernher von Braun

Ian F. Crowley

Joshua R. Trudeau

12/20/2011
Table of Contents

I. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 2
II. Biography........................................................................................................................................... 4
1. Family Background ....................................................................................................................... 4
2. Early Life ........................................................................................................................................ 8
3. Life in Germany ........................................................................................................................... 10
4. Life in America ............................................................................................................................. 12
III. Nazi Research and the V-2 Program........................................................................................... 17
1. Nazi Membership ........................................................................................................................ 17
2. V-2 Program ................................................................................................................................. 20
3. Mittelwerk Slave Labor ............................................................................................................... 25
IV. The United States, Operation Paperclip and Nazi Engineering ................................................ 28
1. Operation Overcast...................................................................................................................... 28
2. Public Opinion of Wernher von Braun ....................................................................................... 31
3. World War II, US War with Japan ............................................................................................... 32
4. Cold War ...................................................................................................................................... 33
5. US Space Race .............................................................................................................................. 34
V. Conclusion....................................................................................................................................... 38
Appendix: Views of Wernher von Braun .......................................................................................... 42
1. Michael J. Neufeld ........................................................................................................................ 42
2. Pro-von Braun Authors ............................................................................................................... 43
3. Anti-von Braun Authors .............................................................................................................. 44
4. Film and Television ..................................................................................................................... 45
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................ 48

1
I. Introduction

Few figures in recent history inspire as vigorous ethical debate as Wernher von Braun, the

architect of both the Nazi V-2 missile program and later the United States Saturn V missile program.

Rarely can a figure so easily be argued to lie on either side of the ethical divide; an active participant

in one of history’s most reviled regimes on the one hand and the vaunted hero of America’s victory

in the space race on the other. The advances he made in rocket technology are responsible for the

deaths of over 7,000 people in V-2 attacks, and are implicated in the deaths of 12,000 more forced

laborers, through his overseeing the building of more than 3000 missiles. On the other hand, he is

also largely responsible for the placement of the first men on the moon, one of mankind’s greatest

technological achievements. Reconciling these two diametrically opposed extremes in one man is a

difficulty which has fuelled debate for at least 50 years. Writers on each side find reasons to either

condemn von Braun as a willing Nazi and a villain, or to praise him as an American and engineering

hero. Neither of these polar viewpoints, however, treats the subject with the nuance and objective

discussion required by the study of a real human being. The study of Wernher von Braun and his

work with the Nazis tells of a man so focused on his single-minded goal of human spaceflight he is

willing to work for whoever will provide the support and funding to further this aspiration, no

matter the human and moral cost, but who finds a measure of redemption in ushering in the space

age.

More important than the debate between those for and those against von Braun is a deeper

ethical problem. At its heart, it comes down, on the one hand, to the responsibility of a nation to

look out for itself and its people, advancing interests which may be very much at odds with those of

competing nations. This responsibility to look out for a nation’s own interests often clashes with its

moral responsibilities, with arguably immoral acts being committed for the greater good. On the

other hand lies the responsibility of the individual to balance the advancement of human

2
technology and knowledge with the protection of human rights and the prevention of harm to other

people which may result from his work. Our analysis in this interactive qualifying project (IQP) will

focus largely on these two points.

We will first discuss Wernher von Braun the engineer, who was filled with a passion for

rocketry and manned spaceflight from a very early age, but whose zeal for this goal blinded him to

his moral responsibilities. In order to fund and further his rocketry, he was willing to work with the

Nazis, who were all too happy to use his revolutionary rockets as the first ballistic missiles to be

used in war, killing thousands in Britain, thousands in Belgium, and thousands more through forced

slave labor in Germany. His tendency to ignore the plight of the victims of the Holocaust and even

to use their labor, whether it was his choice or not, has forever tainted what is otherwise

undoubtedly a lifetime of amazing engineering feats. His postwar work for the United States in the

Cold War space race again represented his ability to attach himself to whatever political cause or

entity was willing to fund his research. It is perhaps through sheer chance that his new patrons

were on firmer moral footing than the old.

Second, we will look at the role of the United States and its agenda, responsibilities, moral

failures and possible justifications thereof. Despite the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust,

by the early 50s the United States was in a growing stand-off with its erstwhile ally of convenience,

the USSR, and was willing to forget the past injustices committed by Nazi scientists and engineers in

exchange for an advantage in its new rivalry. Wernher von Braun, then, represented a trump card

which the United States could not afford to ignore and was eagerly obtained and employed in the

Saturn rocket program. The conflict between the desire for justice and the need for skilled

engineers for the Cold War was ultimately decided in favor of acquiring an advantage against the

Soviets, a decision which has been questioned by many ever since it was made public.

3
II. Biography

1. Family Background

Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun was born on March 23rd, 1912 to Magnus

Freiherr and Emmy von Braun. He was born in what was then Wirsitz, in the province of Posen, in

the German Empire, but what is now, since the end of the Second World War, Wyrzysk, Poland.

Both of his parents came from the landed “Junker” Prussian aristocracy. The von Braun family

traced itself back to at least 1285 in Silesia, and in 1573, the von Brauns were made

Reichsfreiherren (roughly, Barons) by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II for their success as

military commanders. His more recent von Braun ancestors were located in East Prussia, where

they were wealthy landowners in Neucken, south of Königsberg. It was at this estate in Neucken

which Wernher's father Magnus von Braun was born (in February, 1878) and raised. Magnus’

father Maximilian was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Prussian military, and had inherited the von

Braun estate due to the deaths of his three brothers, also Prussian officers, in the Austro-Prussian

War of 1866. Prussian military values were therefore a large part of the von Braun identity, like

those of many of the families whom made up the Prussian aristocracy. With this focus on military

participation also came a devotion to the Prussian leadership in the Hohenzollern dynasty, who by

Magnus’ birth were not only Kings of Prussia, but also the emperors of a new German Kaiserreich

(Neufeld 8).

The youngest of five siblings, and therefore with little chance of inheriting the family estate,

Magnus von Braun joined the Prussian civil service, after brief military service that saw him

promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the army reserve. He served in a variety of low-level, often

unpaid positions before being appointed adjutant to the minister of the Prussian Trade Ministry in

Berlin. It was there that he met Emmy von Quistorp, whom he married less than a year after

meeting. The von Quistorps were part of the same Junker aristocracy to which Magnus belonged,

4
though they were ennobled much more recently, being raised to the aristocracy in 1782 by the

Austrian emperor (Neufeld 11).

In 1911, Magnus von Braun was appointed County Commissioner in the town of Wirsitz. It

was in Wirsitz that Wernher was born, and it was there that the family lived when the First World

War broke out on July 29th, 1914. Like those of many people across Europe and the colonial world,

the life of the von Braun family was thrown into upheaval by the war. Magnus remained in Wirsitz,

where he oversaw mobilization of the local army, and kept the children with him. Emmy, however,

travelled to Berlin, bringing with her the town’s savings and financial documents to be stored safely

in the capital (Neufeld 13). For periods during 1914 Wirsitz was dangerously close to areas

occupied by the Russian invading forces, but Magnus remained in Wirsitz, and the Russians were

ultimately driven back. In 1915, Magnus was made an adjutant in the Reich interior office in Berlin,

but remained County Commissioner in Wirsitz, and commuted back and forth between the two

posts for the next two years. In 1917 Magnus was appointed Press Secretary for the newly

appointed Chancellor, Georg Michaelis. Michaelis’ stint in office was extremely short lived and

unsuccessful, though, and both he and Magnus were forced to resign mere months later (Neufeld

14). Magnus was called up from the army reserves, presumably as a result of this embarrassing

removal from office, and was made administrator in Lithuania and Poland, which were under

German occupation. After Magnus was removed from office in Berlin and through most of 1918,

Emmy and the children stayed in Crenzow at the estate of her brother, who was a prisoner of the

British. As a result, for much of the war, the children saw their father very little, though they

themselves were insulated from most of the pain the lower classes went through at the time.

Victory on the Eastern Front and the collapse of Tsarist Russia saw Magnus’ fortunes improve

again, but this was short-lived. Victory in the east was followed by defeat in the west and with it the

dismantling of the German government and the Prussian bureaucracy to which he owed his career.

After the war, Magnus held a handful of different positions in and out of Berlin, but ultimately his

5
conservative politics proved unpopular with the now socialist-controlled Prussian Parliament, and

he was appointed Regierungspräsident in Gumbinnen, East Prussia in order to remove him from

political life (Neufeld 15).

On March 13, 1920 the government was taken over in a coup by conservative monarchists

in what is now known as the Kapp Putsch, when General Walther von Lüttwitz ordered the

MarinebrigadeEhrhardt to occupy Berlin, removing the existing government and naming Wolfgang

Kapp, an elderly Prussian civil servant, as Chancellor. This coup occurred in direct response to the

forced dismantling of much of the military strength of the German Empire under the Versailles

Treaty, and its members were largely of the Prussian military class, whose devotion to the

monarchy and fierce nationalism had not faded in the year and a half since the end of hostilities.

Upon announcement of the new government, the governor of East Prussia publicly recognized and

supported the coup, and Magnus von Braun quickly followed suit. They were two of the very few

officials who publically supported the coup, and this tied their fates to that of Kapp and the other

conspirators. When the coup failed after only four days, Magnus was removed from office and put

under investigation. Though he was not tried for treason, unlike some who participated in the

putsch, this ended his political career for much of the Weimar Republic (Neufeld 18-19; Wikipedia,

Wolfgang Kapp).

In 1932, under pressure from extreme paramilitary organizations on both the left and right,

Weimar President Hindenburg appointed the conservative Franz von Papen as Chancellor, ordering

the formation of a far-right cabinet which would help bring the Nazis into government participation

in a bid to add to Hindenburg's political base (Neufeld 56). Magnus von Braun was invited into the

cabinet, which was made up of like-minded right-wing Prussian Junkers, much more dedicated to

the Kaiserreich's conservative politics than those of the Nazis. Magnus was therefore an active

member in the unconstitutional actions of the Papen government which were largely responsible

6
for the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, such as the consolidation of the Prussian government

under the control of the Chancellor and his council. Eventually, further attempts to bring the Nazis

into power in an ill-thought-out attempt to shore up the old right led to Hitler's Chancellorship and

the cabinet was dissolved. Though Magnus von Braun's political loyalty belonged to the German

Reich and the days of the Kaiser, his and his contemporaries' attempts to widen their base through

alliance with the Nazis would usher in the Third Reich. Although Magnus was, by his and his sons'

accounts, opposed to much of what Hitler and his Nazis stood for, he was all too willing to work

with and assist them to further his own agenda. By his own account, had he been given the chance,

he would have continued in his role in the cabinet under Hitler (Neufeld 60). This willingness to

work with the Nazis despite not being an ardent party member was something which was echoed in

the life of his son.

Magnus von Braun was the primary source of much of his son's political views. Throughout

Wernher’s young life, Magnus was an ardent conservative, a devout monarchist, and a Prussian

elitist. Though his support was firmly behind the Hohenzollern monarchy, he was more broadly

opposed to democracy in general, especially the socialist-controlled democracy of the Weimar

Republic. Michael Neufeld quotes Magnus saying, as late as the 1960s while living in America, “This

democracy thing is just a passing fad” (Neufeld 10). Wernher was very much raised in an

atmosphere of aristocracy and yearning for the state of things in the Empire, as well as of intense

frustration with the loss of German face, power, and the instability that democracy brought with it.

The fact that his family’s status and comfort were directly negatively impacted by the Weimar

republic and its left-wing policies surely impacted the young von Braun. At the very least, his

ambivalence towards the destruction of the Republic by the Nazis he would later work for was

influenced strongly by this familial background.

7
 Though he obtained his conservative, nationalist political views from his father, it was his

mother and her family to whom von Braun owed his interest in the natural sciences and, of course,

astronomy. His grandfather Wernher von Quistorp, in addition to serving in the Prussian cavalry

and embracing his role as an estate holder, also followed in the Quistorp family tradition of

intellectualism (prior to the addition of the “von” to their name, the Quistorps were well known as

“theologians, university professors, and merchants” (Neufeld 11). Wernher von Quistorp obtained

a doctorate in law as well as pursuing a lifelong love of ornithology, and was in personal

correspondence with many leading ornithologists of the time. As a girl, she often assisted with her

father’s ornithological pursuits, as well as pursuing her own interests in natural science, biology,

and astronomy. Emmy, therefore, was raised in a setting wherein love of science was nourished

and attempted to create a similar setting for her sons (Neufeld 12).

2. Early Life

From a young age von Braun had a passion for the natural sciences, a passion which was stoked

by his mother, Emmy. In 1925, for his Lutheran confirmation, his mother gave him a telescope

instead of the gold pocket watch traditional for those in his class. The gift was a huge hit, inspiring

a love of astronomy in the young Wernher which would last a lifetime (Neufeld 21-22). Despite this

inspiration, he later had great difficulty in math and physics while attending the French

Gymnasium. In an attempt to focus his restless energy, his parents enrolled him in the Hermann-

Lietz-Internat school on a sandy North Sea island. It was here that he received a copy of Die Rakete

zu den Planetenräumen by Hermann Oberth, which ignited his interest in rocketry, a passion which

came to define his life. Previously, mathematics and physics had not interested him, but now he

suddenly found them necessary to understand the language of rocketry. “Opening [Oberth’s

treatise] I was aghast”, said von Braun, according to a popular anecdote originating in a 1958

interview. “Its pages were a hash of mathematical formulas. It was gibberish. I rushed to my

8
teachers. ‘How can I understand what this man is saying?’, I demanded. They told me to study

mathematics and physics, my two worst courses” (Neufeld 24). From this point on, he excelled in

these two subjects, eventually advancing past his peers, in math especially. Oberth’s writings were

a huge inspiration to von Braun. Not only was Oberth a leading proponent of the possibility of

using rockets to reach space, he also introduced von Braun to the idea of rockets delivering

explosive or poison gas payloads to enemy cities in future wars. Though von Braun's own writings

at the time focused on civilian uses for the technology, he was not opposed to the idea of their

military use (Neufeld 34). It was also at the Lietz School that von Braun first showed the leadership

skills which would prove vital in his later life. As he focused on math and began to advance past the

other students, he was asked to fill in for a sick professor and began teaching the math class of the

students a year above him. “Suddenly it became my responsibility to see that every classmate

should get a passing mark”, he would later say (Neufeld 35). That he excelled in this role is perhaps

no surprise, given his later achievements.

After he graduated from the Lietz School in 1930, he moved back to Berlin to attend the

Technische Hochschule (then called the Berlin-Charlottenburg Institute of Technology) for a degree

in mechanical engineering, as it was the closest then offered to aeronautics. Though he had become

a member of the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (Spaceflight Society) while attending the Lietz School,

he became a more active participant at this point. Much of the earlier rocketry craze had petered

out just before von Braun’s return to Berlin, and the leading rocketry journal was closed due to lack

of funds. As the lack of funding became a more general issue for the field, some of the society,

including von Braun, turned to government funding, primarily from the military. Thanks to rockets

being one of a small number of areas of military research allowed by the Versailles Treaty, the

desired funding was readily found. At this point, however, von Braun was simply a young man on

the sidelines of the society, helping clean up, when not studying. Even then, though, he impressed

most of those associated with him with his zeal and optimistic energy (Neufeld 43).

9
 After only a semester, von Braun transferred to the Federal Technical University in Zurich, but

transferred back to Berlin to continue the degree after another semester. While he was away, the

Rocket Society successfully tested a liquid-fuelled rocket von Braun had assisted with. Upon his

return, he continued assisting with the rocketry work as much as possible. Up to this point, though,

the military funding was for the work of others, with von Braun merely an assistant (Neufeld 44-

50).

3. Life in Germany

In 1932, von Braun began a secret doctoral dissertation for the army, at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-

Universität in Berlin. Much of his doctoral work, which focused on liquid-fuelled rocket systems,

was kept secret until 1960. While von Braun was working on his doctorate, Hitler became

chancellor of Germany, marking the rise of the Nazi Party. As a result, the political and military

climate in 1934 when he graduated was very different from that when he began the degree

(Neufeld 55, 56).

Under the Nazis, civilian rocket tests were outlawed, and the only avenue open to German

rocketry researchers was either to leave the country to pursue their work or to work for the

military. Wernher von Braun chose the second of the two options, working for the Army at the

existing rocket fuel test site at Kummendorf and helping found the Army Rocket Center in

Peenemünde. In 1937 he joined the National Socialist Party and in 1940 the Waffen SS, later

claiming it was officially demanded of him, an explanation some dispute (Neufeld 50-60).

While working as director of the Army Rocket Center, von Braun famously directed the A-4

(later V-2) liquid-fueled rocket project, which would become the first working ballistic missile used

in warfare and is considered the precursor to all modern rockets. The A-4 was also the first man-

10
made object to reach space, when a prototype reached an altitude of 200km in 1942 (Neufeld 60-

70, Wikipedia “V-2”).

During the production of the V-2 rocket, prisoners from the concentration camp Mittelbau were

used as slave labor under horrific conditions, a fact of which he was admittedly aware, though he

later claimed not to be responsible for their use, stating that he felt powerless to prevent it. Some

prisoners later claimed to have witnessed a closer involvement with Mittelbrau than von Braun

would ever admit. According to official SS documents, as many as 12,000 slave laborers died during

the production of the V-2 (Neufeld 150-170).

In 1944 von Braun was arrested by the Gestapo, following a year of surveillance by the

Sicherheitsdienst, during which he was overheard telling colleagues that he saw no possibility of

victory in the war. In addition to this lack of faith in the war effort, it has been suggested that

Himmler was looking for an excuse to get rid of von Braun after he resisted Himmler’s attempts to

gain more control over the rocket program by planting his own people in key positions (Neufeld

170-175, Wikipedia “Wernher von Braun”).

In 1945, after the downturn in the fortunes of the Nazi war effort and especially after his arrest

and interrogation by the Gestapo, von Braun became thoroughly disillusioned with the regime. Due

to this change of heart, he arranged to be captured by the invading Americans, using his importance

to German rocketry to avoid harsh treatment and retribution for his work on the V-2 program.

11
4. Life in America

As the war neared its end, the allies moved ever deeper into Germany and von Braun and

his fellow German scientists were ordered to move to southern Germany as a precaution. It was

here that he suggested they should surrender to the American forces. It seemed to him the

opportune time to do so, as Hitler’s death had freed them from any potential obligation they may

have felt toward the Nazi party. He also believed that they would be found soon anyway, and was

afraid that if the Soviet army found them first, they would not be treated kindly due to the horrible

treatment the Russian prisoners at Dora had received (Neufeld 204). It was von Braun’s younger

brother Magnus who was sent to make the initial contact with the American forces. Although the

Americans were skeptical, he knew the location of Wernher von Braun as well as other key

scientists that they were on the lookout for. As a result they allowed him to go with the promise

that he would return with them as he claimed. Magnus von Braun returned with Wernher von

Braun leading an advance team of seven scientists. Two of the scientists had buried the archive of

rocket research before they left, in the hope that they could use it to bargain with the American

forces

When Wernher von Braun arrived to meet the American forces, he was treated very well, as

he had been on the list of scientists the Americans wanted to interview. His name had been known

to the British intelligence since 1943, Russian NKVD since 1935 and the United States’ intelligence

since 1944 (Neufeld 202). When they left Germany, von Braun and his advance party of seven had

left several thousand of their fellow scientists, as well as most of their families, behind. At the time

of his departure there were no working organized communication services and it was not until nine

months later that von Braun got word that his parents were alive and it would be a year from his

departure before he would be able to see them again.

12
 After Wernher von Braun and his advance team of scientists were captured, they were

processed as part of the American program Operation Overcast, he was appointed his team’s

spokesperson because he spoke the best English (Neufeld 203). The purpose of the program was to

acquire German technology and expertise through the exploitation of Nazi scientists at the end of

the war. It was also often referred to as Project Paperclip because paperclips were used to mark the

files of the candidates that were selected to work for the US. Initially the intent was just to

interview the scientists. However, upon hearing their interviews, American officials deemed their

recruitment by the United States a necessity, specifically citing their potential importance in the

Pacific war effort (Wikipedia “Operation Paperclip”). It was also clear to the people who conducted

the interviews that von Braun and others from his group held some racist views. However, of the

entire advance party of scientists, he was ranked as one of the scientists who were most adaptable

to the American lifestyle (Neufeld 204). Finally, Wernher von Braun got his chance to present his

ideas to two British CIOS investigators in a memorandum: “Survey of Development of Liquid

Rockets in Germany and Their Future Prospects” (Neufeld 204). In it, he stated that the V-2 rocket

was just an intermediate step and that the study of rockets had considerable potential for both

military and civilian applications. Lastly, he discussed the use of rockets for space travel. What the

allied forces had learned from the war, if nothing else, was that the key to future military power lay

with advanced technology (Neufeld 206). They saw this as a chance to use German scientists to

further this goal for both the short term and the long term.

Wernher von Braun was then told to acquire and assemble 100 V-2 rockets; with the help of

the American forces he was able to accomplish this before the Soviet forces found Peenemünde. It

was around this time that the United States forces found the Peenemünde archive containing

roughly 14 tons of documents that had been hidden in a mine. Von Braun also helped compile a list

of names of scientists and their families to evacuate to the US that would constitute the minimum

amount of scientists and diverse expertise necessary to continue his rocket research. The list he had

13
initially compiled had been a longer list than the US forces had wanted to transfer but von Braun

was eventually talked down to an amount that the US thought to be acceptable. Though von Braun

believed the US to be the best place to continue his rocket research, some of his subordinates did

not share his enthusiasm and harbored doubts about the length of time they would stay in the US

and the terms of the contract regarding their new employment there (Neufeld 206-210).

In July 1945 von Braun and his friends were to be sent to the United States along with 350

German specialists, with the rationale that their assistance was needed for the war against Japan.

Before he could be sent to the US, the British “Backfire” group (England’s version of the JIOA) asked

for the apprehension of von Braun, as well as other key scientists. This request was politely

ignored, because the American forces needed von Braun as well as the other scientists that the

British were requesting. A month later the British group changed their request to borrowing

Wernher von Braun, Axster, Steinhoff, and Rees for one week; to which the US agreed (Neufeld

211). During his stay in Britain he was interviewed and he was also asked about any German

scientists he would recommend that the US was not taking. He also took note of the damage done

to some of the buildings by his V-2 rockets, though in later remarks about it he did not appear to

show any remorse for it (Neufeld 212).

In September 1945 von Braun and his staff were finally sent to Fort Bliss, Texas as part of

Operation Overcast. As von Braun was in the first group to be transferred to the US he arrived in

October 1945. However, the last group did not arrive until January 1946 (Neufeld 213-216). Here

he was met with less respect than he was used to. In Germany he had many engineers who

answered to him, but now he had to report to a young American major, with whom he did not get

along. Initially, the Germans found their living conditions as well as the restrictions placed on them

intolerable (Neufeld 217-218). As time went on, the restrictions became more lax at Fort Bliss, and

von Braun and his followers continued to train American personal in rockets and guided missiles.

14
They also continued to study the future potential of rockets for military and research application, as

well as other projects such as the supersonic ramjet.

In 1950 von Braun and his team were moved to Huntsville, Alabama where he led the

Army’s rocket development team. Under his direction the Redstone rocket was created and was

later used for the first live nuclear ballistic missile tests conducted by the United States. Later a

modified version was used to successfully launch America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, on January 31,

1958, signaling the birth of the American space program. Because the USSR had launched Sputnik 1

in 1957 (a year earlier) there was a growing belief that the US was behind the Soviet Union in the

emerging space race (Wikipedia “Wernher von Braun”). In an interview in July 1946, Wernher von

Braun also discussed the use of satellites as attack platforms to drop atomic bombs and stated that

the “nation that first reaches this goal possesses an overwhelming military superiority over other

nations,” (Neufeld 211-212). He clearly was implying that if the US did not win the space race, they

would have to deal with this threat from the USSR. Sputnik’s launch was also a personal

disappointment to von Braun, as his own satellite project had suffered two years of official

setbacks, without which the US might have beat the USSR in launching a satellite into space

(Neufeld, 312).

On July 29, 1958 NASA was officially established. A year after the creation of NASA von

Braun and his development team were transferred to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. In a

Pentagon meeting, he told Herb York that the continuation of the Saturn program was a

requirement for his transition to NASA (Wikipedia “Wernher von Braun”). In July 1960 von Braun

became the center’s first director and remained in that post un til February 1970. The first major

program von Braun was in charge of was the development of Saturn rockets to carry heavy

payloads such as satellites into earth’s orbit and beyond. The Apollo program was later developed

from this program and on July 16, 1969 his dream for mankind to set foot on the moon became a

15
reality as a Saturn V rocket launched the crew of Apollo 11 on its eight-day mission (Neufeld 333-

433).

On March 1, 1970 von Braun was appointed NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for

Planning at NASA’s headquarters. On May 26, 1972 he retired from NASA after several conflicts

about the fate of the Apollo program and strict budget constraints. At this time it had become

obvious to him that his plans for future space flights were in conflict with NASA’s plans for future

space flights. It also further frustrated him to see the declining of public support for manned space

missions, once the US beat the USSR to the moon (Wikipedia “Wernher von Braun”). After leaving

NASA, von Braun became vice president at the aerospace company Fairchild Industries in

Germantown, Maryland on July1, 1972. In 1973 von Braun was diagnosed with kidney cancer which

could not be controlled with surgery. Though he was ill, he continued to try and interest the public

in space flight by speaking to students and engineers at universities and colleges. His declining

health, however, forced him to retire from Fairchild on December 31, 1976 and he was later

awarded the National Medal of Science though he was hospitalized and unable to attend the

ceremony (Neufeld 442-472). On June 16, 1977 he died of pancreatic cancer, and was buried in the

Ivy Hill Cemetery in Alexandria Virginia. Where the only grave marker belonging to one of the most

controversial figures in recent US history is a simple plaque bearing his name, the years he lived

and a single inscription: Psalms 19:1 (his favorite biblical scripture) (Neufeld 472).

16
III. Nazi Research and the V-2 Program

1. Nazi Membership

It was shortly after being appointed to his post in Peenemünde that von Braun officially joined

the Nazi Party. Later, in 1940, he would become an officer in the Waffen-SS. This damning

membership as a Nazi and especially in the notorious SS (who were responsible for most of the

atrocities committed in the Holocaust) was addressed by von Braun. He would later explain that he

was commanded to join first the Nazi Party and later the SS, and that his refusal would have been

the end of his career and the abandonment of his life’s work. He claims that as much as he would

have liked to avoid joining the party, it was preferable to him to the complete destruction of his

dreams and his work (Piszkiewicz I 58, Neufeld 120-121). This story is dismissed by writers such

as Dennis Piszkiewicz, who claim that photos showing him with top Nazi leaders wearing his SS

uniform show that he was more heavily involved in the organization than he was later willing to

admit. In addition, they claim the SS had not shown any interest in Peenemünde at the time he

joined (Piszkiewicz I 57-60). On the other hand, Major Joseph Sestito, the security officer

overseeing the Peenemünde team at Redstone Arsenal in Hunstville, AL, supported von Braun's

explanation, saying "I'm fairly sure that these men became members more or less as a matter of

expediency, rather than ideology.", continuing "I believe they joined Nazi organizations primarily to

hold on to their jobs" (Lang 80).

Wernher von Braun's exposure to the Nazi Party did not, of course, begin with his work on the

V-2. While completing his secret dissertation for the Army after Hitler's rise to the Chancellorship

in 1933, the Nazi takeover was progressing around him at an ever-increasing pace. He could not

possibly have been unaware of events such as "the Nazis' torchlight parade directly past the

Agriculture Ministry on the night of 30 January, the Reichstag fire of 27-28 February, the mass

arrests of Communists and Socialists that followed, the Reichstag's passage of an act giving Hitler

17
dictatorial power on 23 March [...], the often thuggish anti-Jewish boycott of 1 April, or the now-

infamous book bonfire staged by Nazi students at his University on 10 May" (Neufeld 61). These

events, which gave much of the western world pause, seem to have been insignificant to von Braun,

who claimed he was "very little interested in the 'world around me,' and downright naive in my

views of political matters", claiming the greatest impact Hitler's rise had on him at the time was that

his father "lost his job in the process" (Neufeld 61). The fact that, apart from his father, many of his

closest associates were military officers who directly benefited from the Nazis is sure to have

contributed to this indifference.

His claims of indifference and lack of political interest are backed up by much of the available

evidence. For example, some of his closest associates and friends were from opposite extremes of

the political spectrum. Arthur Rudolph, who was hired at Kummensdorf in August 1934, and would

work with von Braun through the Saturn V program, was a committed Nazi, who became a member

of the SA "long before it was opportunistic to do so" (Neufeld 75). He was also a spaceflight

enthusiast from an early age, and easily bonded with von Braun because of it. According to

Rudolph, von Braun and he would often stay up all night discussing spaceflight and developing

formulae, but Rudolph makes no mention of political discussions. On the other hand, von Braun

was also close friends with Klaus Riedel, who was far-left in political leanings (Neufeld 76). His

relationships with both men seem to have revolved solely around rocketry work, with little to no

attention paid to their very different political ideologies, at a time when such ideologies were

paramount for many Germans.

In 1933 all faculty with leftist political views or Jewish ancestry were expelled from von Braun's

university. This was followed by significant pressure on all students to either join the Party or at

least to join SA-affiliated organizations. When the SA gave a temporary allowing student to sign up

for a non-binding probationary period, von Braun joined the SS horseback riding school of the

18
Reitersturm I in western Berlin, where he claimed he took riding lessons twice a week but did not

participate in any SS activities outside of this (Neufeld 63). He would have been required to wear

his SS uniform during these lessons, as well as being subjected to indoctrination. Two things in

particular, though, back up von Braun's claims to have not been a believer. First, he only joined

after significant pressure was put on the university, after seeing his professors expelled around

him. Second, he only joined when a probationary membership which he could back out of was

possible. Indeed, as soon as this probationary period was over, he dropped out of the organization,

and was not part of the SS again until he rejoined in 1940 (Neufeld 64). This rejoining of the SS was

allegedly again due to pressure from the Nazi establishment. According to von Braun, and backed

up by other anecdotal accounts, he received an offer of SS membership as Untersturmführer, and it

was stressed to him that it was a “very definite desire of Himmler” that he join (Neufeld 121). He

initially resisted but consulted Dornberger before acting one way or the other. Dornberger,

according to von Braun, informed him that the SS had been attempting to gain access to the

rocketry work, and that if von Braun wished to continue his work, he had no choice but to accept SS

membership. The offer came at the beginning of the war, at a time when the political future of the

rocketry group was very much in question. Materials and funds were scarce, and their group was

not a priority at that time for the Nazi leadership. As a result, von Braun claims to have felt trapped.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, von Braun accepted the offer (Neufeld 121-122).

The question “how much of a Nazi was he?” is central to much of the writing about von Braun,

but his membership in the party by itself is not necessarily the complete endorsement of the Nazis

that some have claimed. The picture was likely more nuanced, and the very real fear of ending up

on the Nazi regime’s bad side was pervasive in much of this period. Though some who rejected as

much participation as von Braun engaged in remained untouched by the Nazis, the fear that was

created in the minds of those who may have been on the fence was often much greater than this

would suggest, and many were in fear of being persecuted by the regime if they didn’t play along.

19
In addition, much of the work von Braun was involved in was increasingly difficult to do without

Nazi membership. Given this context, and the evidence that von Braun did not participate first-

hand in the politics of the organizations, his membership is perhaps understandable.

2. V-2 Program

His cooperation with the regime was certainly not, however, completely innocent. Though he

later claimed not to be a Nazi sympathizer, von Braun was certainly at the very least a Prussian

nationalist, who had no ethical problem assisting with the military aims of his country. Von Braun

himself seems to have thought little about politics, whether for or against the Nazis. According to

those who knew him in Germany, his political views mirrored those of his father: that "the German

Republic was no good and the Nazis ridiculous", but he otherwise believed politics to be a

distraction to which he was at best indifferent (Neufeld 55). Part of this set of social and political

values inherited from his father was loyalty to the monarchy and a sense of duty to serve in its

military and civil service. Therefore, when the military made its offer in 1932 to hire von Braun at

Kummersdorf, it was an offer he did not hesitate to accept.

When he began his military work, before the Nazi rise to power, he seems to have seen the

military as a simple source of patronage, with little interest in how his research was used by those

who funded it. In a 1950 interview with New Yorker journalist Daniel Lang, quoted in Michael

Neufeld’s von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War, he reveals his thoughts going into his

military-funded research. “We felt no moral scruples about the possible use of our brainchild”, he

told Lang. “We were interested solely in exploring outer space. It was simply a question with us of

how the golden cow could be milked most successfully”. Though he referred in this case to the pre-

20
Nazi Army, this ability to take funding from the military with no regard to the lives his research

might cost continued through the Nazi period (Lang 83, Neufeld 54).

Beginning just prior to Hitler's rise to power, but ramping up significantly afterwards, a

concerted effort was made by the military to establish a monopoly in rocketry research. Beginning

in early 1933, this effort involved arresting men like Rolf Engel, ostensibly for working with the

Soviets, and active harassment of others such as Rudolf Nebel, whose showmanship and attempts to

popularize his work ran counter to the military's desire for complete secrecy. He was ultimately

arrested during the Night of Long Knives on June 34th, 1934, for publishing a leaflet which

discussed military uses for rockets (Neufeld 66). After the SS purge of the SA and other dissenters

in that single night, all amateur rocketry was completely stamped out, with many previously

amateur participants hired into Dornberger's Kummersdorf group. In this context, then, von

Braun's earlier decision to accept military funding for his work was now irreversible, at least

without his leaving the country. Despite the assassinations giving von Braun a "glimmer of the

nature of the regime" and perhaps giving him second thoughts (Neufeld 69), it was now impossible

to continue rocket research in Germany outside of the military (Neufeld 76).

Milking von Braun’s golden cow meant using his rocket research to build missiles for the

German military. Beginning with his work for Dornberger's Kummensdorf group in 1932, von

Braun was employed by the military in order to develop rockets with the intent of using them as

weapons, delivering either explosive or chemical payloads. Though his military work developing

rockets was from the beginning explicitly for their use as weapons, most if not all of the research

would be directly applicable to space flight. This allowed von Braun to please his patrons yet

further his own agenda as well. His early work focused on liquid-fueled engines, but as time went

on, he began directing higher-level systems, with the specifics being designed by those under him.

After successful development of the A-1 and A-2 rockets, a new rocket site was developed in

21
Peenemünde for the building of the larger A-3 and A-4 (V-2) rockets (Neufeld 80,81). Developed

beginning in 1942, the V-2 was a large, liquid-fueled missile, whose gyroscopic guidance system

allowed it to be fired with great accuracy, delivering its 2,200 lb. warhead to targets up to 200 miles

away. Over the course of the war, 5,200 V-2 missiles were produced, largely at the Mittelwerk

facility, using slave labor. They were first used against the allies on September 8, 1944, with an

attack on Paris which caused only minor damage. From this point until the end of the war, missiles

were fired at England, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and even occupied Germany. The attacks

are estimated to have caused 7,250 deaths of both military personnel and civilians, and many more

injuries (Wikipedia "V-2"). In addition, the V-2 was the world’s first military ballistic missile,

capable of guided precision at long range, and as such is to some extent the predecessor of every

military missile produced since. As the V-2 was largely von Braun’s brainchild, a product of his zeal

for government patronage for his space travel research, it is tempting to lay these deaths and

injuries at his feet. Certainly he bears some responsibility for them, but was his work for his

nation’s military in and of itself immoral?

Von Braun was, at least in his youth, a patriotic Prussian German from a military aristocratic

background. National service, especially in the military and government, was a large part of his

upbringing. In this context, it is perhaps forgivable that von Braun accepted military funding for his

work and in return provided his country with new military technologies. This is an act which is

mirrored in nearly every country on the globe and is no more immoral, by itself, than Sir Hiram

Maxim’s invention of the modern machine gun, responsible for many thousands of deaths in World

War I, or that of the engineers who developed unmanned drones used by the United States today.

These acts are only immoral in as much as war itself is immoral. Indeed, the nation for whom von

Braun began his work, the Weimar Republic, was, though internally chaotic, a parliamentary

democracy without the overt militarism of the later Nazi state. The crucial difference, however,

comes in his continued military work after the Nazi takeover, despite his increasing awareness of

22
the horrors which the Nazis truly stood for and, especially, the lack of difference this seems to have

made to him and his work.

The death toll, mentioned above, caused by the V-2, including the deaths of slave laborers, is

estimated to be 20,000 for the entire war. In contrast, the death toll in a single night, in the fire-

bombing of Dresden, has been estimated anywhere between 20,000 and 500,000 (Wikipedia "Fire

Bombing of Dresden). The Lancaster bombers used in this bombing run are therefore responsible

for at least as many civilian deaths in one night as the V-2 caused throughout the period it was used.

Few ethical analyses have been done on the morality of the engineers at Avro who designed and

built it, however. Perhaps the single most morally questionable character involved with the

firebombing is Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, the Commander-in-Chief of England's Bomber

Command at the time.

Sir Arthur Harris was a driving force behind the firebombing as well as other controversial

area bombings with no specific military target. When he was appointed to the position of

Commander-in-Chief, Bomber Command had only made a minimal contribution to the war, and he

saw it as his job to change that. The USSR was pressuring the western allies to do something to aid

them on the Eastern Front, and the plan to use area bombing techniques was given the go-ahead

despite its controversial nature. The successes of the missions were initially small due to limited

aircraft and the lack of navigational aids, however as these obstacles diminished, successes

increased. The official statements regarding these area bombings were that they were attacking

specific targets and that any civilian casualties were not intentional. Despite the controversy, Harris

made it clear to the English government that he wanted the real reason for the bombings to become

public (Wikipedia “Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet”).

The Combined Bomber Offensive (the plan to utilize area bombing runs against German

civilians) could be argued to be immoral because of the countless civilian lives which were lost

23
especially during the attack on Dresden. It could be argued likewise that the Manhattan project was

also immoral because the nuclear bomb was used to decimate two cities in Japan comprising mostly

a civilian population. It should also be taken into account that the bombing of Dresden was done

late in the war and that Dresden was not a key military target. In contrast the nuclear bomb was

used to force Japan to surrender, resulting in less loss of life then if they had not used it and had to

invade Japan. The bombing of Dresden towards the end of the war was seen by some as unjustified,

as Dresden had little or no military significance. The bombing of Dresden was also seen by others as

justified because it had industrial targets and thus constituted a legitimate target. The bombing of

Dresden remains highly controversial to this day (Wikipedia “Bombing of Dresden in World War

II”).

Perhaps a stronger parallel than that between Harris and von Braun exists between

Peenemünde and the Manhattan Project. Some of the era's brightest physicists and engineers,

including Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer, worked as part of a massive, top secret military

plan to develop an atomic bomb. Many of the physicists were, like von Braun, primarily interested

in peaceful research, but were driven to develop a weapon during the war. The fact that the US

Military was willing to pour two billion dollars into the project must certainly have been a factor as

well (Wikipedia "Manhattan Project"). Like von Braun, these scientists were conducting research

in an area in which it was very expensive to field-test and the military was the only organization

willing to spend the sums needed. When the project's creations, Fat Man and Little Boy, were

dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, they caused an estimated 150-246,000 deaths

combined (Wikipedia "Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki"). Though the ethics involved

in this act have been studied far more thoroughly than those of the conventional bombings of

German cities, it helps put the V-2 program into some perspective.

24
 The main difference between these examples and the V-2 was the regime for which it was made.

Though the desire of the army of the Weimar Republic to simply rebuild and regain face after the

humiliation of the Versailles Treaty was replaced by a rabid Nazi desire for expansion and racial

purification, von Braun continued his work, apparently unbothered. His golden cow was now much

more sinister than it had been, but he does not seem to have disliked the milk it provided enough to

act on it. If he ever seriously questioned his role in this work, especially before the outbreak of war,

it was not enough to cause him to give up his position or his goals. Major James P. Hamill, the

Peenemünde group's military handler in Operation Overcast and beyond, said of von Braun's rocket

tunnel-vision: "That guy ... wants to go to the moon. That's his passion- interplanetary travel.

Whether it will be war or peace on earth comes after that for him" (Lang 81). As the Nazi regime

went further with their plans in the Holocaust and von Braun was pulled ever deeper into

complicity with some of the atrocities committed therein, he continued his work towards this

dream without regard for the effects of his work, whether through blindness or lack of caring.

3. Mittelwerk Slave Labor

Von Braun came face to face with the Nazi regime’s true character at the latest in 1943, when

severe labor shortages caused some in the Nazi establishment to begin using concentration camp

slave labor to push forward military construction. An underground factory was built, named

Mittelwerk, which used laborers primarily from the Mittelbrau-Dora labor camp, and which

produced both the V-1 flying bomb and the V-2 missile. Wernher von Braun later admitted to

having been aware of the use of slave labor, as well as the extreme cruelty with which the laborers

were treated. He is known to have been shown multiple construction camps, including Mittelwerk,

and must have been aware on some level of the conditions there (Neufeld 161). He also later

25
admitted to having personally chosen laborers from the Buchenwald concentration camp and was

certainly aware of the horrors occurring there. According to one later account, von Braun allegedly

told his associate Ernst Stuhlinger that conditions for the laborers were "hellish. My spontaneous

reaction was to talk to one of the SS guards, only to be told with unmistakable harshness that I

should mind my own business, or find myself in the same striped fatigues!", continuing that he

"realized that any attempt of reasoning on humane grounds would be utterly futile" (Stuhlinger 44).

This seems to have ended any attempt on his part to engage with the SS or the Nazi establishment

to change things for the better, though at least one prisoner, the non-Jewish French physicist

Charles Sadron, was protected by von Braun and placed in relatively good conditions in the factory.

There is no evidence, however, that this protection of prisoners was widespread, and it should be

noted that Sadron was not only an established rocket scientist but also non-Jewish (Neufeld 178).

In addition, some prisoners, such as Robert Cazabonne, recalled after the war that von Braun had at

least been present for many of the atrocities, including the hanging of prisoners from chains. One

prisoner in particular, captured French resistance fighter Guy Morand, claimed that von Braun

actually ordered him flogged and forced him to say that he deserved to be hanged (Biddle 124-125).

While these extreme allegations are unable to be confirmed, there is certainly evidence that von

Braun was actively involved in the allocation of slave labor to different parts of the program.

Overall responsibility for the use of slave labor lay with his superiors, and he certainly was not

given a choice as to their use, but that von Braun was aware of much of what was going on is nearly

certain (Neufeld 160-166).

Though he was undoubtedly aware of some of the conditions the prisoners faced, whether or

not he actually participated in the Holocaust is less certain. His claims that he had no choice but to

do as he was told are, on the one hand, understandable. The Nazis were capable of incredible

brutality and had shown no restraint previously in acting against those whom they saw as acting

against the party’s interests. In this atmosphere of paranoia and the very real danger of a visit from

26
the Gestapo at any moment if one strayed from the party line (a visit they would eventually pay von

Braun), it is difficult to truly condemn someone for failing to act. Some psychological research

performed since the war, including the famous Milgram experiment, has shown that the von

Braun's failure to question his situation may be the norm instead of the exception (Kowalski 56-

58). In fact, his own account of questioning the beatings and being told it was not his responsibility

is a very close parallel to the experiment itself. On the other hand, this is an excuse used by many

perpetrators of horrendous acts during the Holocaust, and it is certain that von Braun was not only

aware of what was going on, but that he actively participated in it, even on a low level of

responsibility. Von Braun seems to have accepted his situation and the idea that he was powerless

to effect real change, avoiding looking into matters too deepy. He simply continued in his work,

allowing his dreams of space flight to obscure any doubts that he may have had. At the same time,

his actions do not seem to be those of a true Nazi believer. The possibility that he protected Sadron

as well as resistanced the attempted SS takeover of Peenemünde show that his true feelings, though

he allowed them to be suppressed for his work, were not in line with those of the upper Nazi

echelon. By most accounts, when approached by Heinrich Himmler about the transfer of authority

to the SS, von Braun did not play along, resulting in his imprisonment and interogation by the

Gestapo three weeks later. He was only released through the actions of Dornberger and Albert

Speer, who took the issue directly to Adolf Hitler. Despite these shows of resistance to SS

infringement, von Braun's Nazi career speaks mostly of inaction and acceptance of authority.

Ultimately, this inaction, whether it stemmed from a feeling of fear and helplessness or from a

genuine lack of caring about the plight of others, or even a combination thereof, tarnished his later

career and caused him to become for many the archetype of the inhuman scientist, willing to accept

any human cost to further his work. This reputation may or may not be truly deserved, but he

undoubtedly was at the very least complicit in the evils of others, and this moral failing continues to

dog his reputation today.

27
IV. The United States, Operation Paperclip and Nazi Engineering

1. Operation Overcast

At the end of the war Wernher von Braun and many other German scientists were recruited to

work for the United States under Operation Overcast. Not everyone approved of this plan, and it

was even suggested that all the German and Japanese scientists who helped create weapons during

the war should be confined to a distant island (Lasby 51). After the scientists were interviewed, a

telegram was sent to the pentagon requesting the evacuation of the German scientists. The fall of

Germany had created a power vacuum in Europe, as well as a mad grab for German technology and

expertise. As the Truman administration did not allow the recruitment of scientists with a strong

connection to the Nazi government only those who were moderate members or were directly

against the Nazi party were accepted (Lasby 210-212).

During World War II, the United States and Great Britain allied themselves with the USSR for

the specific purpose of fighting Germany, which was seen as the greater of two evils. The Americans

and the British were by no means friends of the USSR during or before World War II. Thus the

Americans and the British went back to seeing the USSR as an adversary as soon as Germany was

defeated. It was also well known that the USSR was gathering up all of the German technology it

could after Germany was defeated. This gave rise to a growing fear in the West that the USSR might

attack the US and its allies with their captured German technology. This fear of what the USSR

might potentially do with German technology played more than a small role in the United States’

decision to obtain what German scientists they could to prevent as much German knowledge as

possible from falling into Soviet hands. The American acquisition of German scientists and

28
knowledge may have also helped prevent a possible third world war by preventing the USSR from

gaining a military technological advantage.

During the final days of the war in Europe, as the western allies advanced into Germany, they

began finding concentration camps, where the prisoners had lived and died en masse under

mercilessly brutal conditions. An example of such a slave labor camp was Dora, which provided

workers for Mittelwerk, where the prisoners were forced to build German rockets under the

direction of von Braun and his team. At the same time, the United States remained at war with

Japan, and the need for German scientific and engineering expertise was pressing. They knew,

however, that if they did recruit the German scientists with Nazi pasts linked to concentration and

slave labor camps, the public reaction would be resoundingly negative. The moral dilemma facing

the US, was to either continue on without the German scientists in the war against Japan, or recruit

the German scientists despite their involvement in the atrocities of the concentration and slave

labor camps. The hiring of the German scientists however, might give them the possible leg up they

needed for the war against Japan and the invasion of the Japanese mainland that was being planned.

The morality of Operation Overcast is intrinsically tied to the individuals being recruited. Most

if not all of the recruits from von Braun's Peenemünde group were involved solely in the

engineering and management of the V-2 Program. Though some may have agreed more or less

strongly with the racial policies of Nazi Germany, evidence does not suggest that any were in a

position to act in the atrocities being committed. The slave labor at Mittelwerk, for example, was

managed solely by the SS, and SS leadership were ultimately responsible. Though many have

decried the tendency of some party members to claim, after the war, to have been unwilling

witnesses to the acts of others, without personal responsibility for those acts, this seems to have

genuinely been the case for many working on the V-2.

Ultimately, what makes one recruit morally acceptable and another unacceptable is his or her

personal responsibility. While recruiting a man like von Braun, weighing his involvement in

29
Mittelwerk against the needs of the country, can be argued to be morally justifiable, hardly the

same argument could be made for the likes of Adolph Hitler or Heinrich Himmler. No matter the

national interest, the direct causation of the deaths of 6 million innocent people cannot be

outweighed. Though these extreme examples may seem obvious, a finer comparison can be made

by looking at Albert Speer, the architect of the Nazi regime, and Minister of Armaments for the

second half of the war. Speer was, by most accounts, not in full support of the Nazi Party's use of

slave labor, similarly to von Braun. Speer was completely swept up by the cult of Hitler, however,

and was a true believer of the German leadership nearly to the end. He was made Minister of

Armaments in 1942 and excelled beyond all expectations in the role of organizing the country's war

effort. Part of this organization, though, was the use of slave laborers taken from the occupied

territories. Though the program was not favored by Speer, he was eventually convince to

implement it. As the head of nearly all war production in the country, he was directly responsible

for factories such as Mittelwerk and the use of slavery there and even toured Mittelwerk personally.

There is even more controversy and dispute over Speer's personal involvement with the Holocaust

than over von Braun's, but it is certain that not only did Speer know about the use of slave labor, he

directed it (Wikipedia "Albert Speer"). This personal responsibility for the decision making

separates him from the men of the Peenemünde group, who were by most accounts simply told

they were to use the slaves and were not given a choice in the matter. It is on this point of personal

responsibility, then, that the closest thing to a line can be drawn separating those who might

possibly be justifiable recruits from those whose recruitment would be immoral regardless of

context, due to the severity of their crimes.

30
2. Public Opinion of Wernher von Braun

In December 1946 a Gallup poll was taken (sponsored by the Gallup Poll News Service) which

asked the American public if bringing over German scientists was a good or bad idea (see Gallop).

The majority of Americans decided it was a bad idea (Lasby 191-204). There was however a

definite correlation between the results and the amount of formal education received; those with

more education favored the plan and those with less opposed it. The results also seemed to depend

on the areas of the country where the poll was taken. Those who voted against the importation of

German scientists did so for many reasons. They believed that the German scientists could not be

trusted and would influence how Americans thought, and that they also would gain knowledge

from the United States and use it against us someday (Lasby 191-204). Those who voted in favor of

the importation of German scientists believed that the US could profit from their knowledge and

that it would be better to have the scientists here than in Russia (Lasby 191-204). The public

impression of von Braun when he was introduced to America varied. In Tom Lehrer’s satirical song:

“Wernher von Braun;” he is described as “apolitical,” “opportunistic” and that he did not care what

happened as long as his rockets got off the ground (Lehrer). It can also be clearly seen how others

were charmed by him as evident in the uncritical article “A Romantic Urge” written by Daniel Lang.

In the article he describes von Braun as “exuberant,” and is inspired by his romantic ideas of space

flight. The article’s title itself was a reference to this and showed how the author was charmed by

von Braun (Lang). Nowhere in the article does von Braun talk about the questionable side of his

Nazi past (such as the use of slave labor in the building of the V-2 Rockets) and Daniel Lang did not

ask him either. What they did talk about included such topics as the honors von Braun received for

his rocketry work in Germany, whether he went to church or not during his time in Germany, and

von Braun’s family. Overall, the article depicts him as an ideal family man. In general, Americans

31
who distrusted or approved of him did so for the same reasons as indicated by the poll taken before

his introduction to the American public.

In 1959 the United States Army paid for the production of a movie for the German audience

entitled “I Aim for the Stars” (Hübner). The US Army did this because they saw von Braun’s

celebrity status as a “useful promotional and recruiting tool (Stafford). In the movie he was

portrayed as a scientist that only wanted to build rockets, and had no real Nazi political ties.

However, the general public reaction to the movie in America was that it was uncritical. The movie

also did not receive good reviews from British critics, which is probably due to the damage his

rockets had caused (Stafford). In 2002 a documentary was made for German television about von

Braun entitled “Rocket Man for War and Peace”. It showed how Nazi scientists, especially von

Braun, had helped America after the fall of Germany in World War II and how he was able to

accomplish great things while working for the United States, such as helping the US win the space

race. By the 21st century, documentaries like this show that the public opinion of von Braun in

Germany had come more into alignment with the view of the movie “I Reach for the Stars” almost

50 years earlier.

3. World War II, US War with Japan

“Despite the fact that she was militarily finished, Japan’s leaders were going to fight right on.

To not lose national ‘face’ was more important than hundreds and hundreds of thousands of lives.

And the people concurred, in silence, without protest” (Jones 242). They did this because not

surrendering was a deeply engrained aspect of their culture (Jones 242). Intercepted Japanese

messages also indicated that the Japanese believed they could fight the Allied invasion forces long

enough to break American morale and negotiate a more favorable outcome than an unconditional

surrender (Frank). Military analysts gave varied estimates of casualties in the projected invasion.

The casualty estimates ranged as high as 1.7-4 million American casualties and 5-10 million

32
Japanese casualties in a report by William Shockley for the Secretary of War (Frank 340). With the

use of the atomic bomb, a weapon that was sure to cause untold and indiscriminate damage, they

could save many more lives that would have surely been lost otherwise. At the time, though, there

was no guarantee that if the atomic bomb mission was a success, it would necessarily end the war.

The approval for German scientists to come to work for the United States was made by the US

Secretary of War in June 1945, but not announced to the American public until October 1945

(Dungan). As he was the Secretary of War, he would have also known about the then highly secret

US atomic bomb project, and that it was not guaranteed the atomic bomb would end the war.

Because of this engineers like von Braun, with knowledge that could be immediately used to build

weapons that could help in this event, were absolutely necessary. Also, those in charge of

Operation Overcast were of the general opinion that the covering-up of a relatively small group of

German scientists was justified when compared to the millions of American lives that would be

saved. There was also some question as to whether or not the atomic bomb would work, as it was

not tested until July 16, 1945 a month after von Braun’s hiring by the US was approved. When the

atom bombs were eventually dropped and the war ended, the program which was already in place

to use the Nazi scientists continued under the now-imminent Soviet threat.

4. Cold War

After the war, both the United States and the USSR started programs for rocket research based

on acquired German designs. Wernher von Braun and his team had created the Redstone Rocket by

the 1950s which was the first rocket to launch a live nuclear bomb in tests. This, as well the power

vacuum created in Europe, the development of the atomic warhead by first the United States and

then the USSR, the expansion of the spheres of influence of both the United States and the USSR and

a growing lack of trust were contributing factors which precipitated a cold war between the United

33
States and the USSR. The later development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in 1959 by

both sides further heightened the tension of the Cold War. The United States ICBM design also

stemmed from von Braun’s A9/A10 rocket, which he had designed earlier in his career, when he

worked for the Nazis. Without von Braun’s help, the United States may not have been able to create

the rockets and ICBMs which were stockpiled during the Cold War as quickly as they did, and it

could have ended very differently.

5. US Space Race

In the 1950’s the United States Army and later NASA began an extensive effort to sell the

American public on space flight. In 1955 von Braun worked with Walt Disney as a technical director

for three television shows: "Man in Space", "Man and the Moon" and "Mars and Beyond.” He also

wrote several articles and books popularizing his ideas on space travel such as “Project MARS: A

Technical Tale,” “First Men to the Moon,” and “Man Will Conquer Space Soon.” In these shows and

articles von Braun helped sell the American public on space flight. Thus it was through the

popularization of space flight that he was also sold to the American public.

The US had established a sounding rockets (atmospheric rockets) naval research center in

December 1945, but this program was shelved when the Army’s V-2s became available. Later,

during the space race, the US chose to modify their sounding rocket technology rather than modify

their military rockets. Thus project Vanguard was established in September 1955. However the

Vanguard rockets it produced proved unreliable. During this time the army was turned down

repeatedly in their requests to use the Juno-1 carrier vehicle that von Braun and his team of

Redstone rocket scientists had designed. With the launch of the USSR’s Sputnik, von Braun’s team’s

carrier vehicle (Juno-1) was finally given the go-ahead, and on January 1958 it launched the United

States' first satellite.

34
 Initially, President Eisenhower declared that the United States was not in a space race with the

USSR. After the launch of Sputnik on October 4th 1957 the US officially entered the space race due

primarily to the effort of Senator Lyndon B. Johnson (Wasser). In a speech to the US Senate, he used

the general fear the recent launch of Sputnik caused and expounded upon the potentially

devastating technological powers the winner of the space race would have. If the US continued not

to make the control of space a national priority, then the USSR would most certainly possess such

technology before them. Therefore, the US could not afford to continue to make their decisions from

the standpoint of their budget alone. Thus, the US public was swayed to support the space race

through fear initially caused by the launch of Sputnik, and fear of what might happen if the USSR

won the space race.

Wernher von Braun also proved to be indispensible during the space race as it allowed him to

finally put all of his effort directly into the development of space travel technology, and he proved

to be a wholehearted willing participant in the endeavor. Both countries also saw the space race as

necessary for national security and as a way to prove their technological and ideological

superiority. Their victory or defeat in this technological arms race would have great effect on each

country’s power and sphere of influence. However with the launch of Sputnik by the USSR two

years after the unofficial beginning of the space race, many Americans believed the USSR to be

ahead, and Wernher von Braun and his German team’s experiences were finally put to use in

creating an orbital launch vehicle. Wernher von Braun and his team launched the Explorer I

satellite a year later using a modified Redstone Rocket called the Jupiter-C, signaling the birth of the

American space program. The team had actually launched a Jupiter-C rocket before the Soviet

Sputnik, but only to test nose-cone reentry technology. Later von Braun was appointed director of

the Marshall Space Flight Center of the newly created NASA in 1960 where he again proved his

value to the United States. The first major program he directed was the development of Saturn

Rockets to carry heavy payloads into space. The Apollo program was later created utilizing the

35
Saturn Rockets (though von Braun had no direct involvement in the Apollo program) and finally, in

1969, the US beat the USSR in the last and most important event of the space race, as American

astronauts landed on the Moon.

The first moon landing was, among other things, an important public relations victory for the

US. During the Space Race there was a belief that whoever had the advantage in space would

control space and thus control the earth. The United States landing on the moon first, then, signaled

the end of the space race, and that the US had gained the advantage in space. It also was a testimony

to the new technologies that were created and honed for the purpose of sending a team of men to

the moon. As von Braun helped the US gain this advantage, and he helped hone ICBM technology

through rocket propulsion discoveries gained during the space program, it can readily be seen how

von Braun proved to be an asset during both the space race, and the cold war.

The recruitment of von Braun by the United States despite his Nazi Party affiliation could be

argued by many to constitute a moral failure. However, it should be taken into account that if World

War II has shown anything, it is that the country with the most advanced technology has a

significant advantage in war. Had Germany managed to perfect and use the many technologies they

had in the works a bit earlier, it is conceivable they might have won the war, or at least forced an

ending that did not involve unconditional surrender. Also, as previously discussed, evidence

suggests that von Braun was not an ardent Nazi, but rather an engineer who cared for nothing else

but building a rocket that could achieve space flight at all costs. Though this is still very weak moral

footing, von Braun’s further contributions to the US during the Cold War and space race were

indispensible. The US winning the space race brought us some sense of peace of mind as it proved

the US had gained a significant technological advantage over the USSR which acted as a deterrent to

war. Had the USSR landed on the moon first it would have shown that they had a technological

advantage and the cold war could possibly have ended more in their favor. It is conceivable that if

36
the US had not recruited von Braun through Operation Overcast, then the history of the US could be

very different from what we know today. Though the recruitment of German scientists and the

hiding of their Nazi affiliated pasts was arguably a moral failure of the US to, it was one which most

involved would surely have looked at as a hard bargain that paid off.

37
V. Conclusion

Wernher von Braun’s life was one dedicated wholeheartedly to the goal of putting men in space

and on the moon. To achieve this goal, he made many morally questionable decisions which have

been discussed ever since. He cared only about developing rockets for space travel, paying no

attention to politics, accepting funding from whichever military was willing to support his work,

and, ultimately, not caring how his research was used. As satirist Tom Lehrer famously, yet

accurately, said, in his song about von Braun, “Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come

down?” Much of von Braun's early adult life was spent building rockets for the Nazis, culminating

in the V-2 program, which caused more deaths to slave laborers building them than it did to enemy

soldiers and civilians. In stark contrast, his post-war life was spent managing the manned space

flight program at NASA, resulting in one of the most lauded technological achievements in human

history, when the Apollo program successfully landed men on the moon. However, despite this

dichotomy and work by many authors to paint von Braun as either a Nazi and full participant in the

horrors of the Holocaust or as the patron saint of the American space program, von Braun's life was

not so simple as to allow such black and white characterizations.

Wernher von Braun was raised as a patriotic Prussian, from a culture of military and political

service, and his ready acceptance of military funding for his research was therefore a natural

outgrowth of his upbringing. His development of the V-2 and its use against British, French and

Belgian cities was in and of itself no more immoral than the actions of many engineers, of various

nations, who developed weapons which were used in the war. The British Lancaster bombers

which dropped incendiaries on Dresden, Germany, in the infamous firebombing of February, 1945,

killed magnitudes more civilians in that single bombing than the V-2 did during the war, even

factoring in slave labor deaths. Though the targeting of civilians during times of war is certainly

38
arguably immoral, the V-2 program, on its face, was no less moral, and of far lower magnitude in its

effects, than many similar actions by the allies. What is far less easily defended is von Braun's

involvement in the use of slave labor. This complicity in the Holocaust, no matter how superficially

he himself may have been involved, was a black mark which would mar his career, no matter the

heights to which it might later rise. Any moral discussion of von Braun, therefore, must center on

this issue. In the end, though, the evidence suggests that his worst crime was to be so driven by his

passion for space flight that he ignored and accepted the actions of others around him. Though von

Braun was hardly the only German to turn a blind eye to the atrocities of the Nazis, he was face-to-

face with slave laborers on a daily basis. Though he expressed regret for his inaction late in life, he

made no serious attempt at the time to stop the use of slaves to build his rockets. It is uncertain

whether it was due to the abuse of slave labor or simply the disappearing hopes of the German

military effort, but late in the war, von Braun was enough at odds with the Nazi Party to be

outspoken about his criticisms of the regime, resulting in his imprisonment by the Gestapo. This

act, in turn, ultimately caused him to defect to the advancing Americans, an act which would set the

stage for the next period in his life.

From the beginning, von Braun’s new life in the US revolved around bringing the technical

expertise of his Peenemünde group to bear on the US military’s rocket program. Largely through

his and his group’s efforts, the US recovered from early losses in the space race to eventually land

men on the moon, an event still seen as one of the defining moments for humanity. Coworkers in

NASA have consistently claimed that this would not have happened without von Braun at the helm

of the Saturn V program. In order to achieve these technological victories, though, the United States

government first had to make the decision to facilitate the acquiring of von Braun and his group. In

the process, the Nazi pasts of those involved were largely ignored and, in some cases, actively

rewritten. The second component of any ethical discussion of the life of von Braun, then, is the

39
moral choice faced by the United States when balancing the pasts and actions of a group of people

which it saw as a potential technical gold mine.

At the time von Braun and his group were acquired by the US, the war against Japan was still

raging, and projected to go on for a period of years. The atomic bomb was still a wild card and any

advantage which could be gained from using the rocket expertise of the German engineers was

weighed with this context in mind. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, the priorities changed

somewhat, and the focus shifted to the USSR and the threat they posed. The Soviets were all too

happy to snatch up any German technology and personnel they came across as they moved west

towards Berlin and the US risked falling behind if they didn’t seize any advantage presented to

them. The V-2 program’s success showed the potential for rockets to target enemy cities out of

range of artillery, without the massive risk to personnel a bombing sortie involved. Combined with

the Manhattan Project’s success with the atomic bomb and the soviets following suit with their own

bomb, the potential for ICBMs as the defining weapon of the cold war was clear. The advances

which von Braun had the potential to achieve with his rocketry research were, therefore, directly

applicable to the development of these ICBMs.

In addition to pure military advantage, the US eventually saw a massive potential for a

morale and PR victory in von Braun’s work. The prestige gained by the Soviet Union after they,

first, successfully inserted Sputnik into earth orbit and then sent Yuri Gagarin into space and back

was humbling for the United States and its western allies. Being the first to send a man to the moon

and back was seen as America’s chance to reverse the effects of these losses. As the Cold War

developed into a true nuclear stand-off, direct military confrontation became impossible. The

competition between the two superpowers was, therefore, focused onto proxy wars like Vietnam

and Afghanistan, cultural competitions such as the Olympics, and the technological Space Race. In

this context, the success of the Saturn V and Apollo programs gained significant national

40
importance. Though von Braun’s past was not completely ignored, the US government, in this

context, had an interest in not focusing too long on any potential blemishes they might find in his

career for the Nazis.

Ultimately, Wernher von Braun’s greatest moral failing was his focus, to the exclusion of all else,

on achieving manned spaceflight. His entire life was spent struggling to attain this goal, and had he

been born in America or Britain, a discussion of his life would likely be far more one-dimensional.

As it happened, he grew up in a Germany that was in interbellum turmoil, and began his rocketry in

earnest at the time of the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis. His complete disinterest in politics

and events in the world around him allowed him to be willingly pulled into the atrocities of the SS

and complicity, on some level, in the deaths of 12,000 slave laborers. He may not have been the one

directly responsible for their deaths, but his lack of action in the face of the Holocaust is a lesson to

all engineers and scientists. No scientific or engineering work takes place in a vacuum, and

although von Braun’s situation is an extreme example, it is still illustrative of the responsibility of

all engineers to not only ensure their work itself is ethical, but that the context of their work is

ethical. Wernher von Braun’s desire to put men into space was in and of itself a worthy goal, but by

integrating himself into the Nazi establishment in order to achieve it, he allowed his work, overall,

to become tainted.

41
Appendix: Views of Wernher von Braun

1. Michael J. Neufeld

Michael J. Neufeld's Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War is a comprehensive

biography, which makes an earnest effort to be a fair, unbiased account of von Braun's life. The

chair of the Space History Division of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Neufeld

also wrote an earlier, similarly balanced book on Peenemünde, specifically, entitled The Rocket and

the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile. Though The Rocket and the Reich is

certainly full of pertinent information to our discussion, this information is repeated in Dreamer of

Space, and the later work is therefore used in our analysis. Neufeld's work is heavily referenced in

this IQP, as it is, in our opinion, the most balanced, unbiased, and at the same time comprehensive,

work on the topic of von Braun and the morality of his life's work that currently exists. Where

many other authors, as we shall discuss, write their biographies with an agenda, either for or

against von Braun, Neufeld's only agenda seems to have been to document the truth. This is not to

say that there are not inherent biases in many of the sources he used, but for the most part these

are clearly stated. Where other authors dwell on photos of von Braun in full Nazi uniform, for

example, and others ignore them altogether, Neufeld discusses not just the photos, but the context

around them, very rarely speculating further than the evidence allows. Due to the quality of the

work both as an exhaustive source on von Braun and as an unbiased account of his degree of

involvement in the Nazi war crimes of World War II, Wernher von Braun: Dreamer of Space,

Engineer of War is our primary source in this IQP. (Neufeld)

42
2. Pro-von Braun Authors

The biographies of von Braun which can be said to be biased for von Braun are largely

written by people who worked with him in his time at NASA. The foremost of these authors are

Ernst Stuhlinger and Frederick Ordway, both of whom worked with von Braun. Stuhlinger was a

member of the Peenemünde group under von Braun, and was brought to the US along with the rest

of the team as part of Operation Overcast. As such, he was a coworker of von Braun's for

approximately 35 years, both in Germany and the US, and any moral failings von Braun may have

had would have been, at least in part, shared by Stuhlinger. Ordway, on the other hand, was an

American scientist, who worked for NASA at the Redstone Arsenal, and was a coworker of von

Braun's during approximately 25 years of his American work. Both authors produced works on

von Braun, including his work in World War II for the Nazis. Both also largely leave von Braun out

of the picture for any discussion of slave labor and war crimes. In Ordway's The Rocket Team, the

use of slave labor is discussed, though not to the extent it is analyzed in less positively biased

works, but the blame for it is placed wholly in the hands of the SS, stressing that the engineers and

scientists were not even permitted to talk to the laborers without SS supervision. Though The

Rocket Team covered the entire Peenemünde group, as well as many NASA workers who were not

part of Peenemünde, it is interesting to note that von Braun himself does not come up in the

discussion of slave labor at all (Ordway 70-71).

A later book, specifically about von Braun, was written by Ordway and Stuhlinger together,

entitled Wernher von Braun, Crusader for Space: A Biographical Memoire. This work again discusses

the use of slave labor. In this case, it does discuss von Braun's role, but claims he knew little of what

was really going on, and in fact made efforts to make life better for at least one prisoner, Charles

Sadron. Some of the claims made in this work are criticized by Neufeld in Dreamer of Space for

being contrary to known evidence of von Braun's knowledge of the concentration camp labor, and

43
that attempts to assist Sadron actually resulted in deepening von Braun's complicity in the abuse of

others (Stuhlinger & Ordway, Neufeld 179).

In addition to the biographies by those who actually worked with von Braun at NASA, other

authors have produced pro-von Braun works without being directly involved in his space research.

The first of these authors we will discuss is Bob Ward, a reporter for the Huntsville Times in

Huntsville, AL, who wrote the biography Dr. Space: The Life of Wernher von Braun. Though not a

NASA employee or a coworker of von Braun's, Ward nonetheless sees von Braun through the eyes

of an American NASA enthusiast. Dr. Space is largely uncritical of von Braun's past, and a common

criticism of his work is that it draws heavily from letters and memoires of von Braun's friends and

coworkers (Publishers Weekly review). Much of the bias in Dr. Space indeed comes from the fact

that Ward largely uses biased sources and accepts them uncritically. The result is much like the

work of Stuhlinger and Ordway: glowing praise of von Braun and his NASA accomplishments with

little discussion of his involvement in the use of slave labor or his Nazi membership.

3. Anti-von Braun Authors

In contrast to the works of those involved with NASA and Peenemünde and their uncritical

praise, some authors can be described as vehemently anti-von Braun. Foremost of these authors

are Dennis Piszkiewicz and Wayne Biddle. Piszkiewicz has authored two books, The Nazi

Rocketeers: Dreams of Space and Crimes of War and Wernher von Braun: The Man Who Sold the

Moon, while Biddle wrote the recent Dark Side of the Moon: Wernher von Braun, the Third Reich, and

the Space Race. Both authors are open in their purpose: to show that Wernher von Braun was

actively involved in Nazi war crimes and the holocaust, and that he should have been tried and

convicted for these activities along with many other Nazis. No attempt at balance is made by these

authors, which taints what are often otherwise valid arguments, many of which are discussed, with

44
context, by Neufeld. For example, documents from the time show that von Braun visited the camps,

and was involved in prisoner selection, to some degree. Where Neufeld simply discusses what we

actually know about these sources and von Braun's activities, Piszkiewicz and Biddle use them as a

starting point for speculation on unsubstantiated, much deeper involvement in the holocaust.

These authors discuss many of the same ideas we present in this IQP, but unfortunately, their open

bias renders them largely unusable in a scholarly discussion. Their real purpose, then, is as

examples of an important public view of von Braun, which is largely in direct response to the

uncritical stance of NASA, the US government, and many of the previously discussed authors. To

many, his work with the Nazis, his Nazi and SS membership, and his knowledge (the degree of

which is debated) of slave labor in and of themselves are enough to condemn him. The government

and NASA's subsequent underplaying of this history are therefore seen a sinister cover-up

(Pizkiewicz, Biddle) (not exactly sure how to reference these, since I discussed them at a top level,

not details on specific pages).

4. Film and Television

As mentioned above, in the 1959 movie “I Aim for the Stars” or “Ich Greife nach den

Sternen,” Von Braun is portrayed as a scientist who only wanted to build rockets and that he had no

real political ties to the Nazi government. It is clear when watching it, that it is a biased film that is

in favor of Von Braun. This is probably due in no small part to the fact that Von Braun was involved

heavily with the making of the movie. The director of the film also makes it clear that, during the

making of the movie, he wanted to make it more critical but was unable to and was not happy with

how it turned out (Hübner “Wernher von Braun: Rocket Man for War and Peace”).The movie was

also generally viewed as uncritical and was suspected of being whitewashed (Hübner “Wernher von

Braun: Rocket Man for War and Peace”).

45
 The documentary entitled “Rocket Man for War and Peace,” glorified von Braun and

expounded upon all his accomplishments. It briefly mentioned his use of slave labor to build the V-2

rockets, however that was not the documentaries focus and only consisted of the first third of the

documentary. It also did not appear to be very critical regarding his moral responsibilities for the

atrocities the slave laborers suffered building his rockets during World War II. The documentaries

main focus was what he accomplished after he was brought to America, and how he was

instrumental in getting a manned mission to the moon. The most critical part of the movie was

when Thompson, J. L. the director of “Ich Greife nach den Sternen,” talked about his experience

with von Braun. He talked about how he always got into arguments with von Braun, because he

would state that he was not a Nazi and yet he had joined the Nazi party (Hübner “Wernher von

Braun: Rocket Man for War and Peace”).

The song “Wernher Von Braun” by Tom Lehrer is a satirical song that is biased against von

Braun. In the song he describes von Braun as “apolitical,” that he didn’t care where his rockets went

down as long as they went up, and that he didn’t care if you called him a Nazi. The song was clearly

meant to play on the resentment people felt about having German scientists such as von Braun

working for the United States. The song goes on to sarcastically say that we should be grateful, “like

the widows and cripples in old London town who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun,”

(Lehrer)

The NASA MSFC History Office website was clearly biased in favor of von Braun. The

biography on von Braun appears to gloss over the fact that he was a Nazi and that he used a slave

labor force to help build his rockets. The article mainly focuses on his building of the rockets and

how his V-2 rockets were the predecessors of the rockets used in the United States space program.

The book “Project Paperclip,” by Clarence Lasby proved to be an unbiased source

concerning the importation of von Braun and other German scientists. The author remained

46
objective when he talked about how the scientists came to work for the United States and why. The

author also makes no mention or implication of whether or not the bringing over of German

scientists was ultimately a bad or good idea. Instead he just suggests that only the future will prove

this to be one way or the other.

The Wikipedia article: “Wernher von Braun,” was relatively critical. It talked about his time

as a Nazi and gave accounts of both sides of the story, of whether he was an ardent Nazi or just an

apolitical opportunist. It also talks about his early life prior to him becoming a Nazi, and his life in

America after he surrendered to the American forces at the end of World War II. The web article

goes on to talk about his accomplishments at NASA, and his contributions to the American rocket

program.

47
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