von Braun @100
Remembering the Nazi Scientist Who Built the Rockets for Apollo, The Atlantic
“Few figures in the history of technology provoke a reaction as quickly as Wernher von Braun. The rocket scientist was a card-carrying Nazi who built the world’s first ballistic missile with slave labor from concentration camps. As the war wound down, he surrendered to the Americans and took his rocket-building team and talents to the United States. Eventually, he became a leader in the American space program, building the rocket (the Saturn V) that carried Apollo 11 to the moon. Today would have been his 100th birthday. He died in 1977.”
Remembering Wernher von Braun on his 100th Birthday, Roger Lanius, Air & Space
“Wernher von Braun was a stunningly successful advocate for space exploration and has appropriately been celebrated for those efforts. But because he was also willing to build a ballistic missile for Hitler’s Germany, with all of connotations that implied in the devastation and terror of World War II, many of his ideals have also been appropriately questioned. For some he was a visionary who foresaw the potential of human spaceflight, but for others he was little more than an arms merchant who developed brutal weapons of mass destruction. In reality, he seems to have been something of both.”
Keith’s note: My father was injured and almost killed by a V-2 in London. His roomates were killed. Slaves died to build these rockets. Unlike a lot of people who are tripping over one another to heap praise on von Braun today, I simply note his accomplishments – all of them.
People who praise Von Braun should praise him for this and this alone: He was a functional and dictator type leader that produced results.
Here are some excerpts of his interaction:
To Hans Maus, concerning doing work for NASA-Houston:
“Do we get reimbursed for this work? Houston (NASA) never
misses an opportunity to put their hand in our pocket. I think we should
reciprocate.” ——————————————-Wernher von Braun
To his Deputy, Harry Gorman being informed Marshall Space
Flight Center may have a janitorial strike: “Get me a broom. I’ll sweep my own
office.”———-Wernher von Braun
To Jim Bramlet/Matt Urland when informed that Boeing had
submitted a Saturn V booster change order for several million dollars: “What’s
going on here?? If Boeing keeps operating like this, we’ll be broke in no
time!—————————————-Wernher von Braun
He didn’t care who he offended as long as it was productive. He excelled in this fashion, some of his quotes are downright hilarious, yet straight to the point.
There isn’t much else to praise him for. The accounts of those abused by him are absolutely appalling. By the same standard, most accused of this type of abuse were executed. Accounts of abuse by his hand do exist, despite what some will say about his actions at his slave labor camps.
We could have done manned spaceflight without him, but many leadership conflicts would have likely occurred with so many talking heads vying for control as it did with the Russian Program.
For some reason, enough Americans of this era looked up to ex Nazi’s to place them in high position. Guenther Wendt, who served in the Luftwaffe during WWII was also admired by many NASA employees and place in charge of pad checkout. Guenther however was never directly associated with slave labor and torture.
Many refused to work for Von Braun or participate in his briefings. His work, while it produced great results was not sustainable for any widespread use. NASA has difficulty even locating design plans for the Saturn 5. While Von Braun was an influential individual, he was not influential enough to this degree.
Taking those facts, Von Brauns drawbacks are profound. Personaly. I think Robert Goddard is more notable. Even more so considering Von Braun utilized much of Goddard’s ideas.
Robert Goddard’s birthday is October 5, 1882 if anyone cares.
Not true. Von Braun’s gift was management and not technology.
Goddard’s downfall was that he didn’t want to share his information. JPL founders tried to work with him and he refused. Goddard was a dead end branch.
Goddard was a loner, but he had good reason. He was treated with incredible disdain by the press, including the New York Times, which ridiculed his claim that a rocket could produce thrust with nothing to push against. He became reluctant to talk about anything that had not been demonstrated. He offered to work for the military in both world wars. I think blaming Goddard for paranoia or selfishness in failing to share his work is a bit unfair; his estate was eventually awarded over $1 million for patent infringement. A quote from von Karman in the Wikipedia article is unintentionally ironic and perhaps reveals something about why things did not work out: “Naturally we at Caltech wanted as much information as we could get from Goddard for our mutual benefit”.
von Braun readily conceded that Robert Goddard provided the key concepts for modern rocketry in his thesis “A method for Reaching Extreme Altitudes” and was every bit as advanced as von Braun his designs. Yet America, supposedly the breeding ground of innovation, laughed at Goddard, the inventor of the liquid fuel rocket, and denied him research funds, while Germany recognized the value of von Braun, and America, after the war, gave him a blank check.
Goddard, in contrast, was laughed at in the press and ignored even when he tried to help the military during WWII.
Only in America.
>laughed at Goddard, the inventor of the liquid fuel rocket,
>and denied him research funds,
This sounds like what we are doing with other inventors/researchers nowadays.
I better not say all, but will say that almost all Great Ones, throughout history, are jerks–and many would qualify as narcissistic sociopaths. They get things done because, to their minds, rules are for the little people.
Von Braun, just like Korelev, didn’t care if the Devil Himself wrote the checks, as long as it forwarded his personal dream (or ambition, whichever you choose to call it). You almost have to admire and condemn them simultaneously.
My father was one of the slave laborers working on components for missiles at Dessau. My grandparents, uncle and aunts were all murdered at the hands of the NAZIs. I took my father to see the Viking 1 launch; he said he could never have imagined living to see something like that.
I met von Braun once. He was engaging, personable and committed. His technical work was critical when it needed to be. Just as critical was his engagement of the media in selling the program to Americans. We need that kind of leadership today.
Despite my misgivings with von Braun’s earlier years, he did much to establish the program I owe my livelihood to. It is unfortunate that since he faded from the scene, no one has replaced him in his role as salesman for the program.
To make things more complex:
” When the first V-2 hit London von Braun remarked to his colleagues, “The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet.”
The SS and the Gestapo arrested von Braun for crimes against the state because he persisted in talking about building rockets which would go into orbit around the Earth and perhaps go to the Moon. His crime was indulging in frivolous dreams when he should have been concentrating on building bigger rocket bombs for the Nazi war machine.”
(http://inventors.about.com/…
Shrug. it’s a damn complicated world out there.
So far, three out of four comments are from people not fit to clean von Braun’s shoes.
He had slaves to do that for him too.
One could make the case that by diverting Nazi resources into the V2 program he saved lives. Had those types of funds been available for Atomic weapon research thing may have ended differently.The V2 was a very expensive way to fight a war.
Sometimes even bad intentions turn out net benefits, and I think the Allies should be glad that Hitler poured precious resources into such an inefficient killing machine as the V-2. The technical estimates I’ve seen suggest that had there been no V-2 program, diverting hardware and fuels into the jet program and others could have prolonged the war in Europe several months, leading to the August 6, 1945 A-bombing of Berlin, and years more of war in the Pacific with tens of millions of additional casualties. Those thousands who died in London and in the slave caves must not be forgotten, but their deaths probably saved many many more lives. It is a hideously cold-blooded calculus of casualties, and perhaps the V-2 was a less-bad path of ‘near thing’ alternate history.
As a space manager for Apollo, von Braun’s most praiseworthy moment in my mind is when he accepted the better argument from John Houbolt, changed his mind, and decided that the super-SUPER-rocket he wanted to build wasn’t needed if lunar orbit rendezvous was chosen instead. It was not the answer he or his team wanted but it was the right answer, and he had the intellectual guts to follow the numbers, not his biases.
Yes I’ve heard mention of that before about diversion of resources from jets but no proof it would invariably have occured. What influence would mercurial Adolf had on such decisions
I know of no claims that there was talk of dropping an A bomb on Berlin on August 6
I’ve long wonderd what the real reason was that the USA didn’t push rocket(or for that matter jet) research harder prior or even during WW2
After all without wars many alive today wouldn’t be and vice versa.
I did my MA Thesis on Wernher von Braun and the German Rocket Team in America back in 2001. (Visit
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4…
to read the thesis if interested.) I went into my research on von Braun
with the prevailing wisdom then being promoted (mainly by Michael
Neufeld) that Wernher and his team members were card-carrying Nazis who
used Jews to build V2s to bomb England and NW Europe before coming to
America to work for the Army and then NASA.
I found the issue of von Braun’s work running the German Army’s rocket program
with Gen. Dornberger to be much more complex than Neufeld and other
critics indicated. As a historian you need to be able to understand your
subject in the context of their time and situation. Neufeld and other
critics claimed that while von Braun didn’t actually direct the building
of rockets with the use of slave labor he did know about it. Therefore,
they assert, von Braun should have told Himmler and the SS that he
would refuse to continue to work on the V2 unless this practice was
ended based on our moral judgment from (then 45 years removed from the
totalitarian regime of Adolf Hitler’s Germany) our safe, secure,
academic perspective. I asked Neufeld how he could believe that von
Braun or any other rocket team member could attempt to refuse to work on
the V2 for Himmler and the SS. Neufeld tried to use the example of
Himmler letting his men who were suffering psychological trauma from the
repeated shooting of men, women and children in cold blood to rotate
out of this duty for R&R. Neufeld said that surely von Braun could
have refused to work just like the SS men asked to be released from
their gruesome duty. I pointed out how this was a false analogy because
Himmler had personally gotten ill over personally witnessing executions
during a tour of the work of the SS to eradicate the Jews. Himmler felt
compassion for his men who had this terrible duty and this is why he
allowed those men who requested it to be transferred or otherwise
relieved without any negative consequence. Von Braun’s situation was far
different and he was in no position to negotiate the terms of his
service to the SS and Hitler.
I believe that von Braun’s critics feel he
should have made a great moral stand against the SS and allowed himself
to be executed because they have convinced themselves they would have
done just that if they had been in von Braun’s position. Realistically,
human beings will do what it takes to survive when your life is at
stake. The slave laborers at the Mittelwerk were also used to build
V1’s, jet engines for the Me-262 and Ar-234 planes and the “Taifun” and
“Orkan” anti-aircraft missiles yet this is glossed over to focus on the
production of V2s because von Braun was so well-known. Even if von
Braun had refused to continue his work on the V2, he would have been
imprisoned (again), replaced and the slave labor would have continued at
the Mittelwerk on the V2 and other military projects required by the
SS. The United States would have lost an engineering genius and
visionary for space exploration along with his team for the coming Cold
War with the Soviet Union. Hindsight is 20/20 when we sit in judgment on
historical figures. Gen. Curtis LeMay realized that the definition of
“war hero” or “war criminal” is based on the view of those who write the
history because if the US had lost the war he was sure he would have
been tried as a war criminal for his use of incendiaries in bombing and
leveling Japanese cities. We are still debating the morality of using
the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We are still debating the
firebombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, Tokyo, etc., almost 70 years
after WWII. This is why I cannot judge von Braun and his team members
using a simple black/white, good/evil calculus when the reality of their
experience is all about shades of gray.
Neufeld (who had come to the University of Alabama, Huntsville to speak) ended his lecture about von Braun by saying he didn’t believe that von Braun was a war criminal but that he was morally culpable to have done more to fight Himmler and the SS. Neufeld said that von Braun was a technocrat who wasn’t a committed Nazi but rather allowed himself to be used in order to pursue his passion for rockets. He said that von Braun was an opportunist who made sure that he and his team would surrender to the Americans rather than our allies or the Russiansd because von Braun believed he and his team would be able to continue their rocket work in the US. We can acknowledge the genius of von Braun and his great accomplishments as a promoter of space exploration in the West along with his singular ability (along with his team) to build large rockets taking Americans to the moon and launch Skylab while also remaining cognizant that he did work on a weapons system for the German Army under the control of the Nazi regime. There is a moral dimension to the study of history and we each have to make our own judgment on how we view a historical figure whether we are talking about a Jesus of Nazareth or a Joseph Stalin. I doubt that there are truly any totally unbiased views when it comes to history especially when dealing with matters of war.
Robert,
Didn’t von Braun at one point mention to a colleague that his only true interest was in manned space flight? And wasn’t he personally rebuked and threatened by the SS for these sentiments? His lack of “German patriotism”?—John
VonBraun was a great force in moving our species off-planet. He deserves credit for that, as do Oppenheimer and others deserve credit for nuclear science, despite Japanese city destruction. We are better we had both.
When I think of all of the other scientists, artists and intellectuals (even Jewish ones) who managed to get out of Germany before things got really bad, Von Braun’s retroactive claims of regret seem rather hollow.
Interesting comments. As a Brit, the old “I aim for the stars… but sometimes hit London” still has force.
Keith – did not know that. Your father was in the service in WWII? As a Brit, we thank you for that.
His roommates asked him if he wanted to go out with them to have a beer. My Dad was broke so he declined and stayed where they were billeted. The V-2 impact blast threw him out of his bed through some glass doors. His roommates never came back.
Also, Wendt was not “placed” into any position. He was just a Luftwaffe pilot that emigrated to the US. His first job with McDonnell in engineering in a non space relate field, he applied for jobs just like anyone else. He was not given any advantages and it only circumstances led to him becoming the pad leader. Nothing to do with his heritage. I happen to know the person that hired him for the job that became pad leader.
ARTIST: Tom Lehrer
TITLE: Wernher Von Braun
Lyrics and Chords
Gather round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun
A man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience
Call him a Nazi, he won’t even frown
“Ha, Nazi schmazi,” says Wernher von Braun
/ G7 – C – / G7 C G7 C / G7 – C A7 / Dm C G7 C /
Don’t say that he’s hypocritical
Say rather that he’s apolitical
“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down
That’s not my department,” says Wernher von Braun
/ B7 – Em – / / G7 – C A7 / Dm C G7 C /
Some have harsh words for this man of renown
But some think our attitude should be one of gratitude
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun
You too may be a big hero
Once you’ve learned to count backwards to zero
“In German oder English I know how to count down
Und I’m learning Chinese,” says Wernher von Braun
Yea and his jokes referred to his Nazi past.
My family knew a good German from the NAZI era. He saw what was going on, didn’t like it, realized he could do nothing about it and then emigrated to the United States where he became a very patriotic American. Other Germans also did so. Why didn’t the Peenemunde team? Was it because they were so narrow they didn’t understand what was happening?
I will add another comment about von Braun. He shifted management to a style those of who understand social psychology as much more authoritarian. It got a man to the Moon faster than most people realized. It also put into place a management style that persists to this day (think Columbia Accident Investigation) that is considerably more hostile to ideas and knowledge not subscribed to by the powers that currently be.
I will add I think we would have made more progress in space at a slower, but steadier, rate with more openness if we had not let the Peenemunde team have any positions of leadership or power in our efforts. I will note that we did have an alternate program at the beginning of the space age run by the Navy. If they had managed to get their first attempts to work, the von Braun team might not have attracted so much attention.
I will admit, though, that von Braun was a better communicator than Goddard — at least to things like TV, etc.
I have spoken to my spouse’s relatives who grew up in East
Germany during and after WWII and who still live in Germany today. They were children then and don’t have too
much to say about those days but what little they have said paints a pretty
stark picture of their struggles to survive.
At times they and their families saw prisoners marched through the
streets and did not risk their lives to free them. They just kept their heads down and did what
they had to in order to live. I can
picture me in their shoes in that time and place and I am objective enough
about myself to know I would have done just as they did. I would have done whatever it took to
preserve the lives of my family.
I wish I had the courage and fortitude of some of those who have posted
here to spit in the face of danger, the courage to sacrifice the
lives of my family for the greater good, the courage to stand up for right no
matter the personal cost. Actually,
sometimes I wish I was that naive…
I can only hope that if, at some point in the future, we
find ourselves facing a similar plight to those in Germany during WWII that
some of you are willing to risk everything to fight the good fight. Understand, though, that I will protect my
family at any cost so don’t be surprised if I throw you under the bus for their
sake.