Wernher Von Braun

Wernher Von Braun is linked forever with America’s space program.

 As a leading scientist working for the Nazi party during the war, he developed the V2 rocket which relies on liquid propulsion, a major breakthrough in the 1940’s. Germany tried to weaponized the missiles but killed more laborers in their camps than allied soldiers. It wasn’t an effective weapon but helped create a ‘genius’ myth around its creator Von Braun. Sensing a collapse of the Third Reich and the strong possibility of being captured by the Russians, he surrendered to the Americans instead.

Wernher Von Braun’s second act is either a miscarriage of justice or proof that noble patriots got sucked into supporting a dictator they didn’t like. His link to the Nazi party was too much for many Americans to get over. Why should he not be held responsible for the atrocities committed by the group to which he was a member? Naturally the Americans questioned him about his affiliation. I’ve read through some of his answers on the critical questions about his background. He mostly comes off reluctant about the German cause, an engineer concerned with building rockets and exploring the moon. 

Whether you believe him or not determines what you think of allowing him to become an American, and develop a space program in the U.S.

At first glance it doesn’t look good. The Americans essentially moved Von Braun and his crew over the Atlantic and set them up with a new purpose, to beat the Russians into space. Not only to beat the Soviets but also to test and develop rockets for military use.

From 1945 until his death in 1977 he worked on ballistic missiles for the Army and countless NASA programs like the Saturn launch rocket. They played catch-up to the Soviets after Sputnik (first satellite). Saturn was the first launch rocket to take Americans into space.

For some, Von Braun was nothing more than an opportunist. A reluctant Nazi perhaps, but one who oversaw the conditions in the research laboratory and did nothing to stop them. Slave labor was used to assemble and test the V2s under miserable conditions. Reports from soldiers who liberated the camp at Mittlebau-Dora described it the same way they described finding other camps around the country, dead bodies stacked in corners and horrific injuries, malnutrition, disease. War engenders callousness in those who experience it. But to not protest or walk out in protest suggests cruelty or indifference. The rest of the Nazi cadres that were captured faced a war tribunal at Nuremberg, including Von Braun’s ally Albert Speer.  

What should be the response toward scientists’ who worked with Nazis? I don’t mean the ones who conducted torture experiments on people, just the ones who developed bomb technology or rocket propulsion? Von Braun never believed had Germany won, that Allied scientists would have been treated the same as generals and commanders. Where military leaders get harsh punishment (imprisonment, death) scientific disciplines get lighter penalties like restrictions on future practice.

Apparently he expresses remorse for the treatment of prisoners in later interviews. Always with the aside that he couldn’t stop it if he wanted to, he was a scientist caught up in a war.

By all accounts he makes a genuine life change in America after he attends a Baptist church in Texas. One account tells of a pastor in his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama leading Wernher in a prayer of repentance. If anyone doubts his commitment to Christ, they need only read his observations on science and religion.

Through science man attempts to understand the laws of creation; through religious activities he attempts to understand the intentions of the Creator. Each approach is a search for ultimate truth.

If this was an attempt to be accepted in America as an engineer living in accordance with cultural norms, he wouldn’t have been so bold about the existence of God. Especially in the science community, agnosticism would have been a wiser choice. By promoting “Creationism” he basically becomes an outcast among an elite group. By the time of his death he is the most prominent Creationist in the country and sees no conflict between religion and science.

More scientists will get off their ivory towers and publicly say what I am saying here...with all the modern means at our disposal, with schools, churches, educational institutions, press, radio, and television, they should tell the world that religion and science are not incompatible; that, to the contrary; they belong together.

Another anecdote about the V2 rocket technician shows he wasn’t interested in making ballistic missiles for the Nazi’s. Supposedly Himmler had him arrested after he Von Braun showed a lack of interest in using his designs for the war effort. He was shortly released after Albert Speer convinced the Fuhrer of his utility. 

As with everything surrounding the life of the most important man in space development, it depends on how convincing he is to us. His Christianity seems genuine to me since it was so unnecessary in his profession. Yet he becomes a leading voice for Creationism and exploration of the heavens until his death in 1977.

 It’s Wernher Von Braun’s usefulness to the United States’ ambitions in space that makes one cynical. Would the crew responsible for V2’s technology have been treated differently if they weren’t brilliant, if they hadn’t achieved scientific breakthroughs in rocket propulsion?

I keep coming across a lot of literature critical of Von Braun and his white glove treatment by the Americans after the war. Maybe his genius is what saved him, an indispensable piece in race to the moon. Maybe it was his very falling out with the Nazis and their plans to bomb civilians that separated him, just enough, from the monstrous regime. 

How he lived his life after the war speaks to a change of heart and a commitment to scientific inquiry. Despite his past, he made his future matter for good.