Wernher von Braun - from notebooks to Saturn-V

[CBH]

I started a thread asking if there were any known photos of him in his SS uniform , I never got a photo in response, So I still hope to see one , and I'm sure one exists but as of yet I haven't seen it .
Cheers Chris

[hassiman]

In the 1970s and 1980s I worked in the Astronomy department of the University Of Arizona. One of the faculty members there was Ernst Stuhlinger. One of the members of Von Braun's V2 team and also heavily involved with the DORA site and the horrendous slave labor /camp conditions there.
I never talked with him about his wartime activities.... but I did speak to his son shortly after the US government finally deported him because of his involvement in war crimes. His son said he had no idea of his father's involvement and felt the charges were trumped up.... But things he mentioned told me he indeed did.
Most of my fellow co-workers had full knowledge of his past and were astounded that he had never been prosecuted.... but this was before paperclip became public knowledge.
Ask Londoners how much of a hero Von Braun was.... He was an egotistical monster that wore the Black with pride in the full conviction that he was a member of the master race that was destined to conquer the world.

[CBH]

As time passes , the true history sometimes breaks through the Double Think and white washing . But many don't want to think of the man in the Disney movie about space was a member of the SS , who was involved in the slave labour DORA site . That is why it's so hard to find an image of von Braun in uniform, the Thought Police wouldn't like it . Thank you for the insightful post .
Cheers

[CARL]

A common mistake is to call the site DORA. The independant concentration camp - and site of the V-weapons manufacturing facilities, should always be referred to as KL-Mittelbau, or even KL-Mittelbau-Dora...but never Dora alone. The reason for this is explained in the thread I linked earlier, addressing the site (see post 54, page 6)

KL-Mittelbau-Dora

[CARL]

NASA

In 1957, Wernher von Braun and his team were chosen by US authorities to create an orbital launch vehicle. Several years earlier, von Braun had actually had an initial proposal based along those guidelines rejected - critically, this was before Sputnik-I had been launched by the Soviets. The Americans were now playing catch up...

Two years after its establishment, von Braun and his team transferred to NASA and continued their work on the Saturn project - a stipulation von Braun insisted upon beforehand. Early problems, arguments and von Braun's reportedly stubborn and overly cautious nature led to the delay in a manned American space mission, allowing the Soviets to make advances.

The Marshall Center, home for von Braun and his development team, concentrated its efforts on one major early project - the Saturn rocket development. Saturn rockets were developed to carry heavy payloads into space. From this project, the Apollo program was developed, which ultimately resulted in manned flights to the moon. During the Apollo program, von Braun worked closely alongside former Peenemünde colleague Kurt Debus, first director of the Kennedy Space Center.

July 16th 1969 saw von Braun's dream of aiding a moon landing become reality, when a Marshall developed Saturn-V rocket launched the crew of Apollo XI on its historic mission. Six teams of astronauts would later reach the moon during the Saturn-V project.

Spring 1970 saw von Braun relocate to Washington DC, taking the position of Deputy Associate Administrator for Planning at NASA HQ. However, barely two years later, von Braun retired from NASA in spring 1972 due to increasing budget cuts and incompatible views as to forward development projects. Once the moon landings had put the US back in the space spotlight, interest in a continued presence in space waned significantly - this was something that would prove too much for von Braun to accept as the frustration patently grew.

POST NASA

Aerospace company Fairchild Industries hired von Braun as their Vice President of Engineering and Development in July 1972, a position he held for four years until ill health forced him to retire in December 1976. Awarded the National Medal of Science in 1977, he was unable to attend the ceremony at the White House as he was hospitalized. In June 1977, aged 65, he died of cancer in Alexandria, Virginia. His gravestone at Ivy Hill Cemetery reads Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."

[CARL]

Images from the Gateway to Space Exhibition, Prague 2015:

1) An electro-mechanical timer from a V-2. A critical part of the world's first self-guided missile, these timers controlled the engines and thrust directing vanes through a music-box-like timer which activated electrical circuits at controlled intervals

2) The V-2. Almost 46 ft (14m) high, with a mass of 27,600 lbs (12,500 kg)

3) Model of the Saturn-V. At 363 ft (110.6 m) high with a mass of 6,200,000 lbs (2,800,000 kg), it remains the largest and most powerful launch vehcile ever built

4-5) Wernher von Braun

[Chopperman]

Great thread.
Very interesting

[Marcus Vaughn]

Several people have commented that von Braun mentioned several times that Germany had help from "them" as he pointed to the sky when asked how technology increased at such a rapid rate, from man's first flight in 1904 to a man on the moon in 1969.

I am not sure what to think about such comments and I have no commentary other than von Braun seemed quite serious about it. I have never seriously believed any of the Nazi-UFO connections, but this one did have me scratching my head.


Great thread by the way Carl!

[CARL]

Thank you Marcus, glad that you found the thread of interest.

Carl

[Larboard]

Since we're discussing Nazi-UFO connections...

The Alien-Nazi Connection

I find myself very much a skeptic of the 1969 moon landings, even though I watched them on TV in real time. And btw, if we "left a bunch of stuff on the moon", can we see any of it, I mean one single piece, from an observatory today? Let me know if anyone can procure a single picture...

Smoke and mirrors, a grand show, a Cold War triumph?

That said... We can thank our lucky stars that Hitler (in his infinite wisdom that cost the Germans 3.1 million dead and 1.2 million missing) dismissed Einstein's work on the atom as "Jewish science" and didn't get a hold of "the bomb" before we did.

Had the targets been London and Moscow instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the outcome of the war would have been radically different...