The Backstory: From Nazi Scientist to NASA Creator

The father of U.S. space exploration, Wernher von Braun, started out as a Nazi collaborator and a member of the Nazi SS. Why did the U.S. ignore his Nazi involvement and how do we reconcile his remarkable achievements with his dark past?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, how does one guy go from creating devastating weapons
for the Nazis to creating NASA and the space program
for the United States. Werner von Braun was born into
a noble Prussian family and was later recruited by the
Third Reich to build rockets. But after all that, how
did he wind up at the helm of NASA and

(00:20):
doing space documentaries with Walt Disney. I'm Patty Steele. From
Nazi collaboration to US space exploration. That's next on the backstory.
We're back with the backstory. We all have dreams we
would like to see fulfilled, but we're also handed circumstances

(00:41):
we have to deal with to make those dreams come true. Right, Well,
the question is what are you willing to do to
get there? Werner von Braun was born in nineteen twelve.
His father was from an old noble family in Prussia
and his mother came from European royalty. After she gave
him a telescope for his confirmation, he fell in love

(01:02):
with space and the idea of space travel, and he
read everything he could about it. By the time he
was twenty two years old, he had a PhD in physics,
but he was realizing that the only way to pursue
spaceflight was with a lot of money and backing. Now
it's nineteen thirty seven, he's twenty five years old, and

(01:22):
he decides the Nazi Party, now in power in Germany,
is his best chance to go after his dream. Von
Braun was the ultimate opportunist, so he joined the Nazi
Party so he could work on their rocket program. He
later said he joined because Hitler had promised to help
Germany recover from the devastating economic effects of World War One.

(01:44):
He also knew that if he didn't join, he'd have
to give up his life's passion. But all his work,
according to later investigations by the FBI, was in the
development of rockets. In nineteen forty, he said he was
strong armed into joining the SS if he wanted to
continue his rocket work. He claimed he had no political

(02:06):
involvement in the Nazi Party, but others said he was
more involved than he admitted. Sounds a bit like making
a deal with the devil right anyway. Pretty soon after
he went to work at a secret Nazi facility where
he spearheaded the development of the V two rocket. It
was the world's first long range guided ballistic missile, and

(02:27):
it was an amazing bit of technology, But the V
two rocket had a devastating human cost. Thousands of forced
laborers worked under horrific conditions to build these things. On
top of that, the V two was used to kill
thousands across Europe, particularly in London and Antwerp. Between the

(02:48):
workers and the missile attacks, more than twenty thousand people
were killed. Von Braun was blurring the line between scientist
and collaborator. Finally, as World War II turned out against Germany,
von Braun's opportunistic side was facing a critical decision. It
was clear Germany was losing the war, so von Braun

(03:08):
and his team decided to surrender to American forces after
learning the Germans had plans to execute them all if
it looked like they'd fall into Allied hands. They wanted
them dead rather than sharing their knowledge. Von Braun and
his crew were also convinced that their future research and
safety would be best guaranteed by the US, and that

(03:30):
decision altered history. As the war wrapped up, the US
created Operation paper Clip. It was a secret program that
recruited top Nazi scientists to keep them away from the Soviets.
Von Braun in about sixteen hundred other German scientists were
secretly brought to America. The US government covered up their past,

(03:52):
and officially their war records were downplayed or even completely erased.
He and his colleagues worked for a short time on
weapons development in Alabama, but soon began working on the
space program. For decades, von Brun had talked about sending
man to the Moon, and now he had the chance.
It was the nineteen fifties. The Cold War amped up

(04:16):
the space race between the US and the Soviet Union.
Von Brun saw a clear path forward for his dreams.
He was a very good looking guy, a noted ladies
man with a sparkling personality, and he became a really
influential public figure, giving passionate lectures on space exploration in person,

(04:36):
on TV and in newspapers, books, and magazines. He spoke
about building a space station to facilitate space exploration, as
well as a base on the Moon. He even had
detailed plans for eventual manned trips to Mars. All that
in the early nineteen fifties. By the mid nineteen fifties,
he was working with Walt Disney nonetheless on a number

(05:00):
where of space documentaries, all to publicize space travel and
make it popular among the American public. Von Braun's career
peaked spectacularly when NASA was formed in nineteen fifty eight.
He spearheaded the development of the powerful Saturn five rocket,
which would ultimately carry astronauts to the Moon during the

(05:21):
Apollo missions. In fact, he was on hand in July
of nineteen sixty nine when a Saturn five rocket launched
Apollo eleven for the first manned landing on the Moon.
Americas celebrated him as a hero, but pretty much overlooked
his Nazi affiliation. Though even at the height of his success,
von Braun's past continued to pop up. Survivors of the

(05:45):
forced labor camps. Historians and activists attacked the US government
for Operation paper Clip, which of course had recruited all
those Nazi scientists. Von Braun himself never spoke much about it,
preferring to concentrate on his contributions to the space race.
He was content with being able to successfully distance himself

(06:07):
from his war years, and that's the question. Do we
vilify him for his Nazi collaboration or celebrate his achievements,
And thus, by his story that he was only ever
interested in space exploration and was just following orders. It's
a complicated past, but many still consider him to be
the father of space exploration. Werner von Braun died in

(06:31):
nineteen seventy seven at the age of sixty five from
pancreatic cancer. It's clear that major advancements can sometimes be
built upon disturbing foundations. We have to ask ourselves is
it morally worth it. Hope you're enjoying The Backstory with
Patty Steele. Please leave a review and follow or subscribe

(06:52):
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free to dm me if you have a story you'd
like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and
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(07:15):
and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our
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Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
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Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't

(07:37):
know you needed to know.