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Wernher von Braun

Original nameWernher von Braun

German-American Rocket Engineer, Core Driver of Modern Spaceflight Engineering

Those Who Turned Invention Into Industry · Industry-Builders

The V-2 RocketThe Saturn V Launch VehicleThe Apollo Moon Landing Program

Who they are

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) was a German-American rocket engineer who during World War II directed the development in Nazi Germany of the V-2 ballistic missile, the first large liquid-fueled rocket in human history able to reach the edge of space and fly at supersonic speed, but also a war weapon causing much civilian death, whose production moreover made heavy use of concentration-camp forced labor, the resulting death toll estimated even to exceed the casualties the V-2 caused in actual use — this history is an unavoidable and highly controversial dark chapter in judging von Braun’s technological contribution. After World War II he and his team’s core members were secretly taken in by the US in "Operation Paperclip," and thereafter he directed NASA’s Saturn V launch-vehicle program, this highest-thrust launch vehicle humanity has ever built being precisely the key vehicle that sent the Apollo 11 spacecraft to the Moon and achieved humanity’s first Moon landing. Von Braun thereby became one of the most representative yet morally most complex and contradictory figures in the history of twentieth-century spaceflight engineering — the same core technical ability of the same engineer was first used for the war weapons of Nazi Germany, and thereafter achieved one of the greatest engineering feats of human space exploration.

Primary sourcesNASA Apollo program historical archivesInvestigation records of the WWII V-2 production war crimes

Key stories

One Technology, Two Utterly Different Historical Judgments

The technical core of the V-2 missile von Braun directed — the large liquid-fuel rocket engine and precise guidance system — is of one lineage in engineering principle with the Saturn V rocket that later sent humanity to the Moon, but the V-2 caused much civilian death in World War II and its production relied heavily on concentration-camp forced labor, a sharp moral contrast with the human spirit of exploration the Apollo Moon program carried, and this is the core controversy the history of technology can never get around in judging von Braun’s historical standing.

Operation Paperclip and the Cold War Space Race

On the eve of the end of World War II, von Braun and his team’s core members actively surrendered to the US military, and the US then secretly moved them and a large body of technical material to the US homeland through the secret program codenamed "Operation Paperclip," and thereafter von Braun gradually grew into a core leader of US spaceflight engineering, directing, against the backdrop of the Cold War US-Soviet space race, the Saturn V rocket that at last let the US achieve the historic breakthrough of humanity’s first Moon landing in 1969.

Version differences

While von Braun directed the development of the V-2 missile in Nazi Germany, its production made heavy use of concentration-camp forced labor, the resulting death toll estimated even to exceed the casualties the missile caused in actual use, and this history and his later contribution to the Apollo Moon program are two facts that must both be presented, neither canceling the other, in evaluating this figure.

Relationships

Mentor

✈️The Wright Brothers

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

The ongoing discussion of "Operation Paperclip"The history of the US "Operation Paperclip" secretly taking in Nazi German scientists has in recent years, as more archives are declassified, continually provoked public discussion of the ethics of technology and war responsibility.

Appears in

The Century of the Internal-Combustion Engine, Flight, and SpeedFrom a 12-Second First Flight to a Moon Rocket

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