March 23, 1912 - Wernher von Braun
His trajectory cuts an unusually stark line through twentieth-century history: the same technical genius that produced a weapon of terror for the Nazi war machine was later absorbed into the American space program and credited with reaching the Moon. The V-2 rockets he helped develop at Peenemünde killed thousands — both in their use against civilian targets and through the forced labor of concentration camp prisoners who built them. His postwar reinvention under Operation Paperclip, and the institutional willingness to set aside that record in pursuit of Cold War advantage, made him one of the more consequential and contested figures of the era.
From Wikipedia
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun (US: VUR-nər von BROWN; German: [ˈvɛʁnheːɐ̯ fɔn ˈbʁaʊn]; 23 March 1912 – 16 June 1977) was a German American aerospace engineer and space architect. He became a member of the Nazi Party and then the Allgemeine SS to support his rocket work. He led the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany, and later of rocket and space technology in the US.
As a young man, von Braun worked in Nazi Germany's rocket development program. He helped design and co-developed the V-2 rocket at Peenemünde Army Research Center during World War II. The V-2 became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line on 20 June 1944. Following the war, he was secretly moved to the United States, along with about 1,600 other German scientists, engineers, and technicians, as part of Operation Paperclip. He worked for the United States Army on an intermediate-range ballistic missile program, and he developed the rockets that launched the United States' first space satellite Explorer 1 in 1958. He worked with Walt Disney on a series of films, which popularized the idea of human space travel in the US and beyond from 1955 to 1957.
In 1960, his group was assimilated into NASA, where he served as director of the newly formed Marshall Space Flight Center and as the chief architect of the Saturn V super heavy-lift launch vehicle that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon.
Further reading
- Von Braun
A nuanced portrait of von Braun as the Third Reich's chief rocket engineer, V-2 creator, reluctant SS officer, and pivotal figure in the American space program.
View on Amazon → - Von Braun
A Smithsonian curator delivers a deeply researched biography of the space pioneer who was simultaneously celebrated as a visionary and condemned as a war criminal.
View on Amazon → - Wernher Von Braun
Traces von Braun's remarkable journey from pioneering rocketry in Germany to launching America's first satellite and ultimately putting men on the Moon.
View on Amazon →
As an Amazon Associate, Evil Birthdays earns from qualifying purchases.
- Last updated on .