From Nazis to NASA, Part I
Jennifer Wilding

Wernher Maximillian Magnus von Braun was a man possessed by visions of the future. The second of the three sons of Baron Magnus von Braun, Wernher was born on March 23, 1912 in what was then Wirsitz, in East Prussia (now Wyrzysk, Poland). His boyhood was characterized by pranks, low grades and a passion for rockets. Drawings of moon rockets and space stations decorated Wernher's school books.

Early experimentation landed Wernher in trouble more the once. His runaway rockets usually exploded, sometimes in shops or produce carts and occasionally started fires. What was perhaps the most spectacular incident involved a rocket propelled cart that shot out of control into the Berlin traffic, resulting in chaos and the arrest of thirteen year old Wernher. He was released to the custody of his father, then the Minister of Agriculture and Education for the Wiemar Republic.

The Baron held this post until Hitler came to power. Refusing to be part of the Nazi movement, he retired and went home. (His son was a member of the Nazi Party. While working as an assistant professor in Berlin he received a letter stating that the Party was pleased to accept him as a member, his membership fees were due on a certain date. As it was a case of join or lose everything, Wernher prudently paid up.)

Baron von Braun, tired of his son's pranks and abysmal academic performance, sent him to boarding school. It was there that Wernher realized he could not build rockets without mathematics, and he began to achieve spectacular success in math and engineering related sciences. His grades were so high Wernher graduated a year early.

While studying engineering at the Charlottenburg Institute of Technology Wernher joined the Verein fur Raumschiffahrt, the Society for Space Travel, a group of amateur rocket enthusiasts in Berlin. In 1930 he launched his first real rocket. It did not actually fly, but the engine worked and the members of the VfR kept on trying. In 1932 von Braun and his friends demonstrated the Mirak ll rocket to a group of army munitions men. The rocket was not a success but von Braun was identified as a man to watch. If he would obtain his doctoral degree the German army would fund all the rocket research von Braun could carry out. Wernher, rocket mad, took the bait.

Von Braun began building rocket engines for the German army. After some spectacular failures and a number of fires it was time to begin building complete rockets. In 1934 the "A" rocket series began. The A series was a very hit-and-miss proposition. The A-1 never got built, the A-2 worked, but not very well and the A-3 did not work at all. This last was designed to be a reusable rocket, it's major defect lay in the parachute landing gear. The A-4 was a very successful design, and was the first rocket to actually go into space. It later became known world wide as the V-2, precursor to the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) that followed.

Rocket design in Nazi Germany was an intensely competitive activity and actually precipitated a power struggle in the German High Command. The Luftwaffe, as the air force, claimed that rocket research belonged under their direction and offered von Braun a fabulous research grant. The German Army, however, and offered even more. Von Braun elected to stay with the army and nearly paid with his life for that decision.

The Luftwaffe had good reason to be jealous. The V-2 was a true rocket, and the potential was enormous. However, in one of those odd twists of fate, the research program nearly died off for lack of funding. Most of the research monies available were directed to the V-1 program, Hitler's favorite. If it hadn't been for Munitions Minister Albert Speer diverting funds from other sources to von Braun the V-2 might never have been built. In 1943, however, von Braun showed Hitler a film of successful V-2 flights. Hitler immediately saw the possibilities in them and funding became lavish.

In May, 1944 SS chief Himmler had von Braun and two associates arrested. The putative charge was treason, von Braun and his associates spent too much time talking about moon-landings and peacetime applications of rocketry. The real reason was von Braun's refusal to transfer to the Luftwaffe. It took a direct order from Hitler, at the instigation of Albert Speer (himself a space enthusiast who greatly enjoyed those discussions), to get them released. The Luftwaffe had to make do with the vastly inferior V-1 flying bomb.

Such was von Braun's fame that, during this period, agents from America, Britain and the Soviet Union smuggled in offers of employment by their respective countries. Details on this episode are sketchy, but it is said that the Russian agent got in by disguising himself as a cook.

The lavish funding did not come without cost. Von Braun himself was nearly killed by a rogue V-2 in 1944. They were dangerous, with a tendency to blow up, fall out of the sky or shoot off the launch pad in unpredictable tangents. When they finally went into production as a weapon at Mittlewerk they were assembled by concentration camp prisoners who worked under terrible conditions and died in huge numbers. It was not a very effective weapon, the "kill rate" was low, it was fragile, and deteriorated rapidly once it was assembled. It also killed some of the launch teams. However, von Braun was not interested in weapons, he was interested in rockets and this was the world's first successful rocket.

By May 1945 the war was drawing to a close, and Germany was losing. After some deliberation von Braun and his rocket team decided to surrender to the Americans. Wernher's brother, Magnus (also a rocket scientist) rode off on his bicycle to locate an American detachment. The entire Peenemunde contingent of about 300 rocket experts surrendered on May 3, 1945.