Wernher von Braun1912-1977

Claudia Meegan

•Dr.Wernher Magnus Maximillian Freiherr von Braun, wasborn on March 23,1912 in Wirstiz, Germany (province of Posen,German Empire) (now Wyrzysk,Poland)•Born second of three sons

Sigismund von Braun (1911-1998) German diplomat

Wernher von Braun (1912-1977) rocket scientist

Magnus von Braun (1919-2003) Chrysler Europe executive

•Activities: composed music, wrote poetry, built an automobile out of old parts. Failed at math and physics•Inspired to study physics after reading Hermann Oberth’s rocket into interplanetary space (die rakete zu den planetenraumen)•At the age of 13, he got in very much trouble for attaching rockets to a red wagon and setting them off. Creating screaming flames and smoke, the red wagon launched five blocks into the town square where they exploded. •His father was a conservative civil servant, Magnus Freiherr von Braun. Never favored a party but served as the minister of agriculture during the Weinmar Republic.• His mother: Emmy von Quistorp. Could trace both parents to European royalty. •When Wirstiz became apart of Poland at the end of WW1, the von Braun’s moved to Berlin.

•Early education was in various boarding schools in Germany.•Very much inspired by Hermann Oberth’s Rocket into Interplanetary Space (die rakete zu den planetenraumen)•Earned bachelors in physics and aerospace engineering from the Technical University of Berlin at the age of 20.•Earned doctorate in physics in 1934.•Assisted Hermann Oberth in liquid fueled rocket motor tests.•Joined the VfR- verein fur raumschiffahrt (space flight society)

•von Braun was working on his creative doctorate when the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP or NAZI) took over Germany

Rocketry immediately became a national agenda.•Walter Dornberger (artillery captain) arranged an ordnance department research grant for him.•Dornberger liked von Braun and hired him on to head up the military rocket artillery unit as a civilian engineer. •von Braun then worked next to Dornberger’s existing solid-fuel rocket testing side at Kummersdorf (on the outskirts of Berlin)• By 1934, von Braun and Dronberger had recruited a team of 80 engineers to build the new rockets in Kummersdorf on the outskirts of Berlin. •von Braun was awarded a doctorate in physics (aerospace engineering) on July 27,1934 from the University of Berlin for his thesis About Combustion Tests (only public part of thesis)

Actual full thesis Construction, Theoretical and Experimental Solution to the Problem of the Liquid Propellant Rocket (dated 4/16/24), was kept classified by the U.S. Army, later published in 1960. •von Braun was employed by the German Ordnance Department and became the technical director at Peenemunde rocket center in 1937. Peenemunde was located in northern Germany on the Baltic Sea. •Dornberger became military commander at Peenemunde with von Braun as technical director. •In collaboration with the Luffwaffe, the Peenemunde group developed liquid fuel rocket engines for aircraft and jet-assisted takeoffs. •Also developed the long-range A-4 ballistic missile and supersonic Wasserfall anti-aircraft missile. •November 1937(December 1,1932), von Braun joined the Nazi party

[An office of Military Government, US document dated 4/23/1947: states that von b joined Waffen-SS (Schutzstaffel) horseback riding school in 1933, then NSP on 5/1/1937 and became a officer in Waffen-SS from May of 1940 until the end of the war]•The SS and Gestapo had detained von Braun and arrested him for crimes against the state because he dared to talk about building rockets, which would go into orbit around the earth and perhaps to the moon. Von Braun’s team had plans on their design boards of even larger rockets with potential for orbital flight like the A-9 and A-10 were to be world’s first stage rocket. von Braun was imprisoned without knowledge for his crime in a Gestapo cell in Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland).Dornberger convinced the SS and Gestapo that without von Braun there would be noV2 and that Hitler would have them shot. The Gestapo released von Braun knowing that Germany was doomed, went back to Peenemunde and immediately assembled his team and prepared to surrender.Comments about NSDAP membership,

“I was officially demanded to join the national socialist party. At this time (1937) I was already technical director of the army rocket center at Peenumunde…My refusal to join the party would have meant that I would have

abandon the work of my life. Therefore, I decided to join. My membership in the party did not involve any political activities…in spring 1940, on SS-Standartenfauhrer (SS colonel) Mauller…looked me up in my office at Peenemunde and told me that

Reichsfauhrer Heinrich Himmler had sent him with the order to urge me to join the SS. I called immediately on my military superior…major general Walter Dornberger. He informed me that if I wanted to continue our mutual work, I had no alternative but

to join.”

SS-SchutzstaffeV2-Vergelstungswaffe

•When the soviet army was 160km from Peenemunde, in the spring of 1945. von Braun assembled his planning staff and discussed who to surrender to. They soon realized:

•the Russians frightened most of the scientists. •The French would treat us like slaves. •The British couldn’t afford a rocket program. •That left the Americans.

•Von Braun lead 500 of his people through war torn Germany to surrender. •May 2,1945…upon finding an American private from the US 44 th infantry division. Von Braun’s brother, a fellow rocket engineer, Magnus. Approached the solider and said in broken English “My name is Magnus von Braun, and my brother invented the V2. We want to surrender.”•The Americans were well aware on how important this catch was. Von b had been on the top of the black list for some time.•June 19,1945….two days before the scheduled handover of the area to the Soviets, US Army Major Bob Stover (chief of jet propulsion of the research and intelligence branch of the US Army ordnance in London) and his colleague LT.Col. R.L.Williams took von b and his department chiefs by jeep from Garmisch to Munich. The group then flew to Nordhausen and were then evacuated to the American zone in Witzenhausen. The next day von Braun was recruited to join the US under operation over cast. •June 20, 1945….US Sectary of State Cordell Hull, approved the transfer of von Braun and his team. The American public wasn’t notified until October of that year.

operation overcast=operation paperclippaperclips were used to indicate those who had been selected for transfer.

The Mars Project, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, (1953). With Henry J. White, translator.First Men to the Moon, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York (1958). Portions of work first appeared in This Week Magazine.History of Rocketry & Space Travel, New York, Crowell (1975). With Frederick I. Ordway III.The Rocket's Red Glare, Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, (1976). With Frederick I. Ordway III.Project Mars: A Technical Tale, Apogee Books,

Toronto (2006). A previously unpublished science fiction story by Dr. von Braun.

Accompanied by paintings from Chesley Bonestell and von Braun's own technical papers on the proposed project.

The Voice of Dr. Wernher von Braun, Apogee Books, Toronto (2007). A collection of speeches delivered by von Braun over the course of his career.

““It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and reality of tomorrow” Robert Goddardis the hope of today and reality of tomorrow” Robert Goddard

““Nicht aflesen Ihre Pantoffeln Tazen”-Wernher von BraunNicht aflesen Ihre Pantoffeln Tazen”-Wernher von Braun

Knight Cross of the War Merit Cross in 1944Elected Honary Fellow of the B.I.S. in 1949[44]

Deutsches Bundesverdienstkreuz in 1959Smithsonian Langley Medal in 1967NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1969National Medal of Science in 1975Werner-von-Siemens-Ring in 1975Civitan International World Citizenship Award in 1970[45]

Apollo space program director Sam Phillips was quoted as saying that he did not think that America would have reached the moon as quickly as it did without von Braun's help. Later, after discussing it with colleagues, he amended this to say that he did not believe America would have reached the moon at all.The von Braun crater on the moon was so named by the IAU in recognition of von Braun's contribution to space exploration and technology.Von Braun received a total of 12 honorary doctorates, among them (on January 8, 1963) one from the Technical University of Berlin from which he had graduated.Von Braun was responsible for the creation of the Research Institute at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. As a result of his vision, the university is one of the leading universities in the nation for NASA-sponsored research. The building housing the university's Research Institute was named in his honor, Von Braun Research Hall, in 2000.Several German cities (Bonn, Neu-Isenburg, Mannheim, Mainz), and dozens of smaller towns have named streets after Wernher von Braun.The Von Braun Center (built 1975) in Huntsville, Alabama is named in von Braun's honor.Scrutiny of von Braun's use of forced labor at the Mittelwerk intensified again in 1984 when Arthur Rudolph, one of his top affiliates from the A-4/V2 through to the Apollo projects, left the United States and was forced to renounce his citizenship in place of the alternative of being tried for war crimes.[46]

A science- and engineering-oriented Gymnasium in Friedberg, Bavaria was named after Wernher von Braun in 1979. In response to rising criticism, a school committee decided in 1995, after lengthy deliberations, to keep the name but "to address von Braun's ambiguity in the advanced history classes."An avenue in the Annadale section of Staten Island, NY was named for him in 1977.

Dr.Verg von Tiesenhousen, a member of Operation Paperclip

Bibliography 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjabvyNVMkQ 

http://todayinspacehistory.worldpress.com/2007/3/ 

http://www.geocities.com/duppim/vb02.html 

www.redstone.army.mi/history/vonbraun/bio.html 

http://reformation.org/wernher-von-braun.html 

http://astronautix/sites/rakplatz.htm  

all wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org/wiki/operation_paper_clip

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_ven.wikipedia.org/wernher_von_braun

en.wikipedia.org/verein_raumschiffahrten.wikipedia.org/redstone_rocket

en.wikipedia.org/army_ballistic_missile_agencyen.wikipedia.org/pgm-19_jupiter

en.wikipedia.org/Jupiter-cen.wikipedia.org/juno_1

en.wikipedia.org/project_mercuryen.wikipedia.org/Saturn_(rocket_family)

En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsville,_AlabamaEn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redstone_Arsenal

En.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Space_and_Rocket_CenterEn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_VEn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_I

En.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_Scientists_in_the_US

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