The death of Wernher von Braun

The pioneer of rocket flight dies in Virginia (USA)

Born in 1912 to a family of East Prussian landowners, Wernher von Braun developed a fascination for the potential of rockets and space travel as a child. Joining the Association for Space Travel (Verein für Raumschiffahrt) at the age of 16, he began working on the rocket programme of a military authority near Berlin at the age of only 20 whilst studying physics. Von Braun was a member of both the NSDAP and the SS, and from 1937 headed the development of liquid-fuelled rockets at the Peenemünde military testing facility on Usedom. The project produced the first-ever long-range rocket – initially known as the “A4” (Aggregat 4), it was later renamed the “V2” (Vergeltungswaffe 2) – developed as a supposed “miracle weapon” that was intended to turn the tide of a war that Germany was clearly losing. Although the V2 rockets proved to be a feat of engineering, the thousands fired at London and Antwerp exercised no strategic impact, as their payload of explosives was too small to cause significant damage.

Wernher von Braun was taken to the USA after the war, where he collaborated with American scientists and engineers to develop US rocket technology. As a NASA scientist, he worked on the Saturn rocket project, the product of which eventually made the first moon landing. A naturalized US citizen, von Braun advanced to become the public face of space research and was widely celebrated for his achievements. Nevertheless, he was unable to shake off his past and suffered criticism for complicity in the crimes of the Third Reich, most notably the deaths of thousands of forced labourers working on the V2 project. He maintained his ignorance of the inhumane conditions in the Mittelbau-Dora labour camp right up to his death on 16 June 1977.