Efforts are Underway to Erase Legacy of Key Space Pioneers

Part 1: Wernher von Braun, Kurt Debus — Champions of Space Exploration

By Bob Granath

In July 1969, people around the world joined Americans celebrating as NASA’s Apollo 11 astronauts walked on the Moon. This and many other historic achievements were made possible through the vision and work of a team of German rocket experts led by Dr. Wernher von Braun. They came to the United States following World War II and became key leaders in developing technology vital to the “Free World” during the hottest days of the Cold War. They also designed and built many of the the launch vehicles that played a central role in the nation’s early efforts to explore space.

During the late 1940s and 1950s, von Braun worked for the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency. After 1960, he became NASA’s director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. In his NASA biography, von Braun is hailed as “one of the most important rocket developers and champions of space exploration in the 20th century.”

Von Braun’s colleague, Dr. Kurt Debus, led construction of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and was the spaceport’s first center director. Following the Apollo lunar landing missions of the 1960s and 1970s, the Florida space center supported the 30-year Space Shuttle Program and now is launching crews to the International Space Station.

In his earlier work with the Army, Debus led the team that launched America’s first satellite, Explorer 1. After transitioning to NASA, he guided the efforts to process and launch each flight during the nation’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo human spaceflight programs.

Following a long bout with cancer, von Braun died in 1977. Debus passed in 1983 and, since then, many of their colleagues and people who knew them have died. Along with them, much of the memory of the German Rocket Team’s background and achievements also have faded.

Today, some groups are making concerted efforts to erase the memory of these pioneers from collective memories through efforts to (posthumously) “bring to justice” individuals who they believe committed “crimes against humanity.” In recent years, much has been written about von Braun, Debus and others because of their work developing of the V-2 “vengeance weapon” for Nazi Germany.

One of the groups leading this charge is The Forward Association, a non-profit news media organization for a Jewish American audiences founded in 1897 as a daily newspaper. Days after the Forward news organization sent an inquiry to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in 2021, the Huntsville, Alabama museum removed a bust of von Braun. Soon after, a plaque displayed over a visitor hall also was removed. The plaque featured the quote, “The rocket will free men from his remaining chains, the chains of gravity, which still tie him to this planet. It will open to him the gates of heaven. – Wernher von Braun.”

“The Forward mentioned the (quotation) panel in a January 2022, article,” Lev Golinkin wrote in the organization’s Jan. 6, 2023 web feature. “The same article noted that the museum had removed a bust of von Braun several days after a Forward reporter inquired about it.”

Ironically, it was through the efforts of von Braun that the Space & Rocket Center was built, opening in 1970. It is a museum operated by the government of Alabama, displaying achievements at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal.

In 2024, the National Space Club-Florida Committee decided to step away from the legacy of Debus. Since 1990, the organization annually presented the Kurt Debus Award “to recognize significant achievements and contributions made in Florida to American aerospace efforts.” It was established as an adjunct to the Robert Goddard award given by the National Space Club Foundation in Washington. D.C. and the Von Braun Space Flight Trophy given by the National Space Club of Huntsville.

The National Space Club in Florida now presents the “Space Heroes and Legends Award.” Additionally, a facility at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, formerly known as the Dr. Kurt Debus Conference Center, was renamed the Heroes and Legends Conference Center to “reflect that many people contributed throughout history to make the United States the world’s leader in space exploration and to increase humanity’s understanding of our planet and the universe beyond.”

Why are efforts continuing to eliminate references to von Braun, Debus and other German Rocket Team members?

Those favoring this approach claim:

• Members of Germany’s aristocracy were ambivalent about the rise of the Nazis.
• Rocket Team members were devoted Nazis.
• Some Rocket Team members willingly joined the SS.
• They were responsible for use of slave labor to assemble V-2s under “hellish” conditions.
• German rocket specialists were personally responsible for the deaths of thousands who perished through assembly and use of this weapon of mass destruction.

However, were the engineers and technicians who developed the V-2 ballistic missile personally responsible for committing crimes against humanity?

‘Germany’s Aristocracy was Ambivalent about the Nazis’

During the period of the Weimar Republic, from the end of World War I to March 23, 1933, Germany was a constitutional republic. The Weimar constitution divided power between a president who was head of state, a prime minister, known as a chancellor, his cabinet and the parliament.

The nation’s Minister of Agriculture and Food was Baron Magnus von Braun, father of Wernher von Braun. An expert in modern methods of farming, he unified and revolutionized the country’s agricultural cooperative movement. In 1932, German Chancellor Franz von Papen appointed him to this cabinet position.

FACT CHECK: Some have claimed members of Germany’s aristocracy, such as Baron von Braun, were ambivalent about the rise of the Nazis. However, when German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor on Jan. 28, 1933, Baron von Braun immediately resigned his post.

Wernher von Braun’s older brother, Sigismund von Braun, became embassy secretary (ambassador) to the Vatican in 1943. According to his daughter, Christina von Braun, her father worked behind the scenes to thwart efforts of the Nazi regime.

FACT CHECK: My father “supported clerical and other offices in hiding people persecuted for religious, political and racial reasons and to avoid their deportation (while) taking high personal risk.” she wrote in  2008.

Even though he served as part of Hitler’s government, Sigismund von Braun went on to become a highly respected representative of West Germany’s post-war government because of his anti-Nazi efforts. From 1962 to 1968, he served as their ambassador to the United Nations.

Interest in Rockets Leads to Army Job

In his early teens, von Braun read American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard’s 1919 book, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes and became interested in rocketry and space travel. After studying The Rocket into Interplanetary Space, the 1923 book by Goddard’s German contemporary, Hermann Oberth, von Braun began experimenting with rockets at his home. In 1928, he joined the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (Society for Spaceflight).

The society’s experiments in developing rockets soon gained the attention of the German army. In 1931, von Braun began working at the German military’s rocket research facility at the Kummersdorf Weapons Range, near Berlin. In late 1932, von Braun accepted a job working for the army developing liquid-propellant missiles.

But, a more remote test site was needed, resulting in work moving to Peenemünde on the Baltic Coast in 1937. By late 1942, nearly 5,000 people worked there developing the most advanced rockets at the time. The largest was designated the A-4 for “Aggregate-4.” The first successful launch took place on Oct. 3, 1942. In the celebration that followed, von Braun and Debus looked to a day when their rockets could send humans to outer space, including trips to the Moon.

“We were interested solely in exploring space,” von Braun told representatives of the U.S. Counterintelligence Corps on June 1, 1945 after he, Debus and more than 100 other engineers and technicians surrendered to American forces a month earlier.

In fact, an A-4 test rocket launched from Peenemünde on June 20, 1944 reached a high point of 109 miles making it the first human-made object to reach outer space. This was well above the 62-mile point established as the threshold of space.

However, the A-4’s success drew interest of top leaders in the Nazi regime as the war effort was turning against the Germans. The Nazi propaganda ministry soon renamed the ballistic missile “V-2” for “Vengeance Weapon-2” and the government’s leaders in Berlin quickly began plans to make it operational. This horrified von Braun.

“Beginning in the fall of 1943, (SS leader Heinrich) Himmler and the SS men wrenched control of the A-4 program out of our hands in order to enforce mass production and military deployment of the rocket long before its development and testing were completed,” von Braun wrote in a 1952 magazine article titled Why I Choose America.

The SS (Schutzstaffel, German for “Protective Echelon”), initially served as Hitler’s personal bodyguards, but later became one of the most powerful and feared organizations in all of Nazi Germany.

‘Rocket Team members were devoted Nazis’

Von Braun emphasized that joining the Nazi party was not his choice, but to do otherwise would have resulted in his removal from rocket research. During an Oct. 28, 1979 interview on the Dick Cavett television talk show, the host asked von Braun how he became a member of the Nazi party. Von Braun explained that shortly after work began at Peenemünde, he, Debus and other key leaders among the rocket engineers were called into a meeting with a representative of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi party). The representative told the men, “We understand you would like to join the party.”

“We were each given an application form,” von Braun said. “The message was loud and clear, you are expected to send it in.”

Von Braun wrote of his decision to join the Nazi party in an affidavit for the U.S. Army after the war.

FACT CHECK: “In 1939, I was officially demanded to join the National Socialist Party,” he said. “At this time, I was already technical director at the Army Rocket Center at Peenemünde. The technical work carried out there had, in the meantime, attracted more and more attention in higher levels. Thus, my refusal to join the party would have meant that I would have to abandon the work of my life. Therefore, I decided to join. My membership in the party did not involve any political activity.”

FACT CHECK: “I don’t think he was a true Nazi that believed what Hitler was saying,” wrote Bob Ward, a former Huntsville Times newspaper journalist who became acquainted with von Braun and for years reported on his work. “He never displayed any kind of anti-Semitism or hatred toward anyone else during the years I knew him.”

Von Braun once told Ward, “To us, Hitler was still only a pompous fool…who was wholly without scruples, a godless man who thought himself the only god.”

FACT CHECK: In April 1961 the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a report on von Braun that stated, “Overall, FBI conclusions point to von Braun’s involvement in the Nazi Party to be purely for the advancement of his career or out of fear of imprisonment or execution.”

‘Some willingly joined the SS’

Political infighting within the Nazi regime often resulted in one branch of the government trying to take power from another. Such was the case when von Braun, Debus and others were coerced into becoming members of the SS.

“In spring 1940, one SS Col. Müller looked me up in my office and told me that Himmler had sent him with the order to urge me to join the SS,” von Braun told representatives of the U.S. War Department in 1947. “I told him I was so busy with my rocket work that I had no time to spare for any political activity. He then told me that the SS would cost me no time at all. I would be awarded the rank of a lieutenant and it was a very definite desire of Himmler that I accept his invitation to join.”

Von Braun explained that Muller seemed unwilling to accept “no” for an answer so he asked for “some time for reflection.”

Realizing that the invitation was of highly political significance in relations between the SS and the German Army, von Braun immediately sought the opinion of his superior, Army Maj. Gen. Walter Dornberger, commander of Peenemünde.

FACT CHECK: “He (Dornberger) informed me that the SS had for a long time been trying to get their ‘finger in the pie’ of the rocket work,” von Braun said. “I asked him what to do. He replied on the spot that if I wanted to continue our mutual work, I had no alternative but to join.”

FACT CHECK: According to Dr. Michael Neufeld, a senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, agreed that there is no evidence that von Braun joined either the Nazi party or the SS voluntarily or shared the racist, anti-Semitic ideology of the party.

“In every case it appears to be because of external pressure,” Neufield said during a 2019 interview with the website of the World War II Museum in New Orleans. “Von Braun’s involvement in secret weapons development made it harder to avoid, notably in the case of becoming an SS officer in 1940. Dornberger told him it would be better if he did not make waves by saying ‘no.’”

NASA’s official website biographies for both von Braun and Debus list that they were members of the Nazi party and SS. Unfortunately neither article points out the fact that they both were compelled into joining.

By February 1944, the pressure from the powerful and merciless Himmler continued. He ordered von Braun to his headquarters insisting that he work more closely with SS Gen. Hans Kammler to solve the problems of the V-2. Himmler’s motive was to increase his power-base by conspiring to use Kammler to gain control of all German armament programs, including the V-2.

“I can do a lot more for you, Wernher, than those stuffy Army generals,” Himmler said.

At great risk, von Braun refused Himmler’s offer to provide additional funding for the V-2 program if he would agree to a transfer control from the German army to the SS. Von Braun replied that the problems were merely technical and he was confident that they would be solved with Gen. Dornberger’s assistance.

Himmler was not happy having been rebuffed by the young 31-year-old rocket engineer. Von Braun had been under SD, or Sicherheitsdienst (the surveillance agency of the SS), scrutiny since October 1943. A secret report stated that he and his colleagues Klaus Riedel and Helmut Gröttrup expressed regret that they were not working on a spaceship and that they felt the war was not going well for Germany. This was considered a “defeatist” attitude.

In the predawn hours of March 15, 1944, the Gestapo was pounding on von Braun’s door. He was arrested and held in a secret police prison cell for two weeks without knowing the charges against him. He later learned the charges were “utterances against the Reich.”

Dornberger and Himmler’s archenemy, Albert Speer, minister for Munitions and War Production, together persuaded Hitler to release von Braun, convincing him that the engineer was vital to continued work on the V-2.

Shortly after von Braun’s release, he and Dornberger began planning how to get as many Peenemünde rocket specialists, parts and plans into the hands of the American armed forces.

‘Von Braun was responsible for use slave labor”

After seeing film of successful V-2 launchings, Hitler ordered the missile into mass production. But, during the night of Aug. 18, 1943, Britain’s Royal Air Force bombed Peenemünde. At the direction of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the primary target was the village where the engineers, technicians and their families lived rather than the production facilities. The air raid resulted in some 700 casualties.

As a result, Nazi leaders decided in late 1943 to build an underground production facility near Nordhausen in central Germany. Under the direction of SS Gen. Kammler, the underground factory was named Mittelwerk (German for Central Works) using thousands of slave laborers from the nearby Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Ultimately, Kammler was given overall responsibility for constructions of the Mittelwerk, use of slave labor, field deployment of the V-2s and launching the missiles against London, Paris and the port of Antwerp, Belgium.

Conditions in the Mittelwerk factory were, as von Braun described it, “hellish.” Being underground, it was cold, dusty and unsanitary for the tens of thousands of forced laborers who were Russian and Polish soldiers, French and Belgian resistance fighters, German criminals and Communists from the Dora camp. According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website, an estimated 20,000 died during construction of the facility and assembly of the rocket due to exhaustion, disease or executions. This is more than perished due to the attacks.

While von Braun remained in Peenemünde, he was involved in the designing of the Mittelwerk facility to ensure quality control of the parts manufactured there. He visited the complex as many as 15 times and, on each occasion, was horrified by what he referred to as “grizzly working conditions.”

“I was in charge of the development of the V-2 at Peenemünde,” von Braun said. “I knew atrocities were taking place, but I was not involved in the operation. I was only a witness.”

“Objecting would have been risky, of course – especially in view of his own recent imprisonment by the SS,” Neufield wrote in his 1995 book, The Rocket and the Reich.

FACT CHECK: “My spontaneous reaction was to talk to one of the SS guards only to be told, ‘that I should mind my own business,’” he said. “I never would have believed that human beings can sink that low, but I realized that any attempt at reasoning on humane grounds would be utterly futile. These individuals had drifted so far away from even the most basic principles of human morality that this scene of gigantic suffering left them entirely untouched.”

Wernher von Braun’s younger brother Magnus von Braun (Jr.) was in charge of quality assurance for the V-2’s gyroscope components from 1944 to 1945. His son, Curt von Braun, explained that his father also was aware of the conditions, but was not in a position to help. He stated it bluntly in a March 1, 2020 interview for the Los Angeles Times.

FACT CHECK: “My father felt nauseated (by the Mittelwerk conditions), but he couldn’t back down or he would have been shot,” he said. “Even if you were a member of the Nazi Party, it doesn’t make you a racist. Not everybody believed all that crap.”

After arriving in the Unties States, Magnus von Braun worked in the aerospace industry. Beginning in 1955, he accepted a position as a senior executive with Chrysler’s missile division.

“How could Wernher von Braun act directly against Himmler in the matter of forced labor?” asked Gerhard Reisig, a master engineer at Peenemünde.

FACT CHECK: “Knowledge of those conditions, absent involvement, would not constitute war crimes,” said Eli Rosenbaum, the Justice Department’s longtime Nazi hunter, in a 2020 interview with the Los Angeles Times.

In performing quality inspections during occasional visits, Wernher von Braun did what he could. He explained that he looked for any component with as much as a minor flaw. He then complained to the SS leaders at the Mittelwerk, stating that the V-2 “will never be operational if conditions don’t improve.” After which he was told “keep complaining and you’ll be down there wearing their (stripped, pajama-like) uniform.” However, sometimes conditions improved to some degree.

As von Braun worked to improve quality of V-2s produced at the Mittelwerk, he recruited scientists and engineers imprisoned at the Buchenwald concentration camp to apply their skills at the underground production factory. Because of this, Neufield wrote that this may “implicate him (von Braun) directly in crimes against humanity.”

However, Ward disputes this view, noting that only 15 percent of those sent to concentration camps survived to war’s end. On the other hand, 67 percent of those working in the Miteelwerk were still alive at the conclusion of the war. Ward notes that some of those transferred from Buchenwald to the Miteelwerk may have survived the war only because of von Braun’s actions.

“The historian (Neufield) does not explain why arranging specific transfers from the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp to the Millelwerk necessarily constitutes a heinous offense,” he wrote.

‘German rocket specialists were responsible for deaths caused by the V-2’

Beginning in September 1944, the SS launched more than 3,000 V-2s against cities in England, France and Belgium. According to a 2011 documentary produced by the BBC, V-2 missiles resulted in the deaths of an estimated 9,000 civilians and military personnel.

As was the case with construction and operation of the Millelwerk, Kammler directed firing V-2s at Allied cities.

FACT CHECK: “The preponderance of evidence shows that the (von Braun rocket) team – essentially an R&D (research and development) organization — lost out politically to the SS for control of most of its own Peenemünde operations,” Ward wrote in his 2005 book, Dr. Space, The Life of Wernher von Braun.“ They did not participate in the volume production at Nordhausen or the deployment and operational use for the lethal, if inaccurate, missiles.”

Where did the attempts to subvert the credibility of von Braun and Debus originate?

By 1963, the Soviet Union realized the United States was quickly catching up in the Space Race. It was clear; the American’s soon would surpass their efforts.

One strategy of the Communist regime was to undermine America’s top space expert – Wernher von Braun. The scheme was to publish the book Das Geheimnis von Huntsville (The Secret of Huntsville) written by Julius Mader. It was released in East Germany and received wide distribution throughout Soviet bloc nations. It distorted the involvement of von Braun, Debus and other German rocket experts as “ardent Nazis” and “loyal members of the SS.”

The ploy failed to hinder America’s charge to meeting President John F. Kennedy’s goal of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth” before the end of the decade of the 1960s. However, it became ammunition for those attempting to remove their memories in decades to come.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Check back on Oct. 22, 2025 for part two of this review of the role of German-born rocket experts who launched America’s extensive space program. The continued story will include comments by people who best knew these space pioneers.

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