Wernher von Braun

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Wernher von Braun
Dr. Wernher von Braun, 1962.jpg
Prof. Dr. phil. Dr. h. c. mult. Wernher Freiherr von Braun on 20 April 1962 in his office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama

"Wernher von Braun is, without doubt, the greatest rocket scientist in history. His crowning achievement, as head of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, was to lead the development of the Saturn V booster rocket that helped land the first men on the Moon in July 1969."[1]
Birth name Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun
Birth date 23 March 1912(1912-03-23)
Place of birth Wirsitz, Province of Posen, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Death date 16 June 1977 (aged 65)
Place of death Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.
Allegiance  National Socialist Germany
Service/branch Flag Schutzstaffel.png Allgemeine SS
Rank SS-Sturmbannführer (major)
Awards
  • Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords (1944)
  • President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service (1959)
  • Great Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1959)
  • Elliott Cresson Medal (1962)
  • Wilhelm Exner Medal (1969)[2]
  • Great Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1970)
  • National Medal of Science (1975)
Relations ∞ 1947 Maria Luise von Quistorp, 3 children, including Margrit von Braun
Other work NASA engineering program manager; chief architect of the Apollo Saturn V rocket; development of the V-2 rocket for Germany

Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr[3] von Braun (23 March 1912 – 16 June 1977) was a German engineer and rocket scientist who, first in Germany and later in the United States. The “father of rocket science” and "father of the American lunar program" played a prominent role in all aspects of rocketry and space exploration. During WWII, he was an honourary SS officer. He was briefly arrested by the SS, but considered indispensable, and was reinstated so that the V-2 rocket program could continue. After the war, he and his rocket team were taken from Germany to the United States, for government employment, in the operation later known as Operation Paperclip. Some claimed witnesses later claimed that he participated in atrocities, but even Wikipedia expresses doubts regarding their reliability. See also Holocaust testimonial evidence.

Life

Rudolf Nebel (left) with club comrades (Vereinskameraden des Vereins für Raumschiffahrt) in the middle stands Hermann Oberth (to the right of the large rocket), in the middle Klaus Riedel (with the small staff rocket), to the right behind Riedel the young Wernher von Braun, 1930.
Wernher von Braun with family
Walt Disney and Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun and Erich Warsitz at the Maschinenfabrik Hilden in 1959

Wernher von Braun was born in 1912 in Wirsitz into an aristocratic Prussian family. His father was Magnus Alexander Maximilian Freiherr von Braun, later Minister of Nutrition and Agriculture and Reichskommissar for Eastern Aid (Osthilfe) in the cabinet of Chancellor Franz von Papen, and his mother, Emmy, née von Quistorp (1886–1959), was a direct descendant of Valdemar I of Denmark (1131-1182). His brother Sigismund (1911–1998) was a diplomat, his brother Magnus Hans Alexander Maximilian (1919–2003) a chemical engineer, rocket designer and industrial manager.

At an early age Wernher developed a fascination for rockets, inspired by the ancient Chinese who invented fireworks. At the age of 12 he tried his first practical rocket experiment. He strapped six rockets to a small wagon, and lit them up. The wagon performed beyond his wildest dreams and careened about crazily, trailing a tail of fire like a comet. When the rockets finally burned out, ending their sparkling performance with a magnificent thunderclap, the wagon rolled majestically to a halt. The police, who arrived late for the beginning of his experiment, but in time for the grand finale, were unappreciative. They took young Wernher into custody. Fortunately, no one was injured and he was released to the Minister of Agriculture, his father. So began a career in rocketry that changed human history.

Von Braun attended the French Gymnasium School in Berlin, but was not a star pupil. He spent much of his time building an automobile in his father's garage instead of studying books. Von Braun's grades improved after his father transferred him to a boarding school. Part of his education there involved working in small groups to develop technical skills. He would draw upon these lessons many times later in his career when working in teams. Before bedtime he was permitted to examine the stars with a small telescope that his mother bought him. Thus began his interest in astronomy. In his 20s and early 30s, von Braun was the central figure in Germany's rocket development programme, responsible for the design and realization of the deadly V-2 combat rocket during World War II. After the war, he and some of his rocket team were taken to the U.S. as part of the then-secret Operation Paperclip. In 1955, ten years after entering the country, von Braun became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Von Braun worked on the US Army intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) program before his group was assimilated by NASA, under which he served as director of the newly-formed Marshall Space Flight Center and as the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. According to one NASA source, he is "without doubt, the greatest rocket scientist in history. His crowning achievement ... was to lead the development of the Saturn V booster rocket that helped land the first men on the Moon in July 1969." In 1973, von Braun was diagnosed with kidney cancer during a routine medical examination. However, he continued to work unrestrained for a number of years. He received the 1975 National Medal of Science. In January 1977, then very ill, he resigned from Fairchild Industries. Later in 1977, President Gerald R. Ford awarded him the country's highest science honor, the National Medal of Science in Engineering. He was, however, too ill to attend the White House ceremony.

NASA biography

Dr. Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) was one of the most important rocket developers and champions of space exploration in the twentieth century. As a youth he became enamored with the possibilities of space exploration by reading the work of science fiction authors. Later, von Braun encountered the work of Hermann Oberth, whose 1923 book The Rocket into Planetary Space, prompted von Braun to master calculus and trigonometry so he could understand the physics of rocketry. From his teenage years, von Braun had held a keen interest in space flight, becoming involved in the German Society for Space Travel (VfR) in 1928. As a means of furthering his desire to build large and capable rockets, in late 1932 he went to work for the German army to develop liquid-fuel rockets. Based on his army-funded research, von Braun received a doctorate in physics on July 27, 1934. The V–2 ballistic missile, the antecedent of U.S. and Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles, was the primary brainchild of von Braun’s rocket team. After 1937 they worked at a secret laboratory at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast. A liquid propellant missile 46 feet in length and weighing 27,000 pounds, the V-2 flew at speeds in excess of 3,500 miles per hour and delivered a 2,200-pound warhead to a target 200 miles away. First successfully launched in October 1942, it was employed against targets in Western Europe beginning in September 1944. The V-2 assembly plant at the Mittelwerk, near the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, used slave labor, as did a number of other production sites. Von Braun was a member of the Nazi Party and an SS officer, yet was also arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 for careless remarks he made about the war and the rocket. By late 1944, it was obvious to von Braun that Germany would be destroyed and occupied, and he began planning for the postwar era. Before the Allied capture of the V–2 rocket complex, von Braun was sent south, eventually to Bavaria and surrendered to the Americans there, along with other key team leaders. For fifteen years after World War II, Von Braun worked with the U.S. Army in the development of ballistic missiles. As part of a military operation called Project Paperclip, he and an initial group of about 125 were sent to America where they were installed at Fort Bliss, Texas. There they worked on rockets for the U.S. Army, and assisted in V-2 launches at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico. In 1950 von Braun’s team moved to the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama, where they designed the Army’s Redstone and Jupiter ballistic missiles, as well as the Jupiter C, Juno II, and Saturn I launch vehicles. A Jupiter C orbited the first U.S satellite, Explorer I, in 1958. Von Braun also became one of the most prominent advocates for space exploration in the United States during the 1950s, writing numerous books and several articles for magazines such as Collier’s. Von Braun also served as a spokesman for three Walt Disney television programs on space travel, Man in Space. In 1960, President Eisenhower transferred his rocket development center at Redstone Arsenal from the Army to the newly established National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Its primary objective was to develop giant Saturn rockets. Accordingly, von Braun became director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that would propel Americans to the Moon. At Marshall, the group continued work on the Redstone-Mercury, the rocket that sent the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, on a suborbital flight on May 5, 1961. Shortly after Shepard’s successful flight, President John F. Kennedy challenged America to send a man to the Moon by the end of the decade. With the July 20, 1969 moon landing, the Apollo 11 mission fulfilled both Kennedy’s mission and Dr. Von Braun’s lifelong dream. In 1970, NASA leadership asked von Braun to move to Washington, D.C., to head up the strategic planning effort for the agency. He left his home in Huntsville, Alabama, but in 1972 he decided to retire from NASA and work for Fairchild Industries of Germantown, Maryland. He died in Alexandria, Virginia, on June 16, 1977.[4]

Death

Freiherr von Braun died on 16 June 1977 of pancreatic cancer in Alexandria, Virginia, at age 65. He is buried on Valley Road at the Ivy Hill Cemetery.

Summary of SS career

Membership numbers

  • SS number: 185,068
  • NSDAP number: 5,738,692

Dates of rank

Awards and honours (small excerpt)

Post-war

  • Elected Honorary Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society in 1949
  • Hermann Oberth Medal in 1952
  • Great Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1959)
  • Elliott Cresson Medal in 1962
  • Inducted into the International Aerospace Hall of Fame in 1965
  • Langley Gold Medal in 1967
  • Wilhelm Exner Medal in 1969
  • NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1969
  • Inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1969
  • Civitan International World Citizenship Award in 1970
  • Great Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1970)
  • Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1975
  • Werner von Siemens Ring in 1975
  • Gold Medal of the renowned Humboldt-Gesellschaft (1975)
  • 25 honorary doctorates
  • National Medal of Science in Engineering in 1977
  • National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1982

Further reading

External links

Encyclopedias

References

  1. ↑ Robin Williams: Wernher von Braun, 2001
  2. ↑ Editor, ÖGV. (2015). Wilhelm Exner Medal. Austrian Trade Association. ÖGV. Austria.
  3. ↑ Regarding personal names: Freiherr is a title of German nobility (Deutscher Adel), somtetimes translated as Baron, not a first or middle name, but connected with the surname, for example Sigismund Freiherr von Falkenstein, not Freiherr Sigismund von Falkenstein. The female forms are Freifrau, if married, and Freiin, if not.
  4. ↑ Biography of Wernher Von Braun
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