Von Braun’s legacy

May 2023

In the April 2023 article, “The harshest reality,” the author referred to Wernher von Braun as “the former Nazi who became the agency’s leading space visionary … ” At best, that was a lazy reference to von Braun’s wartime involvement with the Nazi Party and the SS. His NASA bio states: “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 [V-2] rocket.” I will not try to rehash in 250 words what von Braun said and what the FBI determined about his wartime work and associated issues. I do believe that a leading aerospace magazine would have treated one of the world’s greatest rocket engineers and key to America winning the race to the moon with a little more care than simply to introduce him as a former Nazi.

Raymond Maddalone, AIAA senior member

Fishers, Indiana

 

Editor’s note: We identified von Braun as a visionary and former Nazi because he was a member of the Nazi Party and SS. As technical director of the V-2 missile program, he was “at least tangentially involved in the murderous exploitation of concentration-camp prisoners in missile production,” according to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

 

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