Wernher von Braun was born in Wirsitz in the province of Posen in northeastern Germany (now in Poland) as the second of Magnus Freiherr von Braun's three sons. His maternal grandfather and namesake was Wernher von Quistorp (1856–1908), a landowner and member of the Prussian House of Lords. At the age of 18, Wernher von Braun was able to graduate early from the Hermann-Lietz-Schule in Spiekeroog at Easter 1930 after performing well. He experimented with rockets as early as his youth and wrote a thesis on space travel. From 1929 he worked with Hermann Oberth in Reinickendorf in Berlin and from 1932 in Kummersdorf-Gut outside Berlin, supported by Walter Dornberger at the Heereswaffenamt. von Braun was greatly influenced by the book Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums by the Slovenian astronomer and astrophysicist Herman Potočnik and Oberth's book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen. From 1930, von Braun studied physics at the Technical University of Berlin and the Technical University of Zurich. In 1934, he received his doctorate in physics from the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin with the topic "Constructive, theoretical and experimental contributions to the problem of the liquid rocket". Wernher von Braun participated in the tests at the Berlin rocket airport as a member of the Verein für Raumschiffahrt.
Peenemünde
Wernher von Braun was technical director at the Heeresversuchsanstalt in Peenemünde on the island of Usedom from 1937 to 1945. Here, he led the development of Aggregate 4, abbreviated A4, a large rocket powered by liquid fuel. It was later built in series under the designation V-2. The technical innovation was that the propellant engines (German Flüssigkeitstriebwerke) were connected, which made it possible for the first time to stabilize the flight path and automatically eliminate deviations. After the combustion ended, the A4 reached three times the speed of sound. In 1942, a prototype exceeded an altitude of over 80 km for the first time and in 1945 it reached over 120 km. This continuous improvement was mainly due to the development of adapted turbopumps, which forced large amounts of fuel into the combustion chambers.
Politics and technology
von Braun became a member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in 1937 and on May 1, 1940 he became a member of the SS where he advanced to SS-Sturmbannführer (equivalent to major in the Wehrmacht). Historical evidence shows a prison sentence in March 1944 when von Braun was arrested by the Gestapo on the initiative of Heinrich Himmler. He was accused of treason and of threatening the defense capability (Wehrkraftzersetzung) and preparations for an escape to England, which could have meant the death penalty. Only his special importance for the A4 program saved him after Albert Speer and Walter Dornberger intervened with Hitler.
That Wernher von Braun's interest was directed towards space was shown, among other things, by the fact that his drafts for units 9 to 12 have astronaut capsules. After the V-2 attacks on London on November 8, 1944, he is said to have said: "It should never have happened ... We have built these rockets to open the door to other worlds, not to wreak havoc on this earth. Should that be the fruit of our work?" (German "Das hätte nie geschehen sollen ... Wir haben diese Rakete gebaut, um das Tor zu anderen Welten zu öffnen – nicht um Verwüstungen auf dieser Erde anzurichten. Soll das die Frucht unserer Arbeit gewesen sein?"). His contradictory personality becomes even clearer when one considers that Wernher von Braun worked during a military mission with a weapon that had a range and speed never seen before and carried a ton of explosives towards its target and against which one could not defend oneself. During his time in the United States, von Braun also worked on his own initiative in the armaments industry and was, among other things, an essential part of the development of the first American nuclear medium-range missiles Redstone.
Dora-Mittelbau
The serial production of the V2 was very labor-intensive and prisoners from the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp were used in the work. This part of von Braun's life is viewed very critically by historians as von Braun would have found it difficult to relinquish his responsibility for this production. Others accuse him of being an opportunist. In a letter from November 12, 1943, he demanded 1,350 workers, but this meant concentration camp prisoners. Some prisoners later testified that they had seen him inspect the workplaces. von Braun himself declared that he knew nothing about the misery of the forced laborers and that he was not responsible for their use in production. There is no direct evidence that Wernher von Braun was in the Dora-Mittelbau camp. However, there is a letter dated August 15, 1944 to Albin Sawatzki, who was responsible for the planning and control of V-2 production. This proves that Braun himself was looking for prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp. In an interview from 1969, von Braun admitted that the forced laborers were in a "pitiful condition" (erbarmungswürdiger Zustand), and made an impression that "would weigh heavily on the soul of any decent man" (schwer auf der Seele jedes anständigen Mannes lasten).
