Under the protection of the FBI, how did Nazi engineer Wernher von Braun make America's glory?

Even before his outstanding contributions to sending the first man to the Moon, Wernher von Braun had a reputation as the first inventor of ICBMs in the history of the military industry.

But his innovations did not obliterate the shadow of his Nazi past and the accusations that he caused the death and suffering of thousands of people during World War II.

And writer Eric Branca says - in a report published by the French magazine "Le Point" (Le Point) - that the urgent question that was asked when crowds of Americans gathered on both sides of the road to greet Wernher von Braun, who was accompanied by US President John F. Kennedy, revolves around the criminal and humanitarian responsibility behind his scientific achievements.

Could this German engineer have succeeded in embodying his ideas without exploiting the prisoners and prisoners of war who were forcibly employed by the Nazis in concentration camps?

Brilliant engineer

Since childhood, Werner von Braun has been fond of space and propulsion. At the age of 12, he panicked the streets of Berlin by installing fireworks in a toy car.

At the age of 17 he was accepted to the University of Zurich, became the youngest member of the Association of Spaceflight Association, and received his doctorate at the age of 18, after he was able to launch a miniature model of a rocket to a height of a thousand meters.

Then Wernher von Braun convinced his German army commanders that missiles were the weapon of the future, and that they should invest early in this military industry, which was not restricted by the Treaty of Versailles in 1920, which prevented Germany from developing other industries such as heavy artillery.

Beginning in 1932, this young engineer became the director of the Commerzdorf Military Test Center on the outskirts of Berlin, and obtained all the funds and facilities he needed to develop liquid-fueled missiles.

At the age of 17 Werner was accepted at the University of Zurich, became the youngest member of the Association of Space Flight, and received his doctorate at the age of 18, after he was able to launch a miniature model of a rocket to a height of a thousand meters

Quick Achievements

At the end of 1932, Werner was able to produce a liquid-fueled rocket with a thrust of 100 kg, and then developed it to triple the thrust, and produce the A1 (A1) missile.

Hitler visited him at the center and encouraged him to continue working.

Indeed, in 1934 Werner managed to produce the "A2" (A2) missile, with a thrust of 1,000 kilograms.

Thanks to the large funds, human and technical resources recruited by the Nazi regime, Werner spread terror throughout Europe by issuing a 14-meter FAW-2 missile with a carrying capacity of 13 tons, flying at an altitude of 80 kilometers, bypassing the layers of the atmosphere at a speed of 4900 kilometers per hour. The missile managed to cover a distance of 200 kilometers in just two minutes and 45 seconds.

This weapon developed by Werner enabled Nazi Germany to launch 2,800 missiles at Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, with technology that did not allow radars to detect it and trigger sirens.

The rocket engine would stop working at a very high altitude, and then fall perpendicular to the selected target at 3 times the speed of sound, and no one could see or hear it before the moment of the explosion.

But because of the repeated targeting of the Nazi missile factory in Peenemunde, Hitler made a decision that had tragic humanitarian consequences, as he ordered the SS Preventive Unit to build a new missile factory under the Cohenstein hill near the city of Nordhausen.

Thousands of prisoners of war were subjugated to underground excavation and construction work, and most of them died of stress, malnutrition, or lack of oxygen.

Engineer Wernher von Braun was aware of this suffering, as he had visited the construction site on several occasions while these violations occurred.

Werner von Braun (left) with President Kennedy (networking sites)

paperclip process

In 1945, as Soviet gunfire reached the outskirts of Berlin, Hitler ordered his forces to assemble scientists and engineers and move them to Nordhausen, near the missile factory supervised by Wernher von Braun.

However, the ambitious engineer decided to move and anticipate matters with the emergence of signs of the collapse of his country's forces, and he met with 250 of his best assistants, and offered them the idea of ​​fleeing towards southern Germany accompanied by files of military industries and waiting for the Americans to come.

The Americans quickly seized this opportunity, and arrested the German engineer, before he could receive an invitation to reside in the United States.

Unlike the security leaders who were prosecuted and punished, the United States ignored the criminal responsibility of the scientists, and brought them with their families to settle at Fort Bliss in Texas, before they were granted American citizenship.

This was the beginning of Operation Paperclip, and this name was chosen in reference to the tool used to collect documents.

The objective of this operation was clear, which was to combine American military and industrial strength with German scientific superiority, in order to take the throne of the world and prepare for any possible confrontation with the Soviet competitor.

Werner later oversaw the Apollo program, which enabled the United States to outpace the Soviet Union in the race for space, when it sent the first man to the moon's surface on July 20, 1969.

During the period between 1946 and 1952, Werner von Braun supervised the launch of 67 missiles from the "FAO-2", equipped with measuring instruments to determine their altitude, and in April 1946 he was able to take the first picture of the Earth from an altitude of 104 kilometers.

After he became famous and loved by the American public, Werner left Fort Bliss and headed to his specially built experiment center in Huntsville, Alabama.

And soon, the former Nazi engineer managed to put the first American satellite into orbit, Explorer 1, on January 31, 1958, to be celebrated by the American press, and called him "the space doctor."

In the same year, the US Space Research Agency (NASA) was established, and the Mercury Program was launched, which enabled 6 astronauts to be sent into space between 1961 and 1963.

Werner later oversaw the Apollo program, which enabled the United States to outpace the Soviet Union in the race for space, when it sent the first man to the moon's surface on July 20, 1969.

The writer asserts that this genius engineer was protected throughout his life by the FBI and the CIA against any criticism in the media, so there was no focus on his moral responsibility for the crimes of Nazi Germany.