Werner von Braun short biography. The genius of von Braun

Wernher von Braun, with his life, he convincingly proved that genius and villainy are compatible things. In the rank of an SS officer, he worked on the creation of the "weapon of retaliation" of the Third Reich, starred in Disney and sent a man to the moon.

Childish pranks

The passion for science in Werner, who was born in March 1912, awakened early. When von Braun was 13 years old, after confirmation, his mother gave him a telescope. From that time on, his dream was to conquer the moon. Werner's father was the Minister of Agriculture of the Weimar Republic, the boy received a good education and could afford more than his peers. Werner's life took its own, which turned out to be historic, path when he learned about the successful development of rocket engines, which were carried out by his compatriots Vallière and Opel. Von Braun was literally on fire with the idea of ​​creating a rocket engine. I decided to start with flares, went to Berlin and bought half a dozen firecrackers there. He tied them to a small van and drove to one of the main Berlin streets - to the Tiergarten Allee. Obviously, he wanted publicity for his first "scientific" experiment. Miraculously, no one was hurt, although there was every chance for this: the van accelerated to high speed, spewing flames from rockets. Werner was immediately arrested by the police, but, due to his father's high position in society, he was soon released. Then no one could have guessed that this boy would become "the father of the American space program and NASA."

Headhunting

The production of "retaliatory weapons" by the Germans for a long time remained a secret for world intelligence. Only in 1943, the French created the Marco Polo special service, which was engaged in intelligence of the high technologies of the Third Reich and transmitted the collected information to the United States and Great Britain. Since that time, "bounty hunting" has become the highest priority for allied intelligence.

In November 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States created the "Industrial Intelligence Committee". The Office of Strategic Services, as part of the secret operation Overcast, took up the export of German rocket scientists to work in the United States. The most "desired head" for the Americans was von Braun. A list of 1,500 scientists found in the toilet of the bombed-out University of Cologne led to its discovery by the secret services. Wernher von Braun was number one on this list. As it turned out later, the decision to surrender to the Americans was made by a team of scientists much earlier than this historic event occurred. Von Braun was even placed under arrest for expressing "defeatist" views.

It was not possible to keep the Overcast operation a secret for a long time. The American media found out about it and immediately called the program "the importation of Nazi criminals into the country." To avoid publicity in March 1946, the operation was renamed Paperclip, and German scientists were listed as “victims of Nazism” according to the documents.

First tests

The first tests of the V-2 in the United States were marked by a number of disasters and almost led to an international scandal. Of the first four launches, only one was successful - the third. During the fourth, the gyroscopic installation failed and a huge unguided rocket flew in the opposite direction. According to the instructions, in such situations it was necessary to shut off the oxygen to the engines with the help of a radio signal, but this time it was not so obvious: highly toxic fuel threatened to splash into the waters of the Rio Grande, which would lead to an environmental disaster. As a result, the rocket raced further towards Mexico and crashed into a rocky slope, leaving a nine-meter-deep hole on it. Diplomatic scandal and war with Mexico was avoided; for ordinary Mexicans, the brainchild of von Braun turned out to be a “gold mine”, for a long time they hunted by selling “rocket fragments”, their weight was comparable to three V-2s.

Swiss-Dutch

Von Braun's integration into American life was not easy. He was well aware that he would not be accepted with open arms everywhere. Upon arrival in the states, when he, accompanied by Major Hamill, was traveling by train from Washington to El Paso, he was approached by one of the passengers. Brown had a thick accent and introduced himself as a Swiss working in the steel industry. It turned out that the fellow traveler himself had been to Switzerland more than once, and he knew firsthand about the production of steel, well, it was time for him to leave. Saying goodbye to Brown, the stranger squeezed his hand tightly and said: "If it were not for you, the Swiss, then we would hardly have been able to defeat Germany."

Von Braun had a hard time fitting into American society. In the documents of the special services, he appeared under the nickname "Dutch". Brown wanted to become his own, an American. He sincerely wanted publicity and fame, taught English and practiced speaking, recording himself on a tape recorder. He got his way.

"I aim for the stars"

Von Braun, a former SS officer, became a national hero for the United States. The mass media convincingly demonstrated their power; in less than a year, American newspapers turned Nazi criminals into good fellow immigrants worthy of becoming respectable Americans. On December 9, 1946, The Times magazine published the first official report on the work of von Braun and his team. The magazine even contained photographs of a scientist standing confidently in the assembly price against the backdrop of his developments. The article ended: "They were promised that someday they would be able to obtain American citizenship." The pinnacle of Brown's media coverage was the release of I'm Aiming for the Stars (1960). The film was based on the biography of the scientist, told about his life from childhood to the management of NASA. Von Braun himself did not like the film. He did not like those who once suffered "from the genius" of Wernher von Braun. In London, people picketed to demand the cancellation of the screening of the film, in Antwerp, which suffered more than others from the V-2, the film was banned from showing.

Brother Brown

Not everything in Werner's post-war life went smoothly. One day, his brother almost let him down. In June 1946, he sold a bar of platinum to a jeweler from El Paso, one might say, gave it away for nothing - for 100 dollars. Magnus Bran told his buyer that this ingot was brought from Holland by his American father. Allegedly, he fought during the First World War in Europe. This was not true in any way, Brown Sr. first came to the US only 9 months after that ill-fated deal. Having come up with such a pyramid of lies, Magnus Braun did not even take care of anonymity, told the jeweler his real name and even left a phone number. The jeweler did not think long and reported the strange client to the authorities. Major James Hamill interrogated the unfortunate smuggler, Magnus immediately admitted that he had brought platinum to the United States himself, thereby violating customs laws. However, Magnus Braun never got under the court. Instead, he was lynched by his own brother. Upon learning of what had happened, Wernher von Braun personally severely beat his brother, whose adventurism could cross out all the ambitions of "aspiring to the stars."

Brown and Disney

In 1955, an event occurred that once again proved the luck of von Braun - he met Walt Disney, a brilliant animator director. Disney at that time was trying to carry out his project of building Disneyland, he needed money, people needed spectacles, and von Braun needed another share of publicity. The synergy of these aspirations resulted in three films: "Man in Space", "Man and the Moon", "Mars and Others". Characteristically, Disney could not find the money for a long time. His amusement park was a long-term project requiring constant investment. So he went on television. At that time, it was not yet seriously considered as a marketing tool, but Disney signed a contract with ABC and did not lose. According to conservative estimates, the broadcast was seen by more than 100 million viewers. And there was something to look at: von Braun spoke interestingly about space, showed a model of a “bottle suit” for astronauts and a model of a lunar station. President Eisenhower himself called Disney personally and asked for a copy of the film. They also tried to get the materials of the sensational programs in the USSR: Professor Leonid Sedov turned to Frederick Durant, president of the International Astronaut Federation, with a request to get a copy. Given the smoldering Cold War and the anti-communism of Walt Disney, the film is unlikely to have made it to the USSR.

Proponents of the thesis “There was nothing good in Soviet history” become indescribably angry when they hear the argument “What about space?”.

It is impossible to deny the fact that the first satellite of the Earth and the first manned flight into orbit are Soviet achievements.

But the detractors have their own argument for this: “The real father of astronautics is not Sergei Korolev, a Wernher von Braun. Korolev achieved success only thanks to his developments.

Such a statement is very far from the truth. But indeed, the first years of space exploration resulted in a duel between Korolev and von Braun.

Fans of Wernher von Braun have a difficult task - after all, contrary to the words of the poet, the scientist successfully combined genius and villainy in his biography.

He was born on March 23, 1912 in the town of Wirsitz in the Posen province of the German Empire. True, today the family nest of the scientist is located on the territory of modern Poland. Werner came from an aristocratic family. His father during the Weimar Republic served as Minister of Food and Agriculture.

After the First World War, the von Braun family moved to Berlin, where Werner combined his passion for astronomy and technical innovations. At the age of 12, he tried to turn a toy car into a race car by attaching firecrackers to it. The car exploded safely, and the “inventor” was sent to the police station, from where his father had to pick him up.

Space enthusiast and military rockets

At school, Werner was best given physics and mathematics. Once he fell into the hands of the book of the "German Tsiolkovsky" Herman Oberth"Rocket for interplanetary space". After that, the young man literally fell ill with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bconquering space.

In 1930, he entered the Technical University of Berlin, where he joined the Space Travel Society group, which was working on the creation of a liquid-propellant rocket engine.

The German military drew attention to a talented student. The Treaty of Versailles severely limited Germany in the development of weapons. But then, when the treaty was signed, there was no serious talk about rocket technology. Taking advantage of this loophole, the German command decided to start working on rocket weapons.

In 1932, with a group of scientists, Wernher von Braun began to work on rocket weapons, testing the first samples at a training ground near Kummersdorf.

In 1933, the Nazis came to power, led by Adolf Hitler. For German scientists, the time has come for a choice - some decided to leave the country, others accepted the terms of the new regime. Wernher von Braun belonged to the latter.

He received funds for the experiments needed for the dissertation "Constructive, theoretical and experimental considerations for the problem of liquid rockets", and in July 1934 he successfully defended it, becoming the youngest doctor of science in Germany.

By December 1934, the A-2 sample had risen to a height of 2300 meters. Von Braun's success convinced the military that he needed to create the most comfortable working conditions. In 1937, a test site and research center were established in Peenemünde.

Wernher von Braun holding a V-2 model. Source: Public Domain

On the side of evil

Von Braun's fans are trying to present his "romance" with the Nazis as forced. In practice, however, this is not the case - the scientist first became a member of the NSDAP, and then an SS officer.

“I was officially required to join the National Socialist Party. At that time (1937) I was already the technical director of the military rocket center in Peenemünde... My refusal to join the party would have meant that I had to give up my life's work. So I decided to join. My membership in the party did not mean for me participation in any political activity ... In the spring of 1940, he came to me in Peenemünde SS Standartenführer Müller and informed me that Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler sent him with orders to convince me to join the SS. I immediately called my military commander... Major General V. Dornberger. He answered me that ... if I wish to continue our joint work, then I have no other choice but to agree, ”the designer gave written explanations to the Americans after the war.

Historians look at this with skepticism: for the Nazis, von Braun was too valuable a specialist, and no one would force him to wear an SS uniform. Witnesses claimed that von Braun, who rose to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer, liked to flaunt the SS uniform, although von Braun himself claimed that he only wore it a few times to official events.

V-2. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Thousands of victims of Professor von Braun

In 1942, Wernher von Braun conducted the first successful tests of the V-2. It was the world's first long-range ballistic missile. The Nazi leadership, including Hitler, was delighted, von Braun received the title of professor.

Combat launches of the V-2 began in 1944. As a result of rocket attacks on London, about 3,000 people were killed, but the V-2 did not become a “weapon of retaliation”.

This today allows the fans of Wernher von Braun to claim that he even ... contributed to the defeat of Germany. They refer to the words of Hitler's Armaments Minister Albert Speer, who called the V-2 a "ridiculous idea" for which a lot of money was spent.

In fact, von Braun simply did not have time. His rockets were not yet very reliable, they were not very accurate, and the Red Army was already approaching from the east. But it is even scary to think how things would have turned out if the German atomic scientists had succeeded in creating an atomic charge for the brainchild of Wernher von Braun.

In the construction and further maintenance of the facilities of the Peenemünde training ground, the slave labor of prisoners, primarily Soviet prisoners of war, was used.

Wernher von Braun admitted after the war that he saw the "disgusting" conditions in which the workers were, but could not do anything about it. He allegedly did not know anything about the mass deaths.

However, French Guy Moran prisoners and Robert Casabon testified that the designer personally gave orders for corporal punishment, and was also present at the executions of prisoners.

The Mittelwerk underground plant, which produced the key components of the V-2, was serviced by prisoners of the Dora concentration camp. When this territory was liberated, the burial place of 25,000 dead prisoners was found in the camp. About 5,000 more were executed by the Nazis immediately before the retreat, so that the prisoners would not give out their secrets.

Only a very naive person can believe that the SS officer and NSDAP member Wernher von Braun was not informed about all this.

W. von Braun after surrendering to the Allies in May 1945. On the left is Dornberger. Source: Public Domain

American "trophy"

I must say that in 1944 von Braun spent two weeks in prison. Hitler, who was in a bad mood, was informed that the main rocket scientist and his assistants were discussing the prospects for ... flights to Mars. The enraged Fuhrer ordered the arrest of von Braun. Only the intercession of the generals and the Minister of Armaments Albert Speer allowed the release of the designer.

By the spring of 1945, Wernher von Braun was well aware that the Nazi cause was lost. He also understood that his team was a valuable prize for the winners. With those who give up, the designer decided pretty quickly. He himself would later tell the press: “We know that we have created a new means of warfare and now the moral choice - which nation, which victorious people we want to entrust our brainchild - is before us sharper than ever before. We want the world not to be caught up in a conflict like the one Germany just went through. We believe that only by handing over such weapons to those people who are guided by the Bible, we can be sure that the world is protected in the best possible way.

It seems, however, that his reasoning was actually simpler - the deaths of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war were on his conscience, and Wernher von Braun was afraid that in the USSR he would be asked for this in all severity.

He had to show extreme resourcefulness in March-April 1945 - the SS guards received instructions from Berlin to shoot all scientists if there was a danger of them being captured. But the guards also saw what was going on, so von Braun managed to convince them not to follow this order.

As part of Operation Paperclip, Wernher von Braun, along with his group, departed to work in the United States. The Americans also got the main technical developments of Peenemünde. When Sergei Korolev and other Soviet technical experts arrived at the test site, they got what is called "crumbs from the master's table." As a result, the father of the Soviet space program, starting with copying German developments, very soon went his own way, which led him to triumph.

Participants in Operation Paperclip to evacuate German scientists and designers from the defeated Third Reich to the United States. Wernher von Braun is 7th from the right in the 1st row.

Did Wernher von Braun work for the USSR?
In the autumn of 1933, the English journalist S. Delmer, who worked in Germany, wandered into a wasteland on the outskirts of Berlin. It showed two men doing something with a mysterious long cigar-shaped object with a pointed nose. “And what will it be?” Delmer asked. “Yes, one of the options for missiles. We think that our missiles will throw both artillery and bombers into the dustbin of history, ”said the older one, who introduced himself as engineer Rudolf Nebel. “Rockets will turn the course of human history, it will leave the earth,” added the second, a handsome blond man in his twenties who introduced himself as Wernher von Braun. The Englishman, looking skeptically at the companions, did not wait for the end of their work, and left. If only he knew that in ten years the V-2 rockets, created under the direction of the blond, would terrify "good old England" ...
Engineers von Braun and Korolev are called to the start!
Wernher von Braun was born on March 23, 1912 in the city of Wirzitz, now called Wyzhysk and located in Poland. The boy, who came from an old Prussian noble family, was smart, greedy for knowledge. After graduating from school, he studied at three institutes in Zurich and Berlin.
At that time, scientists in many European countries were already thinking about developing not only relatively small powder rockets, known to the ancient Chinese, but also huge liquid-fuel rockets. The impetus for this was the work of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky "The study of world spaces by jet devices", in which the great Russian dreamer and scientist described the principle of the liquid rocket engine in 1903.
And in 1929, in Germany, the Minister of the Reichswehr gives a secret order "to begin experiments in order to study the possibility of using a rocket engine for military purposes." The Germans had a backlog since 1917, when the sergeant major of the Austrian army, the future Nobel laureate Hermann Oberth, developed a project for a combat rocket using a mixture of alcohol and oxygen to deliver 10 tons of explosives over several hundred kilometers. In the 1920s in Germany, not only Nebel and von Braun experimented with rocket engines. In order to combine efforts, a group for the study of liquid rocket engines (hereinafter referred to as LRE) was created under the leadership of military engineer Captain Walter Dornberger to conduct work on rocket science at the ballistics and ammunition department of the Reichswehr weapons department.
It was under the leadership of Dornberger, who quickly became a general, that the development of liquid-fuel jet engines began in Germany. In October 1932, 20-year-old Wernher von Braun came to work in the laboratory of the engineer-captain. He turned out to be extremely intelligent and soon became the lead designer and closest assistant to Dornberger. In 1933, under their leadership, the A-1 rocket was developed, which meant "the first unit." In 1934, the “second unit” had already reached a height of 2.2 km. The A-2 rocket weighed 150 kg, had a length of 1.4 meters and a diameter of 30 cm. She was seen by an Englishman in a wasteland near Berlin ...
Almost simultaneously with the Germans, work began on rockets with rocket engines in the Soviet Union. In 1931, groups for the study of jet propulsion (GIRDs) were created on a voluntary basis in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Baku. The head of the Moscow GIRD is appointed 24-year-old Sergei Korolev. Since August 1932, the GIRD began to be financed by the Office of Military Inventions of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA). Things have gone, the Correspondence competition "Korolev-Brown" has begun!
From the start, the rivals left about the same.
In August 1933, the Soviet rocket “09” took off to a height of 1.5 km, in November the “GIRD-X”, the first Soviet rocket that ran on liquid (fuel - ethyl alcohol, oxidizer - liquid oxygen) fuel, took off into the sky. In the summer of 1935, the "07" rocket was launched, rising to 3020 meters. It had a length of 2.01 meters, starting weight - 35 kg. In terms of starting weight, the Soviet “nine” has already lost four times to the German “A-2” ...
At the end of 1933, the Jet Research Institute was formed, one of the deputy heads of which was Korolev. Soon he already had the rank of division commander, which corresponded to the later rank of major general. The RNII developed several types of liquid-propellant rocket engines, some of which were installed on rocket planes and cruise missiles designed by Sergei Korolev in 1937-39. But for a ballistic missile, these engines were not powerful enough, and therefore something like Nebel's 1917 project was not designed. Then the purges began. Deprived of his military rank, the "pest" Korolev, right up to 1945, retired from the distance of the correspondence competition with the "blond beast" Wernher von Braun ...
V-2: "what cannot be"
And in 1936, the Commander-in-Chief of the German Land Forces Fritsch and the head of the research department of the Ministry of Aviation Richthofen visited the Dornberger-Brown rocket laboratory. They found the work of rocket scientists promising and instructed to develop a rocket capable of delivering a warhead of 1 ton at a distance of 275 km. 20 million marks were allocated for the development of missile weapons (including the V-1 cruise missile), and in the Baltic Sea on the island of Usedom, near the fishing village of Peenemünde, they began to build a special missile range.
In 1937, the A-3 intermediate rocket was already launched here. It was 5 times more in weight than A-2, and 3 times in size. The Germans pulled far ahead. True, the launch of the A-3 was unsuccessful. But a project had already been drawn up for an even more powerful A-4 rocket, which was destined to become a “V-2 retaliatory weapon.” For the final development of the A-4 design, the von Braun team developed the A-5 rocket, about three times smaller than the future FAU. From 1938 to 1942, several hundred (!!!) of these missiles were launched from Peenemünde. Wernher von Braun has become a world leader in rocket science for a long time...
The best scientific forces and research organizations in Germany were involved in the work on the V-2, and huge funds were allocated. But the developers also had a lot of problems. Home - engine. After all, he had to develop a thrust of about 25 tons! The best Soviet rocket engines developed up to 300 kilograms. And the Germans came up with their own "chips". Unlike the previously used compressed air fuel supply system, two turbine pumps began to supply fuel to the combustion chamber of the FAU-2 engine, powered by gases generated from the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide when it was heated. Small in size and weight, these turbopumps developed enough power to power a terribly voracious engine that ate nine and a half tons of fuel in 4 minutes of operation.
By making the LRE combustion chamber two jacketed and pumping cold oxidizer liquid oxygen between the jackets, Brown and his colleagues ensured that the combustion chamber did not burn out from high temperatures during the entire operation time. It was thanks to these innovations that the Germans were able to create a rocket engine with a huge thrust for those times.
BROWN GOES OUT
In March 1939 Peenemünde visited Hitler. The work of the fascist rocket scientists made a great impression on him, but after the victories over Poland and France, the “rocket appropriations” were cut by half: it was necessary to prepare for war with the USSR. The attack on the Soviet Union delayed the start of V-2 testing until 1942, and it was not until October 3 of that year that the first success was achieved: the rocket flew about 200 km, reached a height of 90 km and fell 3.4 km from the target. The starting weight of the A-4 was 12.7 tons, the length was 14.3 meters, and the diameter was 1.65 meters. According to the project, the rocket, developing a speed of up to 5500 km / h, was supposed to rise to a height of up to 180 km. From there, its warhead weighing 980 kg, continuing to move along the ballistic curve, could “reach” a target that was up to 320 km away from the launch site. Nothing like it has ever been done in the world! An altitude of 180 kilometers is near space, and Nazi Germany broke into it. One! Therefore, decals, a swastika or a cross, were not painted on the sides of the V-2. What for? All the same, there would be no other missiles nearby ...
The large-scale production of V-2 was organized at the enterprises of the underground industrial complex built in the former gypsum mines near the city of Nordhausen. Engineers and craftsmen were Germans, Czechs, French, their working and living conditions were tolerable. But a huge number of workers were from prisoners who lived in terribly difficult conditions, under the constant threat of execution. Until 1945, it was planned to produce 12,000 missiles, but although in some months they were made up to 690 pieces, the total number of "aggregates" produced until April 45, when the Americans captured Nordhausen, was 5940 units. The first combat launch of the V-2 was carried out by the Germans on September 8, 1944 in London. Rocket landed in Chiswick...
SUPER-V-2
After the Allies landed in Normandy and their rapid advance to the east, the German missilemen, in order not to lose England out of sight, decided to increase the range of the V-2. By December 1944, they added wings to the serial A-4. The new "product" was called A-4B. According to calculations, the range of destruction was to increase to 600 km. In fact, an aircraft was launched into space, which, on the third attempt, was made to fly approximately in the specified mode. However, von Braun did not have time to fine-tune the new "unit" - the war was over.
Intercontinental "Gift to Uncle Sam"
Launching a missile attack on America was the Fuhrer's cherished dream. Even if the blow is not all-destroying, but in the right place, from the standpoint of the panic produced, and at the right time. By 1944, German rocket scientists had already realized that it was impossible to reach America with a single-stage rocket - that part of it in which the engine and fuel, after it burns out, becomes a brake on the warhead. This part of the rocket must be separated. Yes, and more fuel with an oxidizer would be needed, and the engine is more powerful ...
The Germans sat down for calculations, sparing neither alcohol nor liquid oxygen for experiments, and by January 1945 they had made a prototype missile system, which already consisted of two "units", A9 / A10, with a total take-off weight of 86 tons. The fuel weight of the 70-ton A-9 was 52 tons, the engine had to develop a thrust of 200 tons, only 3 times less than that of the royal R-7 rocket, which launched Yuri Gagarin into space 16 years later. A-9 was supposed to accelerate to a speed of 4250 km / h A-10, a 16-ton winged version of the V-2. But the A-10 was supposed to accelerate to 10,000 km / h and deliver 1 ton of explosives to the target across the Atlantic. The A-10 should have been aimed at the target either by a radio beacon, which would have been installed in advance, or by a suicide pilot.
Hitler wanted to get into nothing other than the 102-story Empire State Building! He hoped that in this way it would be possible to withdraw the United States from the war. The whole operation was given the name "Elster". In November 1944, German agents Erich Gimpel and William Kolpag landed in the United States from a German submarine. Each of them had to independently get a job in some organization for the maintenance of a skyscraper, install a lighthouse in it, send a message to Germany and put the lighthouse into action. Gimpel did get a job at the tour desk and even sent a telegram to the Fatherland, but Kolpag turned himself in to the FBI. He spoke about the characteristic sign of his colleague: he puts change not in a wallet, but in the breast pocket of his jacket. The FBI got all the newsstand owners and cashiers on their feet, and Gimpel was taken before he installed a radio beacon. Gimpel received an electric chair, Kolpag-long term. Shooting at the "Empire" did not take place ...
At various times, reports were published that the A9 / A10, controlled by a suicide bomber, did start for America, even the name and surname of the pilot were called. He supposedly successfully flew to the estimated height, separated the warhead and went into planning for the target, but burned out when entering the dense layers of the atmosphere. “Fire, fire everywhere” - these were supposedly his last words. And, of course, "Heil Hitler!"...
Was von Braun a criminal?
Degraded from the brigade commander only to the majors, Sergei Korolev in 1945 was released from the “sharaga” into the wild. And immediately he was sent to study German rocket technology in Germany. Examining the V-2 in 1945, the former correspondence rival of Wernher von Braun, amazed by the successes achieved by the Germans, said to test pilot Mark Gallai: "I see something that cannot be." It was! Thundered and killed!
In total, during the period of application, until March 23, 1945, 1269 missiles were launched against England, and 1739 missiles against other targets already on the territory of continental Europe. Most of all went to Antwerp - 1593 missiles. According to British data, 1054 V-2s exploded in England, killing 2754 and seriously injuring 6523 people. 1,265 rockets exploded in the Antwerp area, killing and injuring about 30,000 people. In total, with the help of Brown's "aggregates", the Germans dropped 1034 tons of explosives on England. Scary and cruel. But…
In 1944, an average of 4,100 Allied four-engine bombers dropped at least 6,000 tons of bombs on German cities every day, and not only on industrial enterprises. Six times more than "Brown" dropped on England in 7 months. The pleasure of terrorizing England with V-2s cost Germany enormous sums. Only the cost of building a missile center at Peenemünde was equal to the amount sufficient to produce 10,000, or one-fifth of the total number of tanks produced by Germany during the war. And how many tanks were also "eaten" by those 5940 missiles produced, which did not drop a single gram of explosives on Soviet cities or troops? So it turns out that von Braun indirectly ... worked for the USSR.
Moreover, after the war, more than 150 German rocket specialists “brought up by von Braun” arrived in the USSR “to help Korolev”, including 13 professors, 32 doctors of engineering, 85 certified engineers and 21 practical engineers. It was because of the "creative competition" with them that Sergei Pavlovich Korolev overtook Wernher von Braun on October 4, 1957 and April 12, 1961, launching the first artificial earth satellite and the first man into space. Paradoxically, but for such work in the USSR, at least the “rocket baron” deserved the medal “For the Victory over Germany”!
Viktor NOVITSKY 2

Wernher von Braun was born in the town of Wirsitz in the province of Posen in what was then the German Empire. His family belonged to an aristocratic family, he inherited the title "Freiherr" (corresponds to the baronial). After the First World War, Wirsitz was transferred to Poland, and the Werner family, like many other German families, emigrated to Germany. The von Brauns settled in Berlin. In 1930, von Braun entered the Technical University of Berlin, where he joined the "Verein für Raumschiffahrt" ("Space Travel Society") group. In 1930 he began working on liquid fuel rockets. In 1932 he was admitted to the Dornberger military rocket science group.

Von Braun was working on his dissertation when Hitler and the NSDAP came to power in 1933. Rocketry almost immediately became an important issue on the agenda. In July 1934, von Braun was awarded the degree of Doctor of Physical Sciences (rocket science).

The new Nazi regime banned civilian rocket science experiments. Rockets were only allowed to be built by the military. To this end, a huge rocket research center was built in the village of Peenemünde in northern Germany, on the Baltic Sea, with Dornberger as military leader. Since 1937, Wernher von Braun has been the technical director of the Peenemünde center and the chief designer of the A-4 (V-2) rocket, which was used in World War II to bombard the cities of France, Great Britain, Holland and Belgium.

"V-2", (V-2 - Vergeltungswaffe-2, retaliation weapon, another name: A-4 - Aggregat-4) is a single-stage liquid-fueled ballistic missile. It was launched vertically, on the active part of the trajectory, an autonomous gyroscopic control system came into action, equipped with a software mechanism and instruments for measuring speed. The flight range reached 320 km, the height of the trajectory - 100 km. The warhead contained up to 800 kg of ammotol. One of the most revolutionary technological solutions used on the V-2 was the automatic guidance system, which did not require constant adjustment from the ground, the target coordinates were entered into the onboard analog computer before launch. The gyroscopes mounted on the rocket controlled its spatial position during the entire flight, and any deviation from the given trajectory was corrected by the rudders on the side stabilizers.

By the end of January 1945, the rumble of cannonade from the shots of Soviet guns was clearly audible on Peenemünde. All those who worked at the missile base realized that this territory would soon fall to the enemy. Wernher von Braun gathered his development team and asked them to decide how and to whom they should all surrender. The opinion of those present was unanimous. Von Braun and his men would not wait for the Soviet troops to capture Peenemünde, but should go to the south of Germany and offer their experience and knowledge to the Americans.

On the last day of January, von Braun gathered the heads of sectors and departments, as well as his deputies, in his office and announced that he had just received an order from SS Lieutenant General Hans Kammler for the urgent evacuation of personnel and equipment used in the most important projects to south of Germany. Von Braun emphasized that this is an order from above, and not just a proposal. He later admitted that there were several orders from various departments, and they contradicted each other. Von Braun chose the one that best suited his plans.

Preparations have begun for shipment to the south of the country. Unique equipment and tons of documentation were collected. By the beginning of March 1945, the evacuation from Peenemünde was practically complete.

2 Bleicherode

Von Braun settled in the town of Bleicherode, and Walter Dornberger, who assisted in the evacuation, chose the town of Bad Sachsa in the center of Germany. Both of these cities were quite close to the Mittelwerk underground plant, where the first V-2 rockets were assembled a year ago.

By the beginning of April 1945, American tanks were already 19 km from Bleicherode, and American troops were trying to capture the entire territory around the Mittelwerk. Kammler ordered von Braun to gather 400 of the most talented scientists and engineers and go even further south to the town of Oberammergau, at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. Walter Dornberger and his small group received the same order.

3 Oberammergau

On April 11, General Kammler invited Wernher von Braun to his place and announced that he was forced to leave Oberammergau on duty, and von Braun and his people would remain under the protection of the general's deputies. The next day, Kammler really disappeared, and apart from a short message sent by him to Himmler's office, no one else heard anything about him.

In the days that followed, von Braun's men dispersed into the villages surrounding Oberammergau. On the slopes of the Alps, they felt relatively safe.

On May 1, 1945, German radio announced the death of Fuhrer Adolf Hitler. The next day, von Braun and six members of his team, including younger brother Magnus von Braun and teacher Walter Dornberger, surrendered to the Americans.

After his capture, Brown told the press: “We know that we have created a new means of warfare and now the moral choice - which nation, which victorious people we want to entrust our brainchild - is before us sharper than ever before. We want the world not to be caught up in a conflict like the one Germany just went through. We believe that only by handing over such weapons to those people who are guided by the Bible, we can be sure that the world is protected in the best possible way.

4 Garmisch-Partenkirchen

The Americans kept von Braun and his team under arrest in the quiet resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the foothills of the Alps. The highest ranks of the US command were well aware of how valuable booty fell into their hands: the name of von Braun headed the "Black List" - the code name for the list of German scientists and engineers from among those whom American military experts would like to interrogate as soon as possible. Based on the results of intensive interrogations, measures were immediately taken, special search teams were hastily sent to different parts of Germany to seize documentation, materials and search for people.

On July 19, 1945, two days before the planned transfer of the territory to the zone of Soviet occupation, US Army Major Robert B. Staver, Chief of the Jet Propulsion Department of the US Army Ordnance Research and Intelligence Service in London and Lieutenant Colonel R. L. Williams, planted von Braun and heads of his departments in a jeep and taken from Garmisch to Munich. Then the group was transported by air to Nordhausen, and the next day - 60 km southwest, to the town of Witzenhausen, located in the American zone of occupation. Von Braun briefly lingered at the Dustbin interrogation center, where representatives of the Third Reich's elite in the field of economics, science and technology were interrogated by British and American intelligence services.

On June 20, 1945, the US Secretary of State approved the relocation of von Braun and his staff to America. Brown was among those scientists for whom the United States Intelligence Agency created fictitious biographies and removed references to NSDAP membership and links to the Nazi regime from open records. By "cleansing" them from Nazism, the American government thus gave scientists security guarantees for working in the United States.

5 Fort Bliss, USA

The first seven specialists, including Wernher von Braun, arrived in the United States at a military airfield in Newcastle, Delaware, on September 20, 1945. They then flew to Boston and were taken by boat to the US Army Intelligence Agency's base at Fort Strong in Boston Harbor. Then everyone except Brown arrived at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland to sort out the documents taken from Peenemünde. These documents were supposed to allow scientists to continue experimenting with rockets.

Von Braun eventually arrived at Fort Bliss, Texas, a major US military base north of El Paso. Since the Americans had no experience in the development of large rockets, and especially such as the V-2, they asked von Braun for the names of those people who would help in the shortest possible time to establish the production of combat missiles for the United States army. It was easy for von Braun to do this. He knew perfectly well which of his people were loyal to him and highly qualified. In total, he named 118 names.

Until 1950, Wernher von Braun worked at Fort Bliss, and then at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. In 1956, he was appointed head of the Redstone intercontinental ballistic missile (as well as rockets based on it - Jupiter-S and Juno) and the Explorer series satellite. Since 1960, von Braun has been a member of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and director of the NASA Space Flight Center. Head of development of launch vehicles of the Saturn series and spacecraft of the Apollo series. Since 1970, he has been Deputy Director of NASA for planning manned space flights, since 1972 he worked in industry as vice president of Fairchild Space Industries in Germantown, Maryland. After leaving NASA in 1972, he lived only five years and died of pancreatic cancer.

To Wernher von Braun, humanity owes much to the landing on the moon, space flights to Mars and Venus. But the German scientist designed not only the American Saturn launch vehicles and Apollo spacecraft. During the Second World War, von Braun was the project manager for the creation of V-2 rockets, with which the Nazis fired at London and other cities. Thousands of people died from these missiles... Stefan Brauburger tries in his documentary book to explain why it was the creator of such a terrible weapon that helped mankind realize the dream of flying to other planets.

Doppelgänger and leader

As a child, Wernher von Braun read science fiction and raved about space. As a teenager, he equipped a small observatory with his classmates. Parents had to come to terms with their son's passion, although it was very difficult for them. Wernher von Braun's father was a well-born aristocrat, he held high government posts (up to the Minister of Agriculture of the Weimar Republic), and his son was engaged in some kind of nonsense. He was bored in the lessons, and in the seventh grade he even stayed for the second year. Then his parents sent him to a private boarding school, setting a categorical condition: if he doesn’t straighten his marks there, he can forget about his expensive hobby. Just a few months later, Wernher von Braun became the first student in the class.

This is typical of him. If he set a goal for himself, he always achieved it. According to the author of the book, in many ways it is von Braun's will and determination, and not just his talent, that explains his success as a designer. Another important factor: he was a brilliant organizer and a natural leader. Having defended his dissertation at the age of 22 on the design features of liquid fuel rockets, von Braun became the youngest doctor of technical sciences in Germany.

But the Nazis had already come to power in the country. They did not give a damn about the romance of space flights, they were interested in rockets only as a new type of weapon. In May 1937, Wernher von Braun was appointed technical director of the Peenemünde test site on the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea, which turned into a huge missile center. Of course, only a party member could head such a center, and the designer had to urgently join the NSDAP.

"Weapon of Retribution" and the first satellite

Wernher von Braun was given the task of creating a rocket with a liquid-propellant engine that could carry an explosive charge weighing up to one ton over long distances. The new missile was named V-2. V ("fau") is the first letter of the German word "Vergeltungswaffe" - ""weapon of retaliation"". And "two" because a little earlier the Germans created the V-1 cruise missile.

On June 13, 1944, London was bombed for the first time by a V-1. In early September, V-2s were fired at London and Antwerp and Paris, which had been liberated by that time by the allies.

In April 45, Wernher von Braun, along with several of his employees, surrendered to the Americans. Three and a half hundred railway cars with equipment and components of missiles were delivered by sea to the United States. At the same time, German scientists themselves were sent there. SS Sturmbannführer von Braun, his colleagues Hauptsturmführer Rudolf (Rudolf) and Wehrmacht Lieutenant General Dornberger (Dornberger) began to work in research centers and design bureaus of the Pentagon. The Americans showed a more than condescending attitude towards them: the Cold War was beginning, the United States (as, indeed, the Soviet Union) was in dire need of specialists in the field of rocket technology. Therefore, they simply turned a blind eye to the past.

True, as Brauburger notes, not military programs, but space projects were a priority in Wernher von Braun's work for Americans (at least since the mid-fifties). It was his group that launched the first American satellite Explorer-1 - 195 days later than the first Soviet artificial Earth satellite. After this success, Wernher von Braun was assigned to create the Saturn launch vehicle for flights to the moon.

Do Americans Need the Moon?

From 1969 to 1972, the Americans landed on the moon six times. However, in the end, due to the high cost, the United States abandoned not only this, but also the further preparation of an expedition to Mars, the technical support of which was also entrusted to Wernher von Braun, and from construction of a long-term orbital station similar to the Soviet Mir.

Without a real job, Wernher von Braun noticeably failed. Soon he was diagnosed with cancer, and in June 1977 he died at the age of 65. After his death, the US Department of Justice created a special commission of inquiry, which took up the past of German designers and technicians. All Germans who started their scientific careers in the "Third Reich" were fired from the American space agency NASA with a scandal. It is quite possible that Wernher von Braun would have suffered the same fate.

Stefan Brauburger.
"Wernher von Braun. Ein deutsches Genie zwischen Untergangswahn und Raketenträumen".
Pendo Verlag, Munich 2009