Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun (US: VUR-nər von BROWN; German: [ˈvɛʁnheːɐ̯ fɔn ˈbʁaʊn]; 23 March 1912 – 16 June 1977) was a German American aerospace engineer and space architect. He led the development of German rocket technology in World War II, during which time he became a member of the Nazi Party and later the Allgemeine SS. Following the war, he relocated to the United States, developing missiles for the US Army and later designing rockets for NASA’s Apollo program. As a young man, von Braun worked in Nazi Germany's rocket development program. He helped design and co-developed the V-2 rocket at Peenemünde Army Research Center during World War II. The V-2 became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line on 20 June 1944. Following the war, he was secretly moved to the United States, along with about 1,600 other German scientists, engineers, and technicians, as part of Operation Paperclip. He worked for the United States Army on an intermediate-range ballistic missile program, and he developed the rockets that launched the United States' first space satellite Explorer 1 in 1958. He worked with Walt Disney on a series of films, which popularized the idea of human space travel in the US and beyond from 1955 to 1957. In 1960, his group was assimilated into NASA, where he served as director of the newly formed Marshall Space Flight Center and as the chief architect of the Saturn V super heavy-lift launch vehicle that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. In 1967, von Braun was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering, and in 1975, he received the National Medal of Science. Von Braun is seen by some as escaping justice for his participation in Nazi war crimes due to the Americans' desire to beat the Soviets in the Cold War. He is also sometimes described as the "father of space travel", the "father of rocket science", or the "father of the American lunar program". Towards the end of his career, he also advocated a human mission to Mars.
Early life Wernher von Braun was born on 23 March 1912, in the small town of Wirsitz in the Province of Posen, Kingdom of Prussia (then part of the German Empire, now part of Poland). His father, Magnus Freiherr von Braun (1878–1972), was a civil servant and conservative politician; he served as Minister of Agriculture in the federal government during the Weimar Republic. His mother, Emmy von Quistorp (1886–1959), traced her ancestry through both parents to medieval European royalty and was a descendant of Philip III of France, Valdemar I of Denmark, Robert III of Scotland, and Edward III of England. He had an older brother, the West German diplomat Sigismund von Braun, who served as Secretary of State in the Foreign Office in the 1970s, and a younger brother, Magnus von Braun, who was a rocket scientist and later a senior executive with Chrysler. The family moved to Berlin, Brandenburg, in 1915, where his father worked at the Ministry of the Interior. After his Confirmation, his mother gave him a telescope, and he developed a passion for astronomy. Von Braun learned to play both the cello and the piano at an early age and at one time wanted to become a composer. He took lessons from the composer Paul Hindemith. The few pieces of von Braun's youthful compositions that exist are reminiscent of Hindemith's style. He could play piano pieces of Beethoven and Bach from memory. Beginning in 1925, he attended a boarding school at Ettersburg Castle near Weimar, Free State of Thuringia, where he did not do well in physics and mathematics. There he acquired a copy of Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (1923, By Rocket into Planetary Space) by rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth. In 1928, his parents moved him to the Hermann-Lietz-Internat (also a residential school) on the East Frisian North Sea island of Spiekeroog. Space travel had always fascinated him, and from then on he applied himself to physics and mathematics to pursue his interest in rocket engineering. In 1928 the Raketenrummel or "Rocket Rumble" fad initiated by Fritz von Opel and Max Valier was highly influential on von Braun as a teenage space enthusiast. He was so enthusiastic after seeing one of the public Opel-RAK rocket car demonstrations, that he constructed his own homemade toy rocket car and caused a disruption in a crowded sidewalk by launching the toy wagon, to which he had attached the largest firework rockets he could purchase. He was later taken in for questioning by the local police, then released to his father for disciplinary action. The incident highlighted the young von Braun's determination to "dedicate his life to space travel". In 1930, von Braun attended the Technische Hochschule Berlin, where he joined the Spaceflight Society (Verein für Raumschiffahrt or VfR), co-founded by Valier, and worked with Willy Ley in his liquid-fueled rocket motor tests in conjunction with others such as Rolf Engel, Rudolf Nebel, Hermann Oberth or Paul Ehmayr. In spring 1932, he graduated with a diploma in mechanical engineering. His early exposure to rocketry convinced him that the exploration of space would require far more than applications of the current engineering technology. Wanting to learn more about physics, chemistry, and astronomy, von Braun entered the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin for doctoral studies and graduated with a doctorate in physics in 1934. He also studied at ETH Zürich for a term from June to October 1931.
German career In 1930, von Braun attended a presentation given by Auguste Piccard. After the talk, the young student approached the famous pioneer of high-altitude balloon flight, and stated to him: "You know, I plan on traveling to the Moon at some time." Piccard is said to have responded with encouraging words. Von Braun was greatly influenced by Oberth, of whom he said:
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
