Von Brown biography. Wernher von Braun

Von Braun's great dedication to his work played a significant role in his successes and achievements. Jay Holmes concluded that von Braun "ranks among the most determined people in human history". For more than 35 years, he persistently pursued the idea of ​​creating rockets for space exploration.

It was only while in America that von Braun was able to realize his dream of creating rockets used for good purposes when satellites were launched into earth orbit. The enormous importance of satellites in modern life is demonstrated by their use in communications systems, scientific research and military forces.

In 1960, von Braun led the development of the liquid-propellant Saturn rocket, which took Neil Armstrong and his team to the Moon. Project Apollo was the pinnacle of the American space program, and von Braun was at the center of the entire enterprise.

Creation scientist

After von Braun believed in God, he became an ardent defender of the Christian faith and creationism. He wrote quite a lot about his faith and whenever possible he always spoke on this topic. He called creationism “a viable theory of the origin of the Universe, all life and man”. The scientist came to the following conclusion:

“The realization that our Universe was created ultimately raises the question of a Creator.... The scientific method does not allow us not to think that the Universe, life and man are based on design. To believe that everything in the universe was formed by chance would violate the objectivity of science itself. Yes, there are those who argue that the universe evolved due to a random event, but what random event could lead to the emergence of the human brain or the human eye?”

His belief in the importance of exploring God's creation is clearly expressed in his observation: “The more I learn about God's creation, the more I am amazed at the order and precise perfection of the laws of nature that govern us. And in this perfection, the scientist only manages to glimpse the Creator and His design in nature.”.

Dr. von Braun's words confirm how important it was for him to believe in God's design:

“The apparent resistance to recognizing arguments for Design as a valid scientific alternative to the current arguments for Chance lies in the incomprehensibility of such a concept as a Designer by some scientists. The incomprehensibility of important issues must not be allowed to preclude any theory that explains the relationships of observed data…. Many smart people say that they cannot imagine a Designer. Can a physicist see an electron? The electron is materially inconceivable, and yet we know exactly its action, used to illuminate cities and control airplanes. For what strange reasons do some physicists believe in incomprehensible electrons and refuse to believe in the reality of the Creator just because they cannot see Him?... And although they do not fully understand electrons either, they are ready to recognize them because they managed to create from them, albeit not a perfect one, but a mechanical model.”

Von Braun was convinced that the question of origins should be taught objectively in schools. In his opinion, statements that science and religion are incompatible are baseless. On the contrary, he believed that “science helps to understand creation, and religion helps to understand the Creator”.

“Science and religion are like two windows in a house through which we look at the reality of the Creator and the laws revealed in His creation. If we see different images in these windows, we need to try to see a more complete picture of reality by properly connecting our scientific and religious views.”

Von Braun emphasized that our survival depends more than ever on adherence to the basic moral principles God has given us. When asked what he thought about religion and science, specifically “whether technological methods and religious beliefs are compatible,” Von Braun responded:

“While technology controls the forces of nature around us, morality attempts to control the forces of nature within us. The Ten Commandments are quite sufficient, without any amendments or changes, to cope with all the problems that the technological revolution has not only already brought, but will bring to our lives in the future.”

Von Braun concluded that the Bible is "the strongest bulwark built against the ravages of time....The Bible is the revelation of God's nature and His love." Prayer occupied an equally important place in von Braun’s life. He was once asked when his prayer was most fervent. He replied that he prayed most intensely before and during the Apollo missions. As Henry Morris noted, von Braun believed that human space flight, although a great achievement,

“These achievements open only a small window for us to the secrets and riches of outer space. Our view through the opening of the pipe at the mysteries of the universe only strengthens our faith in the greatness and glory of the Almighty Creator. It is difficult for me to understand those scientists who do not recognize the role of the Creator in the creation of the universe, just as it is difficult to understand those theologians who reject the possibilities of science.”

Von Braun died in Alexandria, Virginia, on June 16, 1977, leaving behind an indelible mark on the history of the entire world.

Conclusion

A study of the history of Western science shows that many great scientists were motivated by the Christian faith. They all came to the conclusion that God reveals Himself to people through Scripture and through His creation, and in order to better know the Creator, we need to explore His creation more. Wernher von Braun argued that “The universe, discovered through scientific research, testifies that everything that exists is the work of God. Understanding the nature of creation gives us a solid basis for faith, through which we try to understand the nature of the Creator himself." . When properly understood, science and the Bible tell us the same truth.

Links and notes

* Dr. Bergman is an associate professor at Toledo Medical College in Ohio.

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

Von Braun was working on his dissertation when Hitler and the NSDAP came to power in 1933. Rocket science almost immediately became a major 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 experiments in rocket science. Only the military was allowed to build rockets. For this purpose, a huge missile research center was built in the village of Peenemünde in northern Germany, on the Baltic Sea, of which Dornberger became the military leader. Since 1937, Wernher von Braun has been the technical director of the center in Peenemünde and the chief designer of the A-4 (V-2) rocket, which was used in World War II to bombard cities in France, Great Britain, Holland and Belgium.

"V-2", (V-2 - Vergeltungswaffe-2, weapon of retaliation, 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, equipped with a software mechanism and instruments for measuring speed, came into action. The flight range reached 320 km, the trajectory altitude was 100 km. The warhead could hold up to 800 kg of ammotol. One of the most revolutionary technological solutions used on the V-2 was an automatic guidance system that did not require constant adjustments from the ground; the target coordinates were entered into the on-board analog computer before launch. Gyroscopes installed on the rocket controlled its spatial position throughout the flight, and any deviation from the given trajectory was corrected by rudders on the side stabilizers.

By the end of January 1945, the roar of cannonade from the shots of Soviet guns was clearly audible on Peenemünde. Everyone working at the missile base realized that this territory would soon fall to the enemy. Wernher von Braun gathered his team of developers 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 Soviets 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 orders 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 was an order from above, and not just a suggestion. He later admitted that there were several orders from various departments, and they contradicted each other. Von Braun chose the one that most closely matched his plans.

Preparations began for departure 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 completed.

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 underground Mittelwerk 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 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 by duty to leave Oberammergau, and von Braun and his people would remain under the protection of the general’s deputies. The next day Kammler really disappeared, and except for a short message he sent to Himmler's department, no one heard anything about him again.

In the following days, von Braun's men scattered throughout the villages surrounding Oberammergau. They felt relatively safe on the slopes of the Alps.

On May 1, 1945, German radio reported the news that Fuhrer Adolf Hitler had died. The next day, von Braun and six members of his team, including Magnus von Braun's younger brother 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 - to which nation, to which victorious people we want to entrust our brainchild - stands before us more acutely than ever before. We want the world to not be drawn into a conflict like the one Germany has just gone through. We believe that only by delivering such weapons to those people who are guided by the Bible can we be sure that the world is best protected."

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 top ranks of the US command were well aware of the valuable loot that fell into their hands: von Braun’s name topped 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 groups 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 territory to the zone of Soviet occupation, US Army Major Robert B. Staver, chief of the jet propulsion section of the US Army Ordnance Corps Research and Intelligence Service in London, and Lieutenant Colonel R. L. Williams imprisoned 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, which was located in the American occupation zone. Von Braun stayed briefly at the Dastbin interrogation center, where representatives of the Third Reich's elite in the fields of economics, science and technology were interrogated by British and American intelligence services.

On June 20, 1945, the US Secretary of State approved the move of von Braun and his staff to America. Brown was among those scientists for whom the Joint Intelligence Agency created fictitious biographies and removed references to Nazi Party membership and ties to the Nazi regime from public records. Having “washed” them of Nazism, the American government thus gave scientists guarantees of safety to work 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 New Castle, Delaware, on September 20, 1945. They then flew to Boston and were taken by boat to the US Army Intelligence Agency 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 at Peenemünde. These documents were supposed to allow scientists to continue experiments with rockets.

Eventually, von Braun arrived at Fort Bliss, Texas, a major U.S. Army base north of El Paso. Since the Americans had no experience in developing large rockets, and especially ones like the V-2, they asked von Braun to provide the names of those people who would help quickly establish the production of combat rockets for the United States Army. This was easy for von Braun to do. He knew very well which of his people were loyal 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 program for the development 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 Saturn series launch vehicles and Apollo series spacecraft. Since 1970, he has been NASA's deputy director for human spaceflight planning; since 1972, he has 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.

How often can historical or literary myths be realized in the life of one person? We think once, twice - they can. But we want to tell you how, in the life of one historical figure, stories about a literary hero were repeatedly brought to life.

The name of the historical figure is Wernher von Braun, a German designer who became famous in America and the world thanks to his contributions to the field of rocketry and space flight.

The name of the second is Karl Hieronymus von Munchausen, a hero of fairy tales and stories who had a real historical prototype. Our story is about them.

Family. Von Braun's childhood and youth

Werner Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun was born neither early nor late into his family. This means that he was the second of three sons of Magnus von Braun and Emmy von Quistrop, who, in turn, came from aristocratic families. He owes his place of birth on March 23, 1912 to Virzitz (Wyzysk, Polish) in the province of Posen (Poznan, Polish), which at that time was located on the territory of Prussia and remained part of Germany for a short time.

Freiherr (Freiherr - free master, address - baron) - one of the types of titled nobility in German-speaking countries until 1919, the German equivalent of the title Baron.

At the end of the First World War, according to the Treaty of Versailles, the lands of East Prussia passed to Poland. And families who still had something to lose moved to Germany. The von Braun family first settled in Gumbinnen (Gusev, Kaliningrad region), where the father was president of the Gumbinnen government, and then in Berlin, where the elder von Braun would serve as Minister of Food and Agriculture of the Weimar Republic.

Let's digress a little and talk about a certain image that the young baron saw in the Gumbinn Friedrichschule.

A unique fresco depicting a scene of a meeting between the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm I, and settlers from Salzburg (now Austria, and at that time Germany) was created by Otto Heichert, an academician of the Königsberg Academy of Arts, in 1912-1913, commissioned by the city government. The reason for painting was the completion of the construction of the new building of the Friedrichschule, a gymnasium for boys, which was preparing to celebrate its 150th anniversary. In addition, Gumbinnen was preparing for the 200th anniversary of the resettlement of Salzburgers to Prussia, expelled from their homeland for their adherence to Protestantism. The Salzburgers who arrived in Gumbinnen at the invitation of the King of Prussia found a new homeland in Prussian lands. The fresco is impressive both in its size (16x8 m) and in the abundance of characters. The fresco is crowned with words attributed to the King of Prussia:

“New sons for me, dear Motherland for you.”

By European standards, deserted East Prussia has always been a land of settlers - the first “wave” came in the 13th - 14th centuries with the Teutons, the second - in the 16th century, turning this region into a stronghold of Protestantism, and the third, when Prussia in 1709 -1711 was struck by a plague, from which up to half of its population died, and the region itself was restless, the neighbors were warlike, in general, the depopulated lands had to be populated urgently. Protestants in the vicinity of Salzburg, who were “tightened the screws” by the local Catholic bishop, responded most readily, and Gumbinnen became their new homeland from the 1730s.

The fresco was covered over in the first years of Soviet power in Prussia (after 1947), and in its place there was an image of Lenin for half a century. Since then, several generations have changed, they managed to forget about the past, and when Germans suddenly began to come to the college in 1990 - 2000, including former residents of Gumbinnen, wanting to see the fresco, the college workers were perplexed. However, in the end, the fresco was saved by the quality of Soviet whitewash and paint, an examination showed its restoreability, money was raised by both locals and Germans, and in 2006 - 2008, the fresco was cleared and updated by restorers from St. Petersburg. [ 1 ]

We will return to the plot of this fresco, as a memory of von Braun’s childhood, in the third part.

Definitely, our young hero was what is usually called a “prodigy,” but at the very beginning of his life his passions lay in the humanitarian sphere. Having mastered playing the violin and piano, young Wernher von Braun began taking lessons from the famous composer. Who knows, maybe it was the “music of the spheres” that was already calling him to itself? Another of his talents called for the organization of “bands” and he was the ringleader of many pranks and pranks of his peers.

Trying to instill an interest in study and accurate knowledge, the Baroness gives her son a telescope for confirmation.

Confirmation - among Catholics and Protestants (in different forms): a rite of admission into the church community of adolescents who have reached a certain age.

The gift and the Jules Verne novel he read gave Werner an unexpected dream-idea. Now, no matter what, he dreams of flying to the moon.

Having changed several closed educational institutions, in 1928 his parents transferred him to the Hermann Litz boarding school on the island of Spiekeroog in East Frisia. Here he obtained a copy of the book “Rocket for Interplanetary Space” by Hermann Oberth. Brown had previously been fascinated by the idea of ​​space flight, and now he began to purposefully study physics and mathematics in order to later design rockets.

Hermann Julius Oberth (1894 - 1989) - one of the pioneers of world astronautics. In 1908, he finally came to the conclusion that it was possible to go into space only with the help of a rocket. The 16-year-old high school student completely correctly identified the second task - choosing fuel for a rocket engine. Before him, the only type of fuel was gunpowder. Already in 1912, Herman independently found a mathematical expression, which is known as the “Tsiolkovsky formula,” and used it as a guide to solving the problem. It was clear to him that a solution could not be found by focusing on solid fuel (at the level of technology development achieved by that time). Therefore, he came up with the idea of ​​using a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen as fuel. Let us note for the future that a water molecule consists of particles of these gases.

In 1917 he designed a liquid-fuel rocket.

In 1923, he published, at his own expense, “The Practice of Interplanetary Travel,” which was republished with additions until 1984.

This book summarized the work he had previously carried out and ended (already in the 23rd year) with the following theses:

1 - With the current state of science and technology, it is possible to create a device that can go beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.

2 - In the future, such devices will be able to develop such a speed that, instead of falling to Earth, they will enter interplanetary space, overcoming gravity.

3 - It is possible to create devices that can perform similar tasks with a person on board, probably without serious damage to his health.

4 - Under certain conditions, the creation of such devices may become quite feasible. Such conditions may arise in the coming decades.

Thus, Oberth’s work exhaustively outlined the problems of space development in the twentieth century and became a reference book for all those “sick” with space.

Oberth corresponded with Godart and Tsiolkovsky. He lived a long life, was a scientific adviser to many, including Wernher von Braun, and was even at the NASA center in 1969 at a certain historical moment.

The remarkable story of Munchausen's warhorse being cut in half

We decided to construct a narrative of Wernher von Braun's life based on the recognition in his stories of Baron Munchausen, since some comparisons can be made. When, talking about von Braun, we see stories similar to “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” we will give parallel excerpts from “Adventures.” The validity of such analogies is for the readers to judge. Let's start right now.

So, Werner was often moved from one closed educational institution to another, and this made sense to his parents. His business activities gave them serious concerns...

In the mid-1920s, solid-fuel or "powder" rockets were already being used as signal rockets on naval vessels. Apparently they were on sale. Experiments began on the construction of cars equipped with such rocket engines. The pioneers in this business were Max Vallier and Fritz von Oppel.

The laurels of the pioneers deprived the young baron of sleep.

“He went to Berlin and bought half a dozen flares there. He tied the rockets to a small van in which the von Braun family sometimes traveled along the coast, and went on this vehicle to one of the main streets of Berlin - Tiergarten Allee. There he set fire to the wicks connected to the solid fuel in the rockets, or rather to gunpowder, and the van he had modernized rushed forward along the street, leaving fiery tongues of flame behind it. Passers-by were horrified by what they saw and ran away in all directions. Werner himself only had time to glance at his brainchild. Fortunately, no passersby were injured, and the police, who initially arrested the young inventor, soon released him, advising the Minister of Agriculture to keep his son under house arrest.” [ 2 ]

Another source, however, says that it was a trailer, that is, not a self-propelled vehicle.

And now one story from Munchausen:

“My horse drank and drank without stopping. I looked at him in surprise for five or ten minutes, and when at last I turned around to see if my people were already gathering, what did I see? The poor animal was missing half of its body and hind legs, and the water that poured into it from the front poured out in a stream from behind, not in the least refreshing my good horse... While I was thinking about this riddle, my stirrup galloped up from the opposite side of the square and, interspersing his speech with whole streams sincere congratulations and strong curses, explained to me how I found myself alone and why half my horse was missing.

When I entered the fortress following the fleeing Turks, a portcullis suddenly fell at the gate, which completely cut off the back of my horse, which, however, did not stop me from driving the crowd of the enemy in front of me and pushing him out through the opposite gate.

After listening to this story, I drove half of my horse and at an incomprehensibly fast gallop galloped back to the gate, where I found the other half of the poor animal, which was also zealously pursuing the soldiers of the Turkish garrison who had fled away. The skilled healer of my detachment sewed both halves of the horse together, using laurel shoots for this, since nothing else was found at hand.

This, however, turned out to be very useful, because the laurel shoots took root in the horse’s body, grew and formed a laurel arbor, so that during this and the next campaign I literally stayed in the shadow of my laurels.”

Thus, we are forced to compare that a van or trailer is the “yesterday” of rocket science (the back half of the horse), and the front half of the horse is the “tomorrow” of astronautics, which does not yet know how to fly to the stars using liquid fuel.

Between childhood and the Reichswehr

In the spring of 1930, Werner became a student at the Polytechnic School in the Berlin suburb of Charlottenburg.

In the late 1920s, throughout Germany, and in its capital in particular, many young people were captivated by the idea of ​​creating rockets for space travel. Rocket science enthusiasts organized the Space Travel Society, which they believed would help them realize their dream. In Berlin, Werner became an active member of this society. It was there that I met Herman Oberth.

On the basis of the Society, Oberth designed the first liquid-fuel engine for a rocket, tested it and received an author's license. But no further funding was forthcoming and he left to teach in Romania.

Left without Oberth, his young colleagues tirelessly created new projects and looked for funding for them. Reichswehr specialists showed interest, but they were not satisfied with either the quality of the samples presented or the lack of technical documentation.

Connections are everything

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was bound by restrictions and prohibitions on the production of several types of weapons. But the missiles were a fundamentally new technology, which is why military experts grabbed onto our enthusiasts so much.

Young Wernher von Braun did not accept this failure. He collected data on missile tests and developments created by members of the Society, and went to Colonel Karl Becker, who in those years headed the ballistics and weapons department of the Reichswehr. Becker met Braun quite warmly (according to his autobiography, Becker was a friend of the elder von Braun) and, after listening to all the proposals of the young designer, offered a new deal to the development group. The army was ready to provide them with financial support if they agreed to continue their work in strict secrecy. However, Rudolf Nebel, the most influential member of the Society, began to object to this condition. He clearly did not want their creative team to turn into a purely army unit.

Having learned about this, Becker offered von Braun another option: to continue his scientific work at the University of Berlin with funds allocated by the Reichswehr until he received his bachelor's degree. Becker himself was a professor at this university. At the same time, the topic of von Braun's scientific work was to be the study of liquid fuel rocket engines.

Working for the Reichswehr

Wernher von Braun conducted experimental research on the topic of his doctoral dissertation at the military research laboratory in Kummersdorf-West. The young baron reported on the results of these studies on October 1, 1932. He was 20 years old then. After this report, he was immediately awarded a bachelor's degree. He became close with mechanical engineer Heinrich Groinow and another rocketry enthusiast, Walter Riedel. They began working under the direction of an army artillery officer, Colonel Walter Dornberger. Soon Dornberger gives Werner technical management functions, leaving only administrative ones for himself. In this situation, the tandem survived until 1945.

Already in the United States, Wernher von Braun explained the reasons why he and his associates began working for the Nazis:

“We needed money to carry out our experiments, and the German army was ready to help us. We decided to take advantage of this opportunity, without thinking at all about the consequences that our cooperation with the Reichswehr would lead to. It should also be noted that in 1932 the idea of ​​another world war seemed absurd. The Nazis were not yet in power, and we had no reason to assume that what we were doing would be used against humanity in the future. We were all fascinated by only one thing - space exploration. And our main concern was to get as much as possible from the Golden Calf, which in those years the German army seemed to us.” [ 2 ]

On January thirtieth, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and from that day, de facto, von Braun worked for the Nazis.

All research related to missiles was prohibited to private companies and individuals.

Von Braun's interest in space travel and his work for the Nazis were not at all mutually exclusive. In Germany in the early 1930s, in order to finance his space projects, von Braun had no choice but to create rocket weapons. Moreover, if the Nazis supported space projects, it was only because they considered the launch of a spacecraft with a person on board another confirmation of Germany’s exceptional role in the history of mankind. That is why the Nazi authorities in Hitler's Germany became a sponsor of Wernher von Braun's space programs.

All the rockets created by von Braun and Dornberger for the German army embodied the entire amount of knowledge about spacecraft and systems that had been accumulated by German scientists and engineers by that time.

Five years of fraud

Combat missiles were called “aggregates” in the documents.

While working on the creation of the A-2, von Braun completed his doctoral dissertation and sent the manuscript to the University of Berlin. His dissertation work “Design, theoretical and experimental developments for solving the problem of creating a liquid-fuel rocket” was approved by the academic council of the university on July 27, 1934 and was immediately marked “Top Secret”. It was published only after the end of the war. Thus, Wernher von Braun, at the age of 22, had already received his doctorate and fame in German scientific circles. The scientist’s talent and determination allowed him to become a leader in the field of rocket science not only in Germany, but throughout the world.

In December 1934, von Braun and Walter Dornberger finally met the expectations of their army sponsors and successfully launched two A-2 missiles at once. The missile tests were carried out on the island of Borkum in the North Sea. Both missiles reached a target altitude of about 2 - 3 km above sea level.

Soon von Braun announces the creation of the A-3, which, unlike the A-2, is controllable and has a complex trajectory. As a result, Dornberger and von Braun received 6 million marks from the Wehrmacht and 5 million marks more from the Luftwaffe for the development of missiles and jet engines, as well as for the construction of new production buildings and a test site at a remote corner of Cape Peenemünde on the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea.

Wernher von Braun was appointed technical director of the secret facility and held this post until the base at Peenemünde was turned into a pile of ruins after the bombing of the Cape by British and American aircraft.

By December 1937, the experimental A-3 missiles were ready. But their tests were not successful. It was decided to develop the A-5.

In early 1939, the Luftwaffe realized that its participation in the Army's missile program was a rather expensive proposition and decided to take a different route. The Luftwaffe retained only its airfields, and ceded all other real estate and problems with missiles to the army. What came under the control of the army began to be called rather modestly - “Army unit Peenemünde”.

On March 23, 1939, the baron turned 27 years old and on the same day he and Dornberger first appeared before Hitler to save the project, which had not pleased the army in any way since 1934. Dornberger told Hitler about the A-4 rocket (better known as the V-2), which was to become Germany's most powerful weapon.

Work on the V-2 in Nazi Germany

In February 1940, Hitler froze all projects to develop new types of weapons, the implementation of which required more than a year. The German army continued to develop missiles at Cape Peenemünde, using funds from other, less promising projects. Over 4 thousand highly qualified workers and engineers took part in this program.

The A-4 rocket was ready for a test launch only two and a half years later. The first guided missile of this type was launched from the 7th launch site Peenemünde on June 13, 1942. This launch was not successful.

A month and a half after the successful launch of the A-4, the course of the war began to change, clearly not in Germany’s favor. In the summer of 1942, the German 6th Army faced stubborn resistance from Soviet troops at Stalingrad. On November 19, the Red Army launched a counteroffensive, which by the end of January 1943 changed the course of the war. Of the 330 thousand soldiers and officers of the 6th Army, only 100 thousand survived. All of them were captured. After such huge losses, when many German families lost their fathers, brothers, sons and husbands, the people of Germany began to realize that the Third Reich would not last long and all of Germany would soon be subjected to massive bombing by Soviet, British and American aircraft, followed by an invasion of enemy troops into the country.

Himmler's intrigues

In May 1943, Albert Speer, who held an important post in the Ministry of Arms and Munitions, together with his advisers, witnessed the successful launch of the A-4 at Peenemünde. Two days after this event, Speer informed Dornberger that he had been promoted to major general. During the testing of the A-4 at Peenemünde, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler was also present. It was he who suggested that Hitler increase the priority of missile weapons development.

Each successive defeat of the German army caused Hitler to have a fit of rage mixed with despair. Now he had no choice but to become an enthusiast of those projects that, on his orders, were frozen in the early 1940s, when he believed that the war was practically won. On July 7, 1943, Major General Dornberger received orders to inform the Fuhrer about the state of development of the A-4 missiles. Together with von Braun and Ernst Steinhoff, Dornberger went to East Prussia, to the town of Rastenburg, in the vicinity of which Hitler’s headquarters, called the “Wolf’s Lair,” was located.

Hitler was shown this film about the new rocket, which Werner accompanied with comments. If the Fuhrer and those accompanying him were not impressed by the film, Brown and his colleagues were ready to repeat the launch of the A-4 into the skies of the Baltic.

Albert Speer described von Braun's speech and the impression it made on the Fuhrer in these words:

“Von Braun spoke confidently, without a trace of timidity. There was absolutely no note of youthful enthusiasm in his voice. He outlined his theory so clearly and understandably that, starting from that day, Hitler became an admirer of the brilliant scientist.”

When von Braun finished presenting the new type of weapon, Walter Dornberger gave some explanations about its production. The discussion between those listening and speaking was limited to finding out whether the A-4 should be launched from mobile installations or from a stationary underground bunker. Dornberger liked the first option better, but for some reason the Fuhrer preferred the second. It is clear that Hitler won this dispute, and he immediately ordered the construction of underground missile silos to begin. And Walter Dornberger was consoled by the fact that he received what he had long dreamed of - a high military rank.

After the meeting, Wernher von Braun was also awarded for services to the Third Reich. Hitler approved him to the rank of titular professor.

After the rocket scientists found themselves under the patronage of Hitler, the intelligence services of the countries at war with Germany, especially the British, immediately became interested in them. On the night of August 18-19, the headquarters of the Royal Air Force sent 497 Stirlings, Halifaxes and Lancasters to Cape Peenemünde. This operation was authorized by Winston Churchill. As a result of the massive bombing, it was planned to destroy not only the missile base itself, but also all the scientists, engineers and workers who worked on the creation of missiles. And, of course, one of the main targets was the missiles themselves, which primarily threatened England. The air raid lasted 45 minutes, and after all the bombs had been dropped, the cape was completely engulfed in flames. However, the British pilots failed to complete the combat mission. Most of the German scientists and engineers managed to hide in bomb shelters. Of the 4 thousand German citizens living on Peenemünde, including family members of scientists, designers and other specialists, 178 people died. Also killed were 557 foreign workers, mostly Russians and Poles, whom the German authorities used in auxiliary work. These unfortunates were locked in their barracks in a special camp in the southern part of the Peenemünde base.

The British failed to carry out targeted bombing, and the destruction was not so severe. Churchill and the British Air Force were extremely upset. Quite a few V-2 missiles that were in the process of assembly did not receive any serious damage. However, the raids could be repeated, and Hitler ordered the transfer of missile production to a secret underground plant in the Harz Mountains in central Germany. Hitler entrusted Himmler with organizing the construction of tunnels and the construction of production buildings (in fact, Himmler had already plugged the gaps in army management).

In February 1944, Himmler telephoned von Braun and invited him to SS headquarters in Hochfeld, East Prussia.

“I hope you understand how important it is for us to have the A-4 missile,” Himmler said. - The entire German people hope that this wonderful weapon will allow the Wehrmacht to protect our country from its enemies... As for you personally, I can imagine how tired you are of the army staff rats with their bureaucratic squiggles. Why don't you come directly under my command? You undoubtedly know that no one has as much influence on the Fuhrer as I do, and therefore my support will be more effective for you than the efforts of all the Wehrmacht generals combined.”

“Mr. Reichsfuehrer,” Brown responded immediately, “I don’t see a better boss for myself than General Walter Dornberger. The fact that we do not always meet deadlines is due more to technical problems than to bureaucratic red tape. The A-4 rocket is like a flower, and in order for it to bloom, it requires sunlight, a correctly calculated dose of fertilizer and a conscientious gardener. The remedy you suggest is similar to liquid fresh manure. Such fertilizer, of course, is very effective, but it may well destroy our delicate plant" [ 11 ].

Whether he told Himmler this, as he claims in his notes, is a question, but it is known that the baron was a patron of any project and person with whom he worked, so it is unlikely that he would have “betrayed” his boss.

Three weeks later, von Braun was arrested by Gestapo agents. He and several of his subordinates, including his younger brother Magnus, were accused of treason. The Gestapo said that von Braun and his people put the dream of space flight above the important work of creating the V-2 rocket for the Reich. Those arrested were kept in dungeons in Stettin for two weeks, until the intervention of Walter Dornberger and the petition of Albert Speer opened the way for them to freedom.

Von Braun unwittingly became embroiled in a showdown between the Wehrmacht and the SS, and after his arrest his reputation with the Nazis was shaken. Even after liberation, many senior Nazis were convinced that space exploration was a higher priority for him than serving the National Socialist cause. But after the end of the war, the incident when the Gestapo declared von Braun an enemy of the Third Reich became a lifeline for him.

There is a lot of mystery in the story of the arrest of von Braun and his colleagues. Gestapo executioners usually did not stand on ceremony with those arrested, and even with Wehrmacht generals. Usually they were tortured not only in order to extract a confession, but also in order to obtain information about the real subversive activities in the Third Reich. However, Brown and his men, according to Gestapo reports, were treated very well in prison. There was not a word in these reports that the arrests of Wehrmacht officers or civil servants working at Peenemünde were the result of denunciations written by von Braun or any of his colleagues. From all this we can conclude that von Braun and his comrades were pawns in a cunning game that Himmler was playing against the Wehrmacht generals, and he, of course, was interested in protecting von Braun and his men and using them if necessary. once.

In the end, Himmler failed to subordinate the Peenemünde factories and research laboratories to his department, but the Mittelwerk plant, which produced V-2 missiles, remained under his command. Subsequent missile launches against European civilians were led by SS officers.

Mittelwerk is the largest military underground secret plant in the Harz mountain range near the city of Nordhausen. Its construction began in August 1943. The goal is the production of FAU-2 and BMW-03 and YuMO-004 turbojet engines used on fighters and bombers. Serial production of missiles actually took place from January 1944 to March 1945, while against the plan of 13,500 units, 5,946 were produced. The main reason for the failure to fulfill the plan was indicated in the reports as sabotage by prisoners working in production. As punishment, hundreds of people were hanged and shot. In general, at the FAU-2 production, thousands of people died from exhaustion and unbearable working conditions. The Buchenwald concentration camp existed nearby for the needs of the plant, but then more than 40 of its own camps were created (for example, Dora-Mittelbau). It is important to note that among all the victims of V-2 there were also German civilian workers, who, like the camp prisoners, died at work from exhaustion and terrible working conditions.

General conclusion on the collaboration of von Braun and his team with the Nazis or “to whom is war - and to whom mother is dear”

First, we must talk about the victims that Western Europe suffered due to the activities of von Braun during the 13 years of his team’s work in the Reichswehr, Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe..

Nazi propaganda called the V-2 the “Weapon of Vengeance.” The missiles were sent to targets located in Paris, Antwerp, London, and other cities in Britain and Europe. From September 1944 to March 1945, their explosions killed 2,724 people and injured several thousand.

This number is several times less than the number of victims in the camps and at the plant during the construction of rockets. Every human life is priceless, but how to measure the guilt of the developers before humanity (and it is undeniable, since the creators knew how their creations were used) if they created not only a murder weapon, but also an interplanetary rocket? We didn't mention this, but the ballistic missile left the earth's atmosphere during its flight to the target. It was the A-4 and other developments that later became the rockets that were later the first to fly into space in the USSR and the USA. Perhaps it was precisely due to the fact that the Mittelwerk plant fell into the Soviet zone of occupation that Sergei Pavlovich Korolev became the chief designer of the Nordhausen Institute based on the plant.

The question we asked about the baron’s guilt before humanity is not as simple as it seems. It’s easy to declare him a Nazi collaborator, a fiend from hell, and close the issue. But we must remember that the very topic of Nazism is a bogeyman (a label used to scare people away from some information). But Wernher von Braun, as a scientist, was ready to work for anyone for the sake of science, and this, of course, reveals his personal ill-will, his insensitivity to the pain and suffering of those who worked and died in factories, but this does not make him 100% a villain , although he himself carried this dirt of working for the Nazis all his life. But in fairness, it must be said that many scientists were like that at that time. And this is a problem in general for all Western science, which in its formation and development has taken ethics beyond its boundaries. From there, many inhumane experiments on people (and not only on them) by the Nazis and Japanese (and not only them). When assessing the activities of Wernher von Braun, one must give an adequate assessment of all Western science. Only in recent years has an understanding begun to emerge that some experiments are unethical and therefore should not be carried out, or that other methods must be found to solve the problems posed to science. Only when the general conceptual basis of culture (especially the culture of Western civilization) began to burst at the seams, then the moral basis of science began to change under the pressure of circumstances, and questions of the ethics of science began to arise.

Thus, we will leave it to everyone’s conscience to evaluate this period of activity of von Braun and his team. Let us note that the developers, having caught Himmler, and through him, Hitler, in the “hype”, without knowing it, brought closer the victory over the Nazi Wehrmacht, which spent effort and money on creating the “Weapon of Vengeance.” And this is not just our opinion. There is a mention of such a reaction on behalf of Boris Chertok, who, together with Korolev, worked at the Nordhausen Institute. [ 10 ]

And from a slightly different angle. The notorious arms race is the best source of funding for designers if they can explain their benefits to the military. This is what the saying goes about:

“To whom is war, and to whom mother is dear.”

Rocket science itself generally initially avoided sacrificing human lives:

“...The fact that, in contrast to aviation, which was a leap into the unknown, where piloting techniques were practiced with many victims, rocket flights turned out to be less tragic, is explained by the fact that the main dangers were predicted and ways to eliminate them were found” (Herman Oberth).

But the beginning of both American and Soviet cosmonautics is overshadowed by the victims of the Mittelwerk plant.

Flight on a Luftwaffe cannonball or kamikaze

“So, we were besieging some kind of fortress, and it was extremely important for the commander to obtain accurate information about what was happening outside its walls... There was not a single suitable person at the headquarters who could be sent to the fortress for reconnaissance with the hope of success. And when I was thinking about all the difficulties that would have to be overcome in order to get through the outpost, guards and fortress walls, the thought suddenly flashed through my mind whether this could not be achieved in another way!.. And so, without telling anyone a word about my plan, I stood near one of the largest guns and carefully waited for the moment when the command would be heard: “Fire!” and the gunner will bring the fuse to the seed... As soon as the cannonball flew out of the muzzle, I instantly jumped on it, hoping to penetrate the fortress with it.

However, as I flew through the air, all sorts of thoughts crowded my head. "Yeah! - I thought. - I guess I’ll get there; and then how to get out of there? And what will happen to me in the fortress?.. In the heat of zeal, I didn’t even take off my uniform, so they will immediately recognize me as a spy and hang me from the nearest tree... No! This would be the first representative of the Munchausen family to suffer such an end!..”

Therefore, I quickly decided to use the first oncoming cannonball thrown from the fortress as a return carriage; and since soon one of the enemy’s cannonballs flew past me, I did not miss the opportunity, jumped from my cannonball to the enemy’s and thus returned back, although without having done anything, but safe and sound.

Munchausen! - shouted the Sultan, bursting with laughter. - Munchausen! I wish I could see this picture! That must have been a fun walk!...

Of course, Your Highness! - I answered. “And I’m glad that the matter ended well, because I almost died.” The kernels are terribly smooth, and I had difficulty maintaining my balance. But happiness is the lot of youth!..” [ 3 ]

...And in the Luftwaffe there was such a young lady - Hanna Reitsch, a test pilot and part-time Valkyrie.

And they write that she and the Baron, at one time, had an affair, but then Hannah took it much more seriously, in their words, she made a ranversman. So, she was very toyed with the kamikaze idea. They even gave the project a name - “Leonid Squadron”. Following the example of the feat of three hundred Spartans. And all the big men of the Reich cut this idea down, and Hitler cut it down... but did not prohibit it.

And they selected not three hundred, but two hundred volunteers and said: “Wernher von Braun built 175 V-4 cruise missiles for you. We’ll learn how to climb into the cockpit.”

Well, they began to be indignant: “There are 200 of us, and 175 missiles!” How so! Let’s play Russian roulette, whoever doesn’t fly!” And take one and ask: “Excuse me, sir, but are we going to learn how to eject?” And they answer him: “A catapult is not provided, a parachute is impossible.” The Spartans became sour and went to ask for planes. They were given airplanes, but somehow they used them poorly in May 1945. It was necessary to destroy our bridges already. Thirty-five killer whales perished in the blasting of one bridge alone.

Between a crocodile and a lion

When the roar of Soviet guns was already heard on the island of Usedom, the baron had to make a decision to whom to surrender his team. Due to the circumstances of his birth and the class morality that flowed from it, the choice fell in favor of America, and for reasons of the uniqueness of his technical talent... again, to America. Werner knew that in Soviet Russia he had a double - Sergei Korolev. But in the USA, Goddard was no longer employed and died in August of the same year. Therefore, the baron decides, we will fly to our stars through the same thorns of weapons. We worked for the “German dragon”, now we will offer our services to the “Anglo-Saxon lion”. Where ours didn’t disappear!

“...After a short rest, I moved on alone and soon reached a stormy stream; I was about to sit down here, when a noise heard behind me made me turn my head and look around. And what did I see? A huge lion that confidently walked straight towards me. Without thinking that my load of the smallest shot could only tickle the nostrils of the king of beasts, I grabbed the gun and pulled the trigger...

The majestic predator stopped only for a moment, shook his head and, preparing to jump, let out a menacing roar. To my shame, I must confess: the young Baron Munchausen lost his head so much that he decided to seek salvation in flight... I turned around, and... - I still have a shiver running through my body when I remember this moment... - a few steps away standing in front of me is a disgusting crocodile, already opening its terrible mouth to swallow the little baron!.. Imagine, my friends, all the horror of my situation!.. Behind me is a lion, in front of me is a crocodile, to the left is a stormy stream, to the right is an abyss, infested with poisonous snakes. It seems to me that the same thing would have happened to Hercules in this situation as to me: I immediately lost consciousness and fell dead to the ground, being sure that I would end either in the teeth of a crocodile or in a lion’s mouth!

Thank you for your participation, which, at the thought of my unenviable position, as I see, covered your faces with deathly pallor... However, calm down!.. A few seconds later I woke up from a strong but incomprehensible sound. I dared to raise my head - and what do you think?.. An angry lion jumped over me and fell straight into the mouth of the crocodile. The head of one is stuck in the throat of the other, and both are trying their best to get rid of each other. I quickly jumped to my feet, pulled out my knife and with one blow cut off the lion's head, so that its body collapsed at my feet. Then, with the butt of my gun, I drove the lion’s head even deeper into the mouth of the crocodile, who suffocated and died as a result.” [ 3 ]

Next, a life-saving call comes from Hans Kammler, who orders to evacuate the documentation and move to the plant area in southern Germany. But the most surprising thing is that the communication channel with the plant at that time was called “Munhausen” [ 7 ]. That is, “Munhausen” calls and, in the voice of Kammler, hurries into the clutches of the Americans who are advancing to the south...

In March 1945, Wernher von Braun went to Berlin for a meeting. But I didn’t get there. The driver fell asleep at the wheel, the car overturned and the baron seriously injured his hand. Therefore, when he got to the Americans, he had a bandage on his arm.

What do they tell us on behalf of Munchausen?:

“...I mention this case only because as a result of excessive stress during the battle, my right hand became so loose and involuntarily continued to cut right and left even after the battle, and I had to keep it in a sling for a whole week. Taking advantage of this, the Turks attacked me by surprise from an ambush and, unarmed, captured me.”

True, Werner’s left arm is in a cast.

But that's not all.

Since the baron surrenders the command to the Americans in the Mittelwerk area, they take entire V-2 missiles (about a hundred pieces) with them to America, leaving Korolev with disassembled missiles and plant documentation hidden in the mine!!! [

January 1945. Peenemünde is threatened by Soviet troops. Von Braun leaves the rocket center and takes refuge in an Alpine ski resort, where his long-awaited saviors, the Americans, appear in early May. Von Braun prepared in advance for surrender to the Americans. On the eve of the evacuation from Peenemünde, he gathered all his engineers and asked them to decide on the issue of surrender. For obvious reasons, von Braun and his designers did not want to surrender to the Soviet army. They knew very well about the atrocities of the Nazis on Russian soil and were afraid of revenge. Therefore, von Braun's employees decided to surrender to the Americans.

On one of the first days of May 1945, noticing an American soldier, Wernher von Braun's brother and colleague Magnus caught up with him on a bicycle and addressed him in broken English:
“I am Magnus von Braun. My brother is the inventor of the V-2. We would like to give up."

A close fragment of an interview with Wernher von Braun, which he gave after his capture, has been preserved: “We know that the fact that we have created something new confronts us with a moral choice as to which victorious nation we will hand over our brainchild to. This question faces us more acutely than ever before. We do not want the world to become involved in another conflict. We believe that by handing over our new weapons
to people who live according to biblical laws, we will be sure that the world is protected.” (“People Living According to Biblical Laws” a few months after this interview with von Braun dropped atomic charges on Hirosoma and Nagasaki. More than 250,000 people became victims of the two bombings. The vast majority of military analysts estimate that the bombing had no significance in completing the defeat Japan. The former Nazi designer von Braun, however, had nothing to do with this - Author's note).

The Second World War smoothly flowed into the Cold War. And, since the world rocket race had already been declared by Nazi Germany, and with it the hunt for rocket and nuclear secrets began, the Americans did not hesitate and already in the summer of 1945 transferred von Braun’s group with rockets, components and documentation to Fort Bliss (Texas) ), located in close proximity to the White Sands Missile Range in the neighboring state of New Mexico. These are the places that should be considered the cradle of the American missile program.

Over the next 15 years, Wernher von Braun worked for the United States military developing the V-2 guided ballistic missiles, overseeing their launches at the White Sands Proving Ground as part of Project Hermes, which launched less than a year after von Braun's capture - April 16, 1946

In 1950, von Braun's design group was transferred to the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama (the same name as one of von Braun's missiles). Here specialists began construction of the army ballistic missile Jupiter-C (Jupiter) based on the Redstone ballistic missile.
In 1955, von Braun received US citizenship, and until that time the designer was not presented to the general public, constantly being under the supervision of intelligence officers.

1960 became another turning point in the fate of the designer. The von Braun Rocket Center was transferred to the Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, and immediately received an order to build Saturn rockets. Von Braun's career continued its rapid ascent. He was appointed the first director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and was also confirmed as the chief designer of the Saturn V rocket. It was this launch vehicle that was intended to carry out manned flights to the Moon as part of the Apollo program. In addition, von Braun led the work on the artificial Earth satellites Explorer and the Apollo spacecraft.

The former Nazi designer von Braun, who did not want to surrender to the USSR, became one of the leading space researchers in the United States. The culmination of Wernher von Braun's career came in 1972, when he was appointed deputy director of NASA and manager of the Cape Canaveral spaceport. However, in the same year, the US economy experienced a recession, which was one of the reasons for the curtailment of the lunar program. A space dreamer, a fan of space exploration, von Braun was offered to engage in more profitable programs from an economic and military point of view, launching technical and reconnaissance satellites. Apparently, the designer did not find a common language with senior management and was dismissed. The lunar program was curtailed, and humanity continues to dream about spacecraft flights to Mars—von Braun’s long-time goal—to this day.

Von Braun's last position was as vice president of Fairchild Space Industries, an aerospace manufacturer.
In 1973, Wernher von Braun underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. However, in 1974, he was still working on the satellite project, and devoted all his free time to glider flights. But illness and old age took their toll, and in June 1977, “rocket baron” Wernher von Braun died.

Werner Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun(German) Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ; March 23, 1912, Wirsitz, Posen Province, Prussia - June 16, 1977, Alexandria, Virginia, USA) - German, and since the late 1940s - American designer of rocket and space technology, one of the founders of modern rocketry, creator of the first ballistic missiles. In the United States, he is considered the “father” of the American space program.

Wernher von Braun was born in the city of Wirsitz in the province of Posen of the then German Empire (now Wyzysk in Poland). He was the second of three sons in a family belonging to an aristocratic family, and inherited the title "Freiherr" (corresponding to baronial). His father, Magnus von Braun (1878–1972), was Minister of Food and Agriculture in the government of the Weimar Republic (see List of German Ministers of Food and Agriculture). His mother, Emmy von Quistorp (1886–1959), had both lines of ancestry in royal families. Werner had a younger brother, also named Magnus von Braun. For his confirmation, his mother gave the future rocket scientist a telescope, which gave him an impetus for his passion for astronomy.

After World War I, Wirsitz was transferred to Poland, and his family, like many other German families, went to Germany. The Von Brauns settled in Berlin, where 12-year-old Werner, inspired by the speed records of Max Vallier and Fritz von Opel in rocket-powered cars, caused great confusion on a crowded street by blowing up a toy car to which he had attached many firecrackers. The little inventor was taken to the police station and kept there until his father came to the station for him.

Von Braun was an amateur musician, received an appropriate education, and could play works by Bach and Beethoven from memory. He learned to play the violin and piano from an early age and initially dreamed of becoming a composer. He took lessons from Paul Hindemith, the famous German composer. Several of von Braun's youthful works have survived, all of them reminiscent of Hindemith's works.

In 1919-1920 he studied at the Gumbinnen Friedrichschule (his father, Magnus von Braun, was at that time the president of the Gumbinnen government). From 1925, Brown attended boarding school at Ettersburg Castle, near Weimar, where he did not achieve good grades in physics and mathematics. In 1928, his parents transferred him to the Hermann Lietz boarding school on the North Sea island of Spiekeroog in East Frisia. Here he obtained a copy of the book “Rocket for Interplanetary Space” by Hermann Oberth. Brown had previously been fascinated by the idea of ​​space flight, and now he began to purposefully study physics and mathematics in order to later design rockets.

In 1930, Brown entered the Technical University of Berlin, where he joined the group "Verein für Raumschiffahrt" ("VfR", "Space Travel Society"), where he assisted Willie Ley in testing a liquid-fuel rocket engine with Hermann Oberth. Brown also studied at ETH Zurich. Although he worked primarily on military rockets for the rest of his life, space travel remained his main interest.

One incident in the early 1930s earned Brown respect. Brown attended a presentation given by Auguste Piccard, who at the time was a pioneer of flight into the stratosphere. After Picard’s speech, a young student approached him and said: “You know, I plan to go to the moon someday.” It is said that Picard responded with words of encouragement.

Von Braun was greatly influenced by Hermann Oberth, about whom the German rocket scientist said:

“Hermann Oberth was the first who, having thought about the possibility of creating spaceships, picked up a slide rule and presented mathematically based ideas and designs... Personally, I see in him not only the guiding star of my life, but also owe him my first contacts with theoretical and practical issues of rocketry and space flight. He should be given a place of honor in the history of science and technology for his revolutionary contributions to the field of astronautics.”

In 1930 he began working on liquid fuel rockets in Germany. In 1932 he was accepted into the military rocket scientific group of Dornberger. In 1932-1933, at a test site near Kummersdorf, he launched several missiles to an altitude of 2000-2500 meters.

Wernher von Braun was working on his dissertation when Hitler and the NSDAP came to power in 1933. Rocket science almost immediately became a major issue on the agenda. Artillery Captain Walter Dornberger, who actually oversaw the development of missiles in the Reichswehr, arranged for Brown to receive a research grant from the Ordnance Department. From that time on, Brown worked near the existing Kummersdorf Dornberger Solid Propellant Missile Test Site. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Physical Sciences (rocket science) on July 25, 1934 from the University of Berlin for a work entitled “On Experiments on Combustion”, his supervisor was the German physicist Erich Schumann. But this was only the open part of his work, the full dissertation, dated April 16, 1934, was called “Constructive, theoretical and experimental approaches to the problem of creating a liquid-fuel rocket.” It was classified at the request of the army and was not published until 1960. By the end of 1934, his team successfully launched two rockets that reached altitudes of 2.2 and 3.5 km.

At that time, the Germans were extremely interested in the developments of the American rocket physicist Robert Goddard. Until 1939, German scientists occasionally contacted Goddard directly to discuss technical issues. Wernher von Braun used Goddard's designs, published in various magazines, and combined them to build the Aggregat (A) series of rockets. The A-4 rocket is better known as the V-2. In 1963, Brown, reflecting on the history of rocketry, reflected on Goddard's work: "His rockets... may have seemed quite primitive by today's standards, but they left a significant mark on development and already had many of the elements that are used in the most modern rockets and spacecraft "

In 1944, shortly before the Nazis began bombing England with V-2s, Goddard confirmed that von Braun had used his work. The V-2 prototype flew to Sweden and crashed there. Some parts from the rocket were transported to the United States, to a laboratory in Annapolis, where Goddard conducted research for the US Navy. Apparently, Goddard was examining the wreckage of a rocket, which on June 13, 1944, as a result of a technical error by personnel, went on the wrong course and crashed near the Swedish town of Bekkebu. The Swedish government exchanged fragments of an unknown missile to the British for Spitfire fighters. Only some of the debris hit Annapolis. Goddard identified the rocket parts of which he was the inventor and concluded that the fruit of his labors had been turned into a weapon.

Since the VFR Space Travel Society ceased operations in 1933, there have been no rocket science associations left in Germany, and the new Nazi regime banned civilian rocket science experiments. Only the military was allowed to build missiles, and a huge missile center was built for their needs (German: ) in the village of Peenemünde in northern Germany, on the Baltic Sea. This location was chosen partly on the recommendation of von Braun's mother, who remembered that her father loved to hunt ducks in that area. Dornberger became the military director of the test site, and Brown became the technical director. In cooperation with the Luftwaffe, the Peenemünde center developed liquid-fuel rocket engines as well as take-off boosters for aircraft. They also developed the A-4 long-range ballistic missile and the Wasserfall supersonic anti-aircraft missile.

In November 1937 (according to other sources, December 1, 1932), von Braun joined the NSDAP. In a document from the military administration of the American zone of occupation of Germany (eng. Office of Military Government, United States ), dated April 23, 1947, states that von Braun entered the Waffen-SS riding school in 1933, then, on May 1, 1937, into the National Socialist Party, and from May 1940 until the very end of the war was a Waffen officer -SS.

After the war, explaining why he became a member of the NSDAP, Brown wrote:

“I was officially asked 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 mean that I had to abandon my life’s work. So I decided to join. My membership in the party did not mean for me participation in any political activities... In the spring of 1940, SS Standartenführer Müller came to me in Peenemünde and told me that Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler had sent him with orders to persuade me to join the SS. I immediately called my military superior... Major General W. Dornberger. He answered me that... if I want to continue our work together, then I have no choice but to agree.”

This assertion by Brown is often disputed because in 1940 the Waffen-SS had not yet shown any interest in the work being carried out at Peenemünde. And it is also controversial to assert that allegedly people in a position similar to von Braun were pressured into joining the NSDAP, leaving membership in the SS alone. When shown a photo of Braun standing behind Himmler in an SS uniform, Braun allegedly replied that he was wearing the uniform only for that occasion, but in 2002 a former SS officer at Peenemünde told the BBC that von Braun regularly appeared at official events in the SS form; It should be noted that this was a mandatory requirement. At first he was given the rank of Untersturmführer, and subsequently Himmler promoted him three times, the last time in June 1943 to SS Sturmbannführer. Brown claimed that this was supposedly an automatic promotion that he received notification of every year by mail.

On December 22, 1942, Adolf Hitler signed an order for the production of A-4 missiles as a “weapon of retaliation,” setting London as the target for development. After Brown showed a color film of the A-4 taking off on July 7, 1943, Hitler was delighted and soon personally gave him the title of professor. For Germany and for that time, this was a completely exceptional award for an engineer who was only 31 years old.

Since 1937, Brown has been the technical director of the German rocket research center in Peenemünde (German). Heeresversuchsanstalt Peenemünde ) and chief designer of the A-4 (V-2) rocket, which was used in World War II to bombard cities in France, Great Britain, Holland and Belgium.

Also in 1937, he joined the National Socialist Party. As part of the project to create a “weapon of retaliation” - the V-2 ballistic missile, which reached London in 6 minutes, it came under the control of the SS department. Received the rank of SS Sturmbannführer in June 1943.

By that time, the British and Soviet intelligence services were aware of the missile program and the development team at Peenemünde. On the night of August 17–18, 1943, British bomber aircraft carried out Operation Hydra. 596 aircraft headed for Peenemünde and dropped 1,800 tons of bombs on the missile center. However, both the center itself and the main group of developers survived. But the raid killed engine designer Walter Thiel and chief engineer Walther, delaying the progress of the German missile program.

The first combat A-4, renamed the V-2 (Vergeltungswaffe 2 - "Weapon of Vengeance 2") for propaganda purposes, was released across the UK on September 7, 1944, just 21 months after the project was officially accepted.

In 1936, von Braun's rocket team at the Kummersdorf test site investigated the possibility of installing a liquid jet engine on an aircraft. Ernst Heinkel warmly supported this work and first provided the He 72(English) Russian. , and later - two He 112 fighters (English) Russian.

for experiments. At the end of 1936, the Reich Ministry of Aviation sent test pilot Erich Warsitz to help Wernher von Braun and Ernst Heinkel. Firstly, Varsits at that time was one of the most experienced test pilots, and secondly, because he had a unique amount of technical knowledge. After Brown showed Warsitz the engine in action on a test stand on the ground and showed a similar engine installed on an airplane, he asked:

“Will you work with us and test a jet engine in the air? Then, Varsits, you will become famous. And later we will fly to the moon - with you at the helm!

In June 1937, in Neuhardenberg (a large field 70 km east of Berlin, reserved as a reserve airfield in case of war), one of the He 112s went on a test flight. The takeoff took place on a piston engine; in the air, Erich Warsitz turned off the engine and continued the flight. on a von Braun rocket engine. Despite the fact that the plane landed on its belly and the fuselage caught fire, it was officially proven that the plane could fly satisfactorily with a pusher propulsion located at the rear.

SS General Hans Kammler, who as an engineer helped design several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, was known for his brutality. He proposed using the forced labor of concentration camp prisoners to build rockets. In April 1943, Arthur Rudolf, chief engineer of the V-2 plant at Peenemünde, supported the idea. At that time, there was already a labor shortage. It subsequently turned out that more people died during the construction of V-2 rockets than died from the use of this rocket as a weapon. Von Braun admitted that he visited the secret underground Mittelwerk plant many times and called the working conditions at the plant "disgusting", but claimed that he never witnessed any deaths or beatings, although he must have been aware of such deaths by 1944 . Brown claimed that he himself did not visit the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp, where 20,000 people died from disease, beatings, unbearable working conditions, or were hanged.

On August 15, 1944, Brown wrote a letter to Albin Sawatzki, the head of V-2 production, agreeing to personally select workers from the Buchenwald concentration camp, which he allegedly admitted in an interview 25 years later were in a “terrible state.”

In the book "Wernher von Braun: Knight of Space" (eng. Wernher von Braun: Crusader for Space ) Brown repeatedly states that he was aware of the workers' conditions, but felt completely unable to change them. His friend quotes von Braun as saying from his visit to Mittelwerk:

It was creepy. My first instinct was to talk to one of the SS guards, to which I received a sharp answer that I had to mind my own business or risk ending up in the same striped prison uniform!... I realized that any attempt to appeal to the principles of humanity would be completely futile.

When Brown's team member Conrad Dannenberg was asked in an interview with The Huntsville Times whether von Braun could have protested the terrible conditions of the forced laborers, he replied: "If he had, I think he might have been shot on the spot."

Others accused von Braun of participating in or allowing inhumane treatment. Guy Morand, a French member of the Resistance who was a prisoner in the Dora concentration camp, testified in 1995 that after an apparent sabotage attempt:

Without even hearing my explanation, (von Braun) ordered Meister to give me 25 blows... Then, deciding that the blows were not strong enough, he ordered me to be flogged more severely... von Braun ordered to translate to me that I deserved worse that in fact I deserved to be hanged... I believe that his cruelty, of which I personally became a victim, became eloquent evidence of his Nazi fanaticism.

Another French prisoner, Robert Cazabonne, claimed to have witnessed von Braun stand and watch as prisoners were hanged from hoist chains. Brown himself stated that he "never saw any ill-treatment or murder" and only "heard rumors... that some of the prisoners were hanged in the underground galleries."

According to French historian Andre Selye, who lived through the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp, Himmler received von Braun at his Hochwald headquarters in East Prussia in February 1944. To strengthen his position in the Nazi hierarchy, Heinrich Himmler plotted to, with Kammler's help, take control of all German weapons programs, including the development of the V-2 at Peenemünde. Therefore, Himmler advised Braun to work more closely with Kammler in solving the V-2 problems. However, as von Braun himself stated, he replied that the problems with the V-2 were purely technical and he was confident that he would solve them with the help of Dornberger.

Apparently, von Braun had been under SD supervision since October 1943. One day a report was received of how he and his colleagues Klaus Riedel and Helmut Gröttrup, in the evening at the engineer's house, expressed regret that they were not working on a spacecraft and they all believed that the war was not going well. This was regarded as “defeatism.” These statements were reported by a young woman dentist who was also an SS agent. Together with Himmler's false accusations about von Braun's communist sympathies and his alleged attempts to sabotage the V-2 program, and taking into account that Braun had a pilot's certificate and regularly flew on state-provided aircraft and thus could have escaped to England - all this led to von Braun's arrest by the Gestapo.

Braun, who did not expect anything bad, was arrested on March 14 or 15, 1944 and was thrown into the Gestapo prison in Stettin. He spent two weeks there, not knowing what he was accused of. Only with the help of the Abwehr in Berlin was Dornberger able to secure von Braun's parole, and Albert Speer, the Reich Minister of Armaments and War Industry, convinced Hitler to reinstate Braun so that the V-2 program could continue. Speer, quoting in his memoirs “Führerprotokoll” (minutes of Hitler's meetings) dated May 13, 1944, writes that Hitler said at the end of the conversation: “As for B., I guarantee you that he will be freed from persecution as long as you will need it, despite the general difficulties that may follow.”

The Red Army was already 160 km from Peenemünde in the spring of 1945 when von Braun gathered his team of developers and asked them to decide how and to whom they should all surrender. Fearing reprisals from the Red Army against the prisoners, von Braun and his staff decided to try to surrender to the Americans. Kammler ordered von Braun's team to move to the center of Germany. At the same time, an order from the army command was received that contradicted this order - to join the army units and fight. Reasoning that Kammler's order increased the chances of surrender to the Americans, von Braun forged documents and sent 500 members of his team to the Mittelwerk area, where they continued their work. Fearing that his drawings and documentation would be destroyed by the SS, von Braun ordered copies hidden in an abandoned mine shaft in the Harz mountain range.

In March, while on a business trip, Brown broke his left arm and shoulder after his driver fell asleep at the wheel. The fracture turned out to be complicated, but Brown insisted that he be put in a plaster cast so that he would no longer have to stay in the hospital. The designer underestimated the injury, the bone began to heal incorrectly, a month later he had to go back to the hospital, where his arm was broken again and a new bandage was applied.

In April, Allied troops penetrated quite deeply into Germany. Kammler ordered the scientific team to take a train to Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps. Here they were under close guard of the SS, which was ordered to eliminate all rocketeers if they were in danger of falling to the enemy. However, von Braun managed to convince SS Major Kummer to disperse the group to nearby villages so as not to become an easy target for American bombers.

On May 2, 1945, noticing an American soldier from the 44th Infantry Division, Werner's brother and fellow rocket engineer Magnus caught up with him on a bicycle and told him in broken English: “My name is Magnus von Braun. My brother invented the V-2. We want to give up." 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 to - faces us more acutely than ever before. We want the world to not be drawn into a conflict like the one Germany has just gone through. We believe that only by delivering such weapons to those people who are guided by the Bible can we be sure that the world is best protected."

The top ranks of the US command were well aware of the valuable loot that fell into their hands: von Braun’s name topped 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. On July 19, 1945, two days before the planned transfer of territory to the zone of Soviet occupation, US Army Major Robert B. Staver, chief of the jet propulsion section of the US Army Ordnance Corps Research and Intelligence Service in London, and Lieutenant Colonel R. L. Williams imprisoned 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, which was located in the American occupation zone. Von Braun stayed briefly at the Dastbin interrogation center. Dustbin, “Garbage Bin”), where representatives of the elite of the Third Reich in the field of economics, science and technology were interrogated by British and American intelligence services. He was initially recruited to work in the United States under the Operation Hopeless program. Operation Overcast), later known as Operation Paperclip.

On June 20, 1945, the US Secretary of State approved the move of von Braun and his employees to America, but this was not publicly announced until October 1, 1945. Brown was among those scientists for whom Joint Agency for Intelligence Objectives(English) Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency , JIOA) USA created fictitious biographies and removed references to NSDAP membership and ties to the Nazi regime from public records. Having “washed” them of Nazism, the American government thus gave scientists guarantees of safety to work in the United States. The name of Operation Paperclip Paperclip) came from the paper clips that were used to attach new biographies of scientists to their personal files as “state scientists of the United States.”

The first seven specialists arrived in the United States at a military airfield in New Castle, Delaware, on September 20, 1945. They then flew to Boston and were taken by boat to the US military intelligence 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 at Peenemünde. These documents were supposed to allow scientists to continue experiments with rockets.

On May 3, 1945, Wernher von Braun surrendered to the advancing American army along with documentation and some of the specialists from the German missile group, which did not prevent Soviet engineers from restoring most of the drawings from the remaining parts, although the missiles themselves were blown up. Rocket engines from Peenemünde became the prototype of Soviet engines for the R-1, R-2, R-5 missiles. Since September 1945 - in the USA, he headed the Army Weapons Design and Development Service at Fort Bliss (Texas). Since 1950 he worked at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville (Alabama). On September 11, 1955, he received American citizenship. The Americans limited it to the development of short-range missiles only. Brown's competitor, the US Navy, received the contract for the satellite.

Since 1956, he has been the head of the development program for the Jupiter-S intercontinental ballistic missile and the Explorer series satellite. After the launch of the Soviet satellites, he was allowed to launch his Jupiter-S. But only after a test launch of a Navy rocket, which could only rise one meter. Thus, von Braun's satellite was launched one year late.

Since 1960, he 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 Saturn series launch vehicles and Apollo series spacecraft.

1966 - spent a week in Antarctica in January.

On July 16, 1969, the Saturn V rocket delivered the Apollo 11 spacecraft into lunar orbit.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo 11, became the first person on Earth to set foot on the lunar surface. For this flight, Brown was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1969.

After Apollo 11, von Braun carried out 5 more successful manned flights to the Moon.

Since 1970, he has been NASA's deputy director for human spaceflight planning; since 1972, he has worked in industry as vice president of Fairchild Space Industries in Germantown, Maryland.

His projects for a lunar station were not destined to be realized due to the curtailment of the struggle between the two powers (the USA and the USSR) for dominance in the exploration of the Moon. The results of his work became a powerful basis for the conquest of space by other rocket designers.

After leaving NASA in 1972, he lived only five years and died of cancer.