The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11 (3 page)

The Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended World War I, punitively limited German arms production. The treaty, however, made no provisions concerning rockets, which were not yet considered viable weapons of war. Accordingly, the German Army assigned artillery officer, Captain Walter Dornberger, the task of assessing how best to exploit this loophole.

In 1932, a year before Adolf Hitler rose to power, von Braun and his fellow researchers were recruited by Dornberger to develop rockets for military use. Von Braun later defended the career decisions of his rocket team as mere stepping stones toward their ultimate dream: “We were interested in only one thing—the exploration of space.”

Following World War II, when Nazi atrocities were exposed to the world, von Braun was repeatedly forced to explain his early career path: “…We needed money, and the Army seemed willing to help us. In 1932, the idea of war seemed an absurdity. The Nazis weren’t in power. We felt no moral scruples about the possible future use of our brainchild.”

As a military employee, von Braun began his tenure at Kummersdorf-West, an artillery proving ground, located south of Berlin. In 1937, von Braun and his rocket development team moved to Peenemunde, on the Baltic coast, near Usedom. There, he was appointed technical director of the Army Research Center, and assigned the task of developing the world’s first ballistic missiles.

Shortly after arriving at Peenemunde, von Braun joined the Nazi Party, perhaps naively unaware of the future ramifications of his decision. In later years, he contended that he was “officially demanded” to join the fascist organization, and had he refused, it would have meant abandoning “the work of my life.”

“My membership in the party did not involve any political activity,” von Braun explained.

In 1940, von Braun joined the notorious paramilitary
Schutzstuffel (SS),
at the bequest of its infamous leader Heinrich Himmler, and was awarded the rank of Unterstürmfuhrer (Lieutenant). For the remainder of his life, von Braun would downplay his SS membership, pointing out that he did not use his officer’s rank on official correspondence, and wore his black dress uniform, with its swastika arm band, only when absolutely necessary. As the war progressed and the Nazi bloodbath expanded, von Braun was promoted to Hauptsturmführer (Captain) and then Sturmbannführer (Major).

The German Army directed von Braun to develop operational ballistic missiles. The end result was the
Aggregat-4 (A-4),
which the German Propaganda Ministry later renamed the
Vergeltungswaffe-2 (V-2),
meaning
vengeance weapon.

The winged V-2 rocket, 46-feet-long and weighing 14 tons, was fueled by ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen, and stabilized by four fins and four rudders. Two gyroscopes, mounted in the nose beneath the explosive warhead, guided the weapon to its target. The missile was capable of striking targets up to 500 miles away from the launch site. Traveling at 2,500 mph and armed with a 2,200 pound warhead, the V-2 was treacherous and deadly.

After two test failures, in March and August of 1942, the first V-2 was successfully launched on October 3
^rd
of that year. The test missile reached an altitude of 60 miles, and left a lasting impression on rocket scientist, Krafft Ehricke: “It looked like a fiery sword going into the sky…It is very hard to describe what you feel when you stand on the threshold of a whole new era…We knew the space age had begun.”

In early July of 1943, von Braun and his military supervisor, Walter Dornberger, briefed Adolf Hitler on the V-2 rocket. The duo informed the Fuhrer that the weapon, armed with 2,000 pounds of explosives, was fully capable of attacking London; furthermore, the British would be powerless to intercept it. With characteristic megalomania, Hitler immediately ordered production of 2,000 V-2 missiles per month.

The first V-2 rockets were launched against London shortly after
D-Day
(June 6, 1944). Famed
CBS News
anchorman Walter Cronkite, who at the time was an
UPI
war correspondent, vividly recalled the frightening attacks, describing the V-2 rockets as “devilish weapons.”

A mere five minutes after launch, the devastating rockets terrorized Londoners, who were accustomed to hearing air raid sirens and the drone of approaching German bombers prior to an impending attack. Instead, the unsuspecting civilians were stunned by a “ball of light” and a “terrible crack.” One resident described the dilemma posed by the V-2 rockets: “There was no alert…We had no warning at all.”

A total of 4,000 V-2 rockets were fired at Allied targets in England, France, and Belgium during the course of World War II; 1,403 of those attacks occurred on London and other targets in southern England. An estimated 5,400 people, more than 2/3
^rd
of whom were civilians, died as a result of V-2 attacks.

After Allied bombing raids targeted Peenemunde, the V-2 production facilities were moved to an underground facility in the Harz Mountains, near Nordhausen. Most of the nearly 5,000 workers who participated in the construction of the Nordhausen facility were concentration camp inmates.

The overseer of the Nordhausen construction project, located in a 35 million cubic-feet former anhydrite mine, was a notoriously brutal SS General, Hans Kammler. Prisoners, including Russians, French, Poles, and later Jews, were sent from Buchenwald Concentration Camp to Dora, just outside Nordhausen. The inmates, who were tasked with enlarging the caverns, were subjected to overcrowded, horrendous conditions. The cold, damp, dusty air, absent adequate ventilation, was hazardous to their respiratory systems. There were no running water or sewage facilities, and the raggedly-clad prisoners were forced to sleep in open bunk beds, stacked four high. Consequently, epidemics of pneumonia, dysentery, and typhus were widespread.

Some of the more rebellious inmates attempted to sabotage the rockets during the assembly process; those caught tampering with missiles, as well as those perceived as slackers, were severely beaten and/or executed by their Nazi overseers. An estimated 20,000 prisoners died at Dora/Nordhausen—in the end, more people died during the construction of V-2 rockets than were killed by the heinous weapons during the course of the war.

While von Braun denied playing any role in the decision to use slave labor or in administering the work detail, he was undoubtedly aware of the miserable conditions. Von Braun and his colleagues’ association with the atrocities at Nordhausen would be called into question numerous times in later years. Von Braun biographer, Michael Neufield, aptly described the rocket scientist’s involvement with the Nazis, as a means to further his dreams of space exploration, a “Faustian bargain.”

While serving as a Nazi pawn, von Braun never lost sight of his dream to employ rockets for uses other than weaponry. After he published an article in a scientific journal promoting the use of rockets for international mail delivery, Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler ordered the rocketeer jailed for “lack of attention” to the war effort, as well as trumped up charges that von Braun was associating with Communists. Walter Dornberger, von Braun’s military supervisor, convinced Hitler to release the rocket scientist from imprisonment, arguing that his expertise was indispensable to the V-2 program.

Von Braun and his colleagues continued to dream of using rocket technology for peaceful means. After an early V-2 test launch, one German scientist was overheard saying: “There goes the world’s first space vehicle.”

In the spring of 1945, as Germany’s defeat appeared all but certain, von Braun gathered his rocket design and development team together to discuss their future. Aware that the end of the war was rapidly approaching, he outlined their options: “We despise the French, we are mortally afraid of the Soviets; we do not believe the British can afford us, so that leaves the Americans.

On May 2
^nd
of that year, von Braun and his colleagues surrendered to American military forces. Ignoring an order, issued six weeks earlier by a desperate Adolf Hitler, instructing the rocketeers to destroy all equipment and paperwork related to the V-2 program, von Braun and his colleagues hid nearly 14 tons of records in an abandoned mine near Bleicherode, and then dynamited the shaft to seal off its contents. After surrendering, the rocket team turned over to U.S. military officials some 3,500 detailed reports and more than 500,000 rocket blueprints stored in the secret hideaway.

The V-2 facility at Nordhausen fell within the Soviet Union’s post-war occupation zone. While ultimately recovering only 20 V-2 rockets, the Soviets conscripted their share of German experts in aviation, nuclear energy, electronics, radar, and rocket science. Prior to Soviet occupation of Nordhausen, Major James Pottamill, a ranking officer in the U.S. Army Ordnance Division, orchestrated the removal of parts for nearly 100 V-2 rockets and a “large collection of plans, manuals, and other documents.” Those items were transported to the United States, before the Soviets became aware of the subterfuge.

Werner von Braun and his colleagues immigrated to the United States beginning in September of 1945. When a small “advance guard” of higher ranking rocket scientists crossed over the Saar River from Germany to France, en route to a plane that would transport them to the United States, von Braun reminded his colleagues of the consequences of their actions: “Well take a good look at Germany, fellows. You may not see it for a long time to come.”

By mid-1946, 118 German rocket scientists, technicians, and their families were settled into their new home at Fort Bliss, Texas, under the direct supervision of the U.S. Army’s 9330
^th
Ordnance Technical Service Unit. The massive relocation effort was first named
Operation Overcast,
but later changed to
Operation Paperclip
(in reference to the metal clasps used to bind the Germans’ immigration forms). The recruitment and relocation of the German scientists and technicians proved fortuitous, as the U.S. military had no missile technology, even in the planning stages, that was as sophisticated as the V-2 rocket.

Operation Paperclip,
authorized by President Truman on September 6, 1946, was administered by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) and supervised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The Germans were officially classified as “wards of the Army.” Naval Captain Bosquet Wev, Director of the JIOA, had to strong arm American State Department officials, many of whom were troubled over admitting “ex-Nazis” to the United States as “invited guests.” Wev argued that the German scientists and technicians conscripted by the Soviet Union were a “far greater security threat” to America than those with “former Nazi affiliations” or current “Nazi sympathies.”

The newly-arrived Germans were housed in a remote corner of Fort Bliss, occupying dilapidated barracks serviced by a community mess hall and recreation club. Military personnel were responsible for the security and well-being of the Germans, who had not yet been issued passports. Isolated from the civilian population, none of the immigrants were allowed to leave base unescorted. In large part, the sequestration was a safety precaution, as many civilians in the surrounding area were highly suspicious of their new, “ex-Nazi” neighbors.

Von Braun tried to ease the fears of those Americans who questioned the wisdom of relocating his rocket team to the United States: “We are convinced that a complete mastery of the art of rockets will change conditions in the world in much the same way as did the mastery of aeronautics, and that this change will apply to both civilian and military aspects of the their use.”

In 1947, von Braun was allowed to return to Germany to marry his 18-year-old cousin, Maria von Quistor, with the understanding that the couple would immediately return to the United States. During their honeymoon, the couple shared a house with American MPs, who were assigned to keep von Braun from being kidnapped by Soviet intelligence agents.

In 1949, the German scientists and technicians were loaded on a bus and taken across the Mexican border at El Paso. The bus immediately turned around and came back through the border patrol station, where the Germans were issued entrance visas, which could then be used to apply for American citizenship.

The influx of German ingenuity was not limited to the rocket scientists at Fort Bliss. After the conclusion of World War II, the U.S. military relocated nearly 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians to America.

The White Sands Proving Ground (an annex of the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland), located 40 miles northeast of Fort Bliss, near Los Cruces, New Mexico, served as the launch site for the captured V-2 rockets. In the isolated desert of the Tularosa Basin, von Braun’ rocket team merged with
Project Hermes,
a guided missile program the Army Ordnance Department had previously contracted to
General Electric in
1944, as an answer to Germany’s V-2 program.

On April 16, 1946, the first V-2 rocket was fired at White Sands. From that date through September 19, 1952, 67 V-2s were launched into the New Mexico skies. Instead of explosive pay-loads, the missiles carried cameras, Geiger counters, and other scientific equipment in their noses. Mice and Rhesus monkeys were also sent aloft to monitor potential health risks of high speed travel at unprecedented altitudes. On July 30, 1946, a V-2 rocket reached the heretofore unimaginable altitude of 100 miles. That same year, another V-2 became the first launch vehicle to detect the ozone layer.

A budget-conscious post-World War II Congress was reluctant to appropriate meaningful funding for rocket research and development, and the German scientists earned a starting pay of only $144.00 per month. Werner von Braun, himself, was paid $9,500.00 per year, with a $6.00 per diem while traveling. Dedicated to their dream of space exploration, the majority of the rocketeers turned down higher paying private-sector jobs and chose to remain as civil service employees.

In 1946, Lieutenant Colonel William E. Winterstern, custodian of the German rocket scientists, posed a far-sighted question to von Braun: “If we could give you all the money you wanted, how long would you need to get man to the Moon and bring him back?” The rocket scientist, who was then a largely unknown figure, asked for some time to contemplate Winterstern’s expansive inquiry. Several weeks later, von Braun offered his answer: “Give us three billion dollars and ten years, and well go to the Moon and back.”