What I mean is that since the design of the Apollo rocket was chiefly made by someone who was once part of the SS, does this affect the legacy of the entire moon landing operation for you?

41 comments

  7. I suppose we could have planted a Nazi flag on the moon alongside the American flag to give both credit. I would probably make the Nazi flag smaller, though.

  8. Not just the moon landing and space race. [More than 1,600 Nazi scientists and engineers were recruited by the US government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip) and relocated to the US along with their families after WWII to work for the US government in various research capacities. Most were involved in rocket and space technologies, but not all.

  9. No. He was clearly a brilliant mind and had the ability to use it for bad or for good. This applies to many people

  10. Nope, that’s the benefit of wining a war. We get all the good stuff, like a genius rocket designer.

  11. No. History is complicated. People are complicated. Standing on the sidelines denouncing people on the field who have to make decisions is not useful. People made decisions based on what they knew at the time, not what we know in 2022. No one in 1939 knew what Nazi Germany would become by 1945. Von Braun may have been complicit in the crimes of the Nazis, but he wasn’t responsible for them. This idea of crucifying complicity is self-destructive. At the end of the day, we are all complicit in some grave evil currently going on. Instead of wallowing in existential dread we should focus on fixing what we can even if the solution is less than perfect.

  14. Nope, he was key person who helped make the mission successful but there lots of other people as well. For example my grandfather helped make the carbon composite cones for Apollo 11, so it didn’t burn up at a high speed through the atmosphere.

  16. I may not like who WvB was (and his name is in half of Huntsville), but the Saturn V deserves all the recognition that’s thrown its way.

    I put it on my list of Wonders of the US a few days ago (was a question someone asked on here).

  17. No.

    What it does do is create an annoying historical anecdote redditors love to spout as some kind of proof that “America bad” or otherwise downplay America.

  18. not really. It certainly tarnishes von Braun’s legacy, though.

    I wrote a whole essay about him for a college application, basically trying to answer this exact question. My conclusion basically was that his contribution to the moon program was huge, but it’s important not to apotheosize him for it — he was a bad person. in my opinion.

    Geopolitics has never been a very moral business, and basically every major figure in world history has been an objectively bad person, including von Braun. Basically the best I can say for him is that he was only involved with the conventional warfare against the Allies by building rockets (he wasn’t directly involved with the genocide itself). I guess everyone has to decide for themselves how much of a redeeming factor that really is, if at all.

  19. Thousands of Americans worked to make that project happen too. Is the WPA tainted because some of the members were also members of the German-American Bund?

  20. No one likes to talk about it, but a lot of advancements in the medical and scientific fields can be attributed to nazis scientists and doctors experimenting on those they kept in the consent ration camps.

    Organ transplantation for example took leaps in advancement and our knowledge from hypothermia came from the Nazis.

  21. While it’s disgusting as shit, if we hadn’t taken in some of those people the Soviet’s would have gotten them. Maybe not a big deal about the space race although that was a boost for America morale, think if they had gotten the nuclear bomb people.

  24. No. An individual is not as egregious to me as a company, like Hugo Boss who used forced labor in the process of making SS uniforms.

  26. It’s very complicated. I certainly am not a fan of people who were part of groups that see me as subhuman. I also like scientific achievements and claiming victory over Soviets.

  27. No, that’s a fairly well known fact about von Braun and the moon landing.

    This isn’t the “gotcha” question that you wanted it to be, nice try though.

  29. Based on my research for my thesis, Von Braun was not a Nazi by choice. Hitler came to him in 1934 after he became chancellor and basically threatened him to join the NSDAP and build the rockets he loved based on the book “Dr. Space”. He didn’t join the NSDAP until 1936.

    When Von Braun’s V2 rockets were transferred to manufacture at Mittewerk, he fully knew his rockets were being sabotaged by the Jewish slave labor. It wasn’t until the SS came in almost like an audit where Von Braun had to crack down on the slaves.

    In the book “Lost Moon” Jim Lovell as well as numerous other astronauts knew of Von Braun’s history and attested how good of a person he was and frequently visited his home noting his love of philosophy.

    I don’t think Von Braun was at all blameless in his crimes, but I don’t think him being called a Nazi is fair either. The man was a scientist and philosopher and frequently grappled with ethics and morality. I think this video is particularly fascinating and testament to his character.

    https://twitter.com/BrianRoemmele/status/1566172963665092609?t=GFKALdJ4MltG2b1C7J8fLw&s=19

    Regardless if you agree with him or not in the video, he’s clearly grappling with huge questions such as morality, the soul, and the belief in a god. He’s worked in the sciences for over 30 years at this point yet seems undeterred in his belief in God. Lastly, I find this video even more fascinating when you take into account his past and the awful things that happened under his watch. If he believes in God, perhaps he never stopped believing in God (this leads reinforces my belief that he was forced into Nazism) or he came to reckoning to believe in God after WWII.

  31. It does not. To deny the scientific advances of the Nazis would do a disservice to those who were mutilated, enslaved, and sacrificed.

    We should instead focus on others – he wasn’t the only person to work on the landing, by a long shot. Focus on them, and their achievement. Former individual Nazis should be a footnote in history and nothing more.

  32. No. It’s not like he did it all himself. There was an army of engineers and other people involved and the US was one of very few countries with the resources to do it at the time.

  33. Nope.

    So how about, Krupps? How About VW, BMW, lets discuss IBM which sold tabulators to the Nazis…… Pfizer provided legal meth , Pervitin

    So… as for many things… history is littered with bad things, that look even worse in the eyes of 2022. versus a 1940’s world…

  35. Are the Russians ashamed that they also spent an inordinate amount of money snatching up former Nazi scientists in order to get their research for the various shit the Soviet Union was up to while still fielding an inferior space program to the US?

    No?

    Oh, well, would you look at that, I don’t care that Braun had his hands in the Apollo missions.

  36. Of course not. Only thing it makes me realize is how advanced Germans are/ were. Wasn’t just rockets, Germans contributed to America in all manner of sciences.

  38. No. There are countless modern inventions that have some bad history if you go back far enough. Much of our jet technology is descended from Nazi jet development. We know how to treat frostbite, and many other injuries better because of vile human experimentation Japan did in WW2. That’s just how humanity works.

  39. Not really. It’s not like the US were the only Allied victors after the war to recruit Nazis. The British had Operation Surgeon and the Soviets had Operation Osoaviakhim to accomplish the same thing as Operation Paperclip. Nobody really has the moral victory there at the end of the day when it comes to recruiting Nazi scientists and few people alive today had any choice in the matter. I’m not going to feel bad about something that happened 20-something years before I was born, especially knowing if we hadn’t scooped them up, the Soviets or possibly the British would have.

  40. Nope, not even a little bit. I’d have been willing to work with Genghis Khan if it meant beating the Soviets. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  41. I do not care that a former ss member was involved in apollo 11. We nuked Japan twice for crying out loud. No one’s perfect.

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