Wernher von Braun's V-2 Rocket
Although the Nazi "vengeance weapon" was a wartime failure, it ushered in the space age
- By Owen Edwards
- Smithsonian magazine, July-August 2011, Subscribe
In 1960, Columbia Pictures released a movie about NASA rocket scientist Wernher von Braun called I Aim at the Stars. Comedian Mort Sahl suggested a subtitle: But Sometimes I Hit London.
Von Braun, born in Wirsitz, Germany, in 1912, had been interested in the nascent science of rocketry since his teen years. In 1928, while he was in high school, he joined an organization of fellow enthusiasts called Verein für Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space Travel), which conducted experiments with liquid fuel rockets.
By the time Germany was at war for the second time in a generation, von Braun had become a member of the Nazi Party and was the technical chief of the rocket-development facility at Peenemünde on the Baltic Coast. There he oversaw the design of the V-2, the first long-range ballistic missile developed for warfare.
The “V” in V-2 stood for Vergeltungswaffe (vengeance weapon). Traveling at 3,500 miles per hour and packing a 2,200-pound warhead, the missile had a range of 200 miles. The German high command hoped the weapon would strike terror in the British and weaken their resolve. But though the successful first test flight of the rocket took place in October 1942, operational combat firings—more than 3,000 in all—didn’t begin until September 1944, by which time the British people had already withstood four years of conventional bombing.
England wasn’t the only target. “There were actually more V-2 rockets fired at Belgium than at England,” says Michael Neufeld, curator of the V-2 on view at the National Air and Space Museum and author of Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War. “In fact, the single most destructive attack came when a V-2 fell on a cinema in Antwerp, killing 561 moviegoers.”
The Air and Space Museum’s V-2 was assembled from parts of several actual rockets. Looking up at it is not unlike looking up at a skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex: each is a genuine artifact representing the most highly evolved menaces of their eras.
When the war ended in 1945, von Braun understood that both the United States and the Soviet Union had a powerful desire to obtain the knowledge he and his fellow scientists had acquired in developing the V-2. Von Braun and most of his Peenemünde colleagues surrendered to the U.S. military; he would eventually become director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. There he helped design the Saturn V (in this case, the V stood for the Roman numeral five, not vengeance), the rocket that launched U.S. astronauts toward the moon.
During the war the Nazi regime transferred thousands of prisoners to the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp to help build the V-2 factory and assemble the rockets. At least 10,000 died from illness, beatings or starvation. This grim knowledge was left out of von Braun biographies authorized by the U.S. Army and NASA. “The media went along,” says Neufeld, “because they didn’t want to undercut U.S. competition with the Soviet Union.” Von Braun always denied any direct role in prisoner abuses and claimed he’d have been shot if he’d objected to those he witnessed. But some survivors testified to his active involvement.
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Comments (9)
Von Braun probably joined the Nazi Party to gain easier access to government funding. Germany did squander huge amounts of money and materials on the V-1 and V-2's. They would've been better off concentrating on the jet and rocket powered interceptors to clear the skies of Allied bombers.
Posted by Bill W on February 4,2012 | 01:28 PM
I have just finish reading the article by Patricia Turnbull Felmar under "Letters" of the Oct. 2011 issue of Smithsonian about Dr. Vonn Braun. The article was very interesting and brought back many memories of my US Army life. I was privileged to listen to Dr. Vonn Braun at the Redstone Arsenal located at Huntsville, Alabama in1954. After graduating from the Corporal Guided Missile School there, I considered remaining there and working in his lavatory. Instead, I was sent overseas to Germany with a Corporal Guided Missile outfit. At first I was stationed at Mainz-Gonsenheim for one year and later transferred south about 50 miles to a base located at Sieglesbach for one year. It turns out that the base at Sieglesbach during WWII was a V-2 missile testing center. Many underground bunkers used to test the missiles were destroyed by the US Army after the war and the US Army built underground bunkers to test Atomic Warheads for use on the American missile inventories located in Germany at that time.
I have attached a picture of my buddies and myself as we joined the US Army to go to the Guided Missile School in 1954. I have also attached a picture of the barrack areas of Sieglesbach and a picture of a missile during maneuvers while there. We were not permitted to take any pictures of the bunker areas.
Posted by Johnny Oliver on October 11,2011 | 04:12 PM
In 1961, when I was a Senior Research Engineer at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park California, the Institute had received a call from the office of Senator Kerr of Oklahoma, who was on a Congressional Committee that had responsibility for some of SRI’s contracts. The Senator, we were told, felt that the Institute would be interested in having some of its staff participating in the “First Conference on the Peaceful Use of Space.” My boss thought it would be advisable to send someone and I was designated. Senator Kerr welcomed all of the attendees (and took attendance). The keynote speaker was Verner Von Braun.
Von Braun stepped to the podium and began speaking in his then thick German accent: “Vell, mit der suggsesfull flight of Astronaut Shepard in May, the United States is now back in der ball game. His flight vas a solid single in der space race. Vot we need now is a double arrround the Moon, a triple around Mars und den a home-run out of der solar system!”
Considering that the United States was then well behind Soviet Union in the "Space Race," his flight was not a "solid single." Shepard's brief, 15-minute, suborbital visit to space did not compare with the Soviet's accomplishments of having previously launched three Sputnicks -- some with animals aboard -- (I in October 1957, 2 in November, 1957 and 3 in May, 1958), and by an Earth orbiting Vostok in April, 1961. Shepard's flight aboard the "Freedom 7" would be better characterized as a base on balls, or having been struck by a wild pitch.
Posted by on October 8,2011 | 12:34 PM
As a young Ninth Air Force officer I visited Nordhausen, the site of the underground rocket facility before the Russians occupied the area. Later, employed at the White Sands Missile Range, I met the officer that escorted Wernher von Braun to the U.S. I developed a keen interest in the Nazi rocket program and Von Braun and his "team." He was indeed a remarkable rocket expert but he was also, in my opinion, an unindicted war crimina and a faux "hero." Following years of research I decided to present the story in a play.
"Exploitation: Dawn of the Cold War" was published in 2011. It was not intended to be produced but through readings stimulate student interest and critical thinking about the Nazi rocket program and the German-American rocket experts.
Posted by Robert Huddleston on October 4,2011 | 03:37 PM
See Wayne Biddle's "Dark Side of the Moon".
Posted by George Leopold on August 4,2011 | 09:45 PM
The front line was in Belgium by the time they concentrated fired on this country
Posted by Guillermo on August 4,2011 | 03:28 PM
Because Antwerp in Flemish Belgium, was at the time the main Allied supply port for the drive into Germany.
The bombing of London was before all to sap the British people's morale and to satisfy some of Hitler's rage.
Bad old 'dolf wanted to raze the city out of hatred but strategic considerations too.
The rain of V-1s and V-2s in October 1944, followed the aftermath of Operation Market Garden failed drive for the Rhine into Northern Germany, in September.
Hitler wanted to preempt a renewal of the Allied offensive in this region.
When he launched the Ardennes offensive(the "Battle of The Bulge")in December, all Vs launchers were redirected at the unfortunate city which remained under merciless bombing well into 1945.
Posted by Bourricot on July 28,2011 | 11:13 PM
Dear Editor,
Many thanks to Owen Edwards for his review of Wernher von Braun's contribution both to space exploration and the Nazi agenda. In light of the Soviet and American post-war recruitment of rocket scientists, there used to be a joke--probably now obscure to the rising generation--that when Russian and American satellites passed each other in space, they gave up saying to each other, "Long live Mother Russia!" and "God bless America!" in order to pay tribute to their true origins by mutually declaring, "Heil Hitler!" It's important to remember than von Braun was a member of the Nazi party by choice, not conscription--and that his efforts were directed at the destruction of civilians regarded as the enemies of Nazism. We lose our bearings so easily when we note that the V-2 was largely a military failure. The intent was lethal, irrespective of the results, and that must never be forgotten.
Paul Jordan-Smith
Grass Valley, CA
Posted by Paul Jordan-Smith on July 6,2011 | 01:31 PM
"More V2 rockets were fired at Belgium that at England". Huh? I've never heard that, and why would "they" (Nazis) fire rockets at a country they already controlled?
Posted by Steve D on July 3,2011 | 02:24 PM