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Post by Fnord Fred on Nov 18, 2005 17:15:07 GMT -4
Something that has always bugged me is how people make such a big deal about Von Braun being a SS officer. He was under Hitler's command for what, less than two years before he defected to the Americans? Doesn't sound like a steadfast supporter of the Third Reich to me; more like someone who was trying to get out as soon as he could.
What, if anything, did Von Braun do for Nazi Germany that wasn't required for him to avoid the death squads?
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Post by ottawan on Nov 18, 2005 17:26:05 GMT -4
I was not aware that he was an SS Officer. Can you provide some back-up for that?
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Nov 18, 2005 17:39:52 GMT -4
I'm pretty certain that is true, Ottawan. I believe he was forced to join the SS in order to carry on his rocketry work. He wasn't really interested in Nazi politics, he just wanted to build rockets.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Nov 18, 2005 18:22:27 GMT -4
The SS were pervasive in Third Reich society: aside from the infamous Waffen-SS, the Geheim Staats Polizei (Gestapo) and Kriminal Polizei (Kripo) were SS branches, there was also the Allgemeine-SS, a sort of uniformed general membership club. Whole sectors of the Reich economy were reserved for SS members: von Braun could hardly have avoided membership; his elevation to Sturmbannführer merely reflected the value the Nazi heirarchy placed on him...
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Post by PhantomWolf on Nov 19, 2005 6:44:08 GMT -4
When Himmler took over the V2 it was unavoidable. He was actually arrested by the SS because he was more interested in space that furthering the Reich's war effort. he was only released becuse Himmler ws assured that he would cooperate with them. He didn't, he and his team took one of the first opportunitities that presented itself to escape and defect to the Americans.
I always find the claims about him being an SS member silly. It was forced on him and there were other Nazi Party members who showed that they weren't of the same ideals as the upper echalon, Oskar Schindler for instance.
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Post by ottawan on Nov 19, 2005 12:24:44 GMT -4
Thank you for the clarification guys
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Post by Jason Thompson on Nov 21, 2005 9:26:01 GMT -4
I think the biggest bone of contention with von Braun is not his Nazi party membership or his rank in the SS, but the fact that he directed a construction facility that used slave labour. Again, however, it comes down to what he could do that wouldn't get him shot, especially since anything he did at that stage that disrupted construction of the V2 would be construed as obstructing the war effort. Since Germany was already well in the proverbial excrement as far as the war was going by that point, that would have been a very bad idea indeed.
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Post by JayUtah on Nov 21, 2005 20:13:02 GMT -4
Von Braun, as I recall, did not direct the Nordhausen facility. The V-2 design was essentially commandeered from Peenemunde and passed on to Nordhausen for manufacture. Von Braun obviously knew how the V-2s were being made. The most informed criticism suggests that von Braun is culpable because he knew about it and did nothing to stop it.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Nov 22, 2005 6:38:00 GMT -4
The book of the BBC/HBO Space Race series is quite informative:
Von Braun joined the Nazi party in 1937 and the SS in 1940 as an Untersturmführer. His co-director at Peenemunde (Dornberger) never joined either organisation, although as a Wehrmacht General he was sufficiently well-placed not to have to.
The V2 production facilities were under the command of SS-Gruppenführer Kammler, who built up quite an empire around the V-weapons as the Reich collapsed. It is believed he was shot in the back of the head by his adjutant (who was under orders to ensure he was never captured) leading a futile SS raid in the last days of the war. Other leading figures in the Dora-Nordhausen chain of command were rumoured to have met untimely ends at the hands of former prisoners. Others made it to the US with von Braun, at least one of whom was later tried at Nuremberg. Von Braun himself never faced a trial, but sent a deposition in defence of his colleague (which omitted mentioning the rôles of others still in the USA).
At one time von Braun was indeed under arrest by the SS, in grave danger of being executed for not pursuing weapons development with sufficient zeal (or indeed at the time, results) he was saved when Himmler saw the potential of the project, but remained under suspicion.
The worst is that von Braun was certainly aware of conditions at the factory: he had arranged for his brother to be in charge of the gyro production department. As the author puts it:
"There were heroes who sacrificed a great deal opposing the Nazi regime: von Braun was not one of them."
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