Donald Trump has called North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un “Little Rocket Man”. However, the real Rocket Man was Wernher von Braun (1912–1977). Having been one Germany’s most important rocket developers, von Braun was put to work in the U.S. rocket development program in the aftermath of World War II.

Wernher von Braun – Early Years

Von Braun came from an affluent upper-class family. Although interested in astronomy and space since youth, Wernher von Braun did not do well in school. As a matter of fact, physics and mathematics were his least favorite subjects. But by the time he was thirteen and got his hands on a copy of Die Rakete zu den Planetenraeumen – “The Rocket to Interplanetary Space” by a Hermann Oberth, he changed his attitude in a flash. He found the book so interesting that he decided to conquer math and quickly made it to the top of his class. While studying at the Berlin Institute of Technology, von Braun joined the German Society for Space Travel. In 1932, he graduated with a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering and entered the University of Berlin. There, he went to work for the German Army to develop ballistic missiles together with Walter R. Dornberger. In 1934, he received a Ph.D. in physics.

Wernher von Braun During the Nazi Years

By 1934, Wernher von Braun’s group had successfully launched two rockets that rose vertically to more than 1.5 miles. Adolph Hitler was in power by then and anxious to advance German rocket development. When the test facilities near Berlin became too small, a larger one was built in Peenemuende on the Baltic Sea. Dornberger became the new facility’s military commander, von Braun its technical director. By 1944, the level of technology of the rockets and missiles being tested at Peenemuende was years ahead of that in other countries. The team developed the long-range ballistic missile A-4 (later called V-2) and the supersonic anti-aircraft missile “Wasserfall.”

How Wernher von Braun Came to the United States

At the end of World War II, Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union scooped up top German researchers as part of Operation Paperclip . Wernher von Braun, his younger brother Magnus, Dornberger and the rest of the German V-2 rocket team surrendered to U.S. troops along with blueprints and test vehicles. Thereafter, the U.S. government installed 1,600 top German scientist, engineers and technicians at Fort Bliss, Texas. Most of these scientists had been former members – some even former leaders – of the Nazi Party. That made Wernher von Braun a controversial figure. His Nazi war efforts make him a villain; his efforts of getting man to the moon a hero.

Wernher von Braun was one of the most important German rocket developers. Following WWII, he was put to work in the U.S. rocket development program. www.walled-in-berlin.com

Wernher von Braun Propels Americans to the Moon

For the next fifteen years, von Braun worked with the U.S. Army in the development of ballistic missiles. In 1950, his team was moved to the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama to build the Jupiter ballistic missile. In 1960, the center transferred from the Army to the newly established NASA. Von Braun became the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. The V–2 rocket remained the forerunner of those used in space exploration programs in the United States and the Soviet Union. The Saturn V rocket, which eventually supported the Apollo space program and human exploration of the moon, was also the brainchild of Wernher von Braun’s rocket team.

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Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.