Wernher Von Braun: The Man Who Sold the Moon

by Dennis Piszkiewicz

Book Overview

Perhaps no one in history has played the role of scientist as celebrity with as much skill--and as much deception--as Wernher von Braun. America's leading rocket expert and most enthusiastic advocate of space travel, he had a closet full of secrets that would have shocked his colleagues and millions of admirers if they had been told during his lifetime. Wernher von Braun: The Man Who Sold the Moon is the first critical biography of the young...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0275962172
• ISBN13: 9780275962173
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Praeger
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

a drive to achieve goals at almost any price

Wernher von Braun (March 23 1912 - June 16 1977) is a two-sided problem for any writer. First, we know, he developed as a NASA-genius the Redstone rocket that placed Alan Shepard in suborbital flight in May 1961. Then he produced the great Saturn rockets that so successfully launched the U.S. manned flights to the Moon. But on the other hand over 5,000 of his V-2s were fired on Britain (V-2 for "Vergeltungswaffe 2", meaning "retaliation weapon 2"; a name invented by Josef Goebbels). These Nazi-rockets killed 2,724 people and badly injured 6,000. Moreover he was a major in the Nazi SS and one of Hitler's elite. Von Braun supervised the rocket's construction at the Nazis' Mittelwerk factory, which used slave labor from the nearby Dora concentration camp. In a letter to Mittelwerk's production manager, von Braun tells how he himself went to the notorious Buchenwald camp to arrange for the transport of more prisoners to Mittelwerk. At least 700 of them later died there. Survivors of the "hell of DORA" reported of burning corpse mountains, torture and for deterrence hanged prisoners at cranes. Dutch Sources report of 20.000 dead ones. Many slaves were murdered to eliminate any oral historical record of this new strange technology and the Nazi cruelties. Therefore von Braun also was a war criminal, and there must be a discussion of his culpability. The book of Dennis Piskiewicz tries to satisfy both sides of view. Not as satirical as the songwriter and verse-maker Tom Lehrer rhymed 1965 for a BBC television show: "'Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? / That's not my department', says Wernher von Braun". Maybe there are character-similarities (and friendly helping connections) between von Braun and Hitler's architect and Minister of Armaments Albert Speer. Fragment of those ingenious conqueror characters (compare with the Howard Hughes Story THE AVIATOR) often are human abysses like success greed, triumphing and all controlling volitions (Von Braun adored Nietzsche), a drive to achieve goals at almost any price, pathological jealous (remember Eisenhower's personal dislike of the German rocket team). On the other hand: 118 German rocket scientists were brought from Hitler's Third Reich together with von Braun to the USA as part of a military operation called Project Paperclip (helping sift through the Pennemuende documents). Later on von Braun became the director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville. He developed the Redstone (used for the Persian Gulf War), Jupiter-C (first satellite, Explorer), Juno and Pershing missiles; he received a mandate to build the giant Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that would propel Americans 1969 to the Moon: Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins. The above mentioned Tom Lehrer criticized: "What is it that will make it possible to spend twenty billion dollars of your money to put some clown on the moon?" Von Braun diabolically used his rhetorical abilities to set the US senate in fear

Reading Project

In the course of history, many engineers left their legacy in the world by "modernizing" the society. In March 23, 1912 in Wirsitz, Posen a baby was born who would leave the world as one of the best engineers of all times. Wernher von Braun was his name. As a determined child, von Braun never lost the hope of flying to the moon. His determination became ambition which turned into success. Wernher von Braun: The Man Who Sold the Moon tells the story of an exceptional engineer as he advanced the rocket's function and purpose. As the WW2 stirred up all the nations in the world, Braun was chocking everyone with his devastating war missile, V2. Nazis use of this engineer to devastate the people was ended as the US wanted Braun for itself. In America, Braun made the impossible possible by flying mankind into the space. Because of his compelling life story and the determination behind it, this is a must-read book for all ages to understand where all started that put the world in the "future."

I was not disappointed. You won't be either.

I really liked this book. It was well read, well researched. I don't see it as having a bias, but a point, and a point well taken. Taken in context, Werner von Braun was no more and no less than a German, and a product of his times. He was a leader in his field in Germany, and in America. What stands out for me is what this book says about America and, in particular, the United States Army.This book has the most thorough documentation of Project Paperclip that I have seen yet. While presenting as balanced a perception as possible about why certain things played out the way they did, it is indeed troublesome that the high-tech space industry was balanced on the backs of slave labor from its inception, and definitely seems to be moving even further in that direction today throughout corporate America and the New World Order. This is no accident.Nor is Werner von Braun the ultimate Evil. He was a human being who was exploited as so many are and wanted only to do his best work. Germans were raised, through their educational system, to respect and obey authority without question. This, too, is where our public education system is trying to go.I bought the book in particular for its chapter on his work with Disney. I was not disappointed. You won't be either.

AT LAST, A COMPLETE & HONEST ASSESSMENT OF WERNHER VON BRAUN

Previously published biographys of Wernher von Braun have been largely hagiographic based on the high success levels and extensive promotion of the U.S. Space Program for which von Braun received a great deal of earned and some unearned credit. He was, without doubt, a brilliant and goal oriented man. But, as were many in Germany during the Nazi years, he was an opportunist, willing to achieve his desired goals without regard to the consequences for other people or concern for the organizations that he supported and which, in turn, supported his cause.The author's extensive research is thoroughly documented in the notes and bibliography. It includes much data that was classified by the United States Government and withheld from the public during von Braun's lifetime. That von Braun was a working and supportive member of the Nazi Party has now been publicized, well documented and backed up with many previously classified records made available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act.This book shows a more complete picture of who and what Wernher von Braun was prior to his move to the United States as well as his involvement in the U.S. Space Program. It does not change but presents a much more complete, correct and balanced view of history. It presents "The Rest of the Story". The author's easy to read style presents accurate history in a well documented, chronological order. This book is easy reading and compellingly interesting to anyone looking for a more complete and accurate history of World War II, Rocket Development, and the Space Race that achieved such accomplishments as placing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth along with samples of moon rocks and pictures of the earth from the moon. Specifically, this book shows the underlying character of von Braun and his unrelenting drive to achieve these goals at any price.