
The last living member of the German moon rocket team - sgt
http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2015/05/german_rocket_team_member_101.html
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mcguire
Some points from a cynical aerospace engineering/web developer friend:

* Everyone who has been above low earth orbit was born before 1936.

* Everyone who has been above LEO was put there by Nazis.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
I find your friend's cynicism... lacking.

Here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip)

 _Operation Paperclip was the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
program in which more than 1,500 Germans[1] primarily scientists but also
engineers and technicians, were brought to the United States from Nazi Germany
for government employment starting in 1945 and increasing in the aftermath of
World War II.[2] It was conducted by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency
(JIOA) and in the context of the burgeoning Cold War. One purpose of Operation
Paperclip was to deny German scientific expertise and knowledge to the Soviet
Union[2] and the United Kingdom,[3] as well as to inhibit post-war Germany
from redeveloping its military research capabilities. A related course of
action was taken by the US with regard to Japanese human experimenters
employed from Unit 731. The Soviet Union had the somewhat similar yet much
more limited Operation Osoaviakhim.[4]_

~~~
serge2k
Not sure what point you are trying to make? They brought over Nazi scientists
and put them to work on rocketry for NASA.

~~~
iammyIP
What does it mean to be a nazi scientist? I would argue most of these people
were pretty a-political and just happy that they got their science projects
funded, so they were primarily german scientists that did their rocket science
in germany during the nazi era and did not care about much else. That's a big
difference to some political people like from gestapo or ss, which soaked up
all of the ideology.

~~~
bootload
_" What does it mean to be a nazi scientist?"_

The FBI sure did a lot of background investigation on Von Braun. If you read
the documents, [0] there is no doubt the FBI and the other agencies recognised
Von Braun as a rocket scientist, Nazi party member and an SS Major (non-active
& honourary) in the German Army. [1]

In 5/16/'61, a further background check was done on Von Braun by the FBI and
passed on to the director.

There are lots of references to unsavoury connections such as the SS Horseback
riding school (33-34), member of MDSAP (39-45) and working in German Army
Ordinance (39-45). Met with Hitler twice and awarded the Iron Cross. Despite
all this, the records continually note Von Braun to be a person who is _'
loyal'_, _' discrete'_ and of high _' integrity'_.

Von Braun was moved to the US under protective custody in '45 and as long as
he kept his nose out of any _political activity_ and wasn't a communist, he
and his team was deemed _useful_ to the US Missile and Space agencies. So yes,
Von Braun was an opportunist at best, and a Nazi and a scientist.

Here's a re-union of his Peenemunde _team_ at Marshall Space Flight Center in
'87\. [2]

[0]
[https://vault.fbi.gov/Wernher%20VonBraun/](https://vault.fbi.gov/Wernher%20VonBraun/)

[1]
[https://vault.fbi.gov/Wernher%20VonBraun/Wernher%20VonBraun%...](https://vault.fbi.gov/Wernher%20VonBraun/Wernher%20VonBraun%20Part%202%20of%207/view)

[2]
[https://archive.org/details/MSFC-8774200](https://archive.org/details/MSFC-8774200)

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maxxxxx
As a German I am not proud of these guys. They knew exactly that tens of
thousands of slave workers were working on their toys under miserable
circumstances.

~~~
Teever
How many slaves make the clothes you wear and the cellphone you play games on?

~~~
maxxxxx
Not to belittle the circumstances of workers in China and Bangladesh but they
aren't kept with the explicit purpose of working them to death in 6 months
like the plan was for concentration camp workers. this is a different level of
evilness.

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marssaxman
I have fond memories of the presentation von Tiesenhausen gave when I went to
Space Camp back in 1990 (actually the version for high-schoolers called "Space
Academy"). It was fascinating to hear about events that had seemed like long-
ago history, when I read about them, from someone who had been there and been
part of making it all happen.

~~~
cesarbs
I love going to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in Oregon because many
of the volunteers there are folks who worked at NASA. Once I struck up a
conversation with one of the Saturn V propulsion engineers - it's indeed
fascinating to hear from the people who were actually there doing all this
stuff.

------
pjmorris
"As an engineer, it doesn't make any difference what you do," he joked last
week.

..reminds me of Tom Lehrer's take on Wernher von Braun [1]

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro)

~~~
allendoerfer
The context of that sentence is that it makes no difference whether you work
on cargo ships or rockets.

~~~
pjmorris
Some rockets are cargo ships, some are not.

