Von Braun in 1960

Born

 | Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherrvon Braun
March 23, 1912
Wirsitz (today Wyrzysk), Posen Province, Prussia, Germany (today Poland)

Died

 | June 16, 1977(aged 65)
Alexandria, Virginia, US

Resting place

 | Ivy Hill Cemetery (Alexandria, Virginia)^[1]

Citizenship

 | Germany, United States (after 1955)

Alma mater

 | Technical University of Berlin

Occupation

 | Rocket engineer and designer, aerospace project manager

Spouse(s)

 | Maria Luise von Quistorp (m. 1947–1977)

Children

 | three

Parent(s)

 | Magnus von Braun(1878–1972)Emmy von Quistorp (1886–1959)

Awards

 | Elliott Cresson Medal(1962)Wilhelm Exner Medal(1969)^[2]National Medal of Science (1975)
Military career

Allegiance

 |

Nazi Germany

Service/branch

 |

SS

Years of service

 | 1937–45

Rank

 |

SS-Sturmbannführer(major)

Awards

 | Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords (1944)War Merit Cross, First Class with Swords (1943)

Other work

 | Rocket engineer, NASA, Chief Architect of the Saturn V rocket of the Apollo manned lunar missions, engineering program manager

In his twenties and early thirties, von Braun worked in Nazi Germany's rocket development program. He helped design and develop the V-2 rocket at Peenemündeduring World War II. Following the war, von Braun was secretly moved to the United States, along with about 1,600 other German scientists, engineers, and technicians, as part of Operation Paperclip. He worked for the United States Army on an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) program and he developed the rockets that launched the United States' first space satellite Explorer 1. His group was assimilated into NASA, where he served as director of the newly formed M

Von Braun is well known as the leader of what has been called the “rocket team” which developed the V–2 ballistic missile for the Nazis during World War II. The V–2s were manufactured at a forced labor factory called Mittelwerk. Scholars are still reassessing his role in these controversial activities. Click for details.

The brainchild of von Braun’s rocket team operating at a secret laboratory at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast, the V–2 rocket was the immediate antecedent of those used in space exploration programs in the United States and the Soviet Union. A liquid propellant missile extending some 46 feet in length and weighing 27,000 pounds, the V-2 flew at speeds in excess of 3,500 miles per hour and delivered a 2,200-pound warhead to a target 500 miles away. First flown in October 1942, it was employed against targets in Europe beginning in September 1944. By the beginning of 1945, it was obvious to von Braun that Germany would not achieve victory against the Allies, and he began planning for the postwar era.

Before the Allied capture of the V–2 rocket complex, von Braun engineered the surrender of 500 of his top rocket scientists, along with plans and test vehicles, to the Americans. For fifteen years after World War II, von Braun worked with the U.S. Army in the development of ballistic missiles. As part of a military operation called Project Paperclip, he and his rocket team were scooped up from defeated Germany and sent to America where they were installed at Fort Bliss, Texas. There they worked on rockets for the U.S. Army, launching them at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico. In 1950 von Braun’s team moved to the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Ala., where they built the Army’s Jupiter ballistic missile.

In 1960, his rocket development center transferred from the Army to the newly established NASA and received a mandate to build the giant Saturn rockets. Accordingly, von Braun became director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that would propel Americans to the Moon.

Von Braun also became one of the most prominent spokesmen of space exploration in the United States during the 1950s. In 1970, NASA leadership asked von Braun to move to Washington, D.C., to head up the strategic planning effort for the agency. He left his home in Huntsville, Ala., but in 1972 he decided to retire from NASA and work for Fairchild Industries of Germantown, Md. He died in Alexandria, Va., on June 16, 1977.