Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 9,001
A Rocket And Its "Completely Apolitical" Creator...
On June 20, 1944, the first man-made object reaches space!
It is the so-called "Aggregat 4", the prototype of a rocket, which was later used by the Nazis as "Vergeltungswaffe 2" ("V2") - mainly to shell the British capital London...:
Launched on June 20, 1944, the rocket reaches an altitude of exactly 174.6 km, thereby overcoming the limit to the cosmos, which scientists have generally set at 100 kilometers altitude.
Before that, all other prototypes had failed:
"Aggregat 1" exploded during the combustion test in the army research institute in Kummersdorf, "Aggregat 2"completed two successful starts on Borkum in 1934 and exploded on the third, and in December 1937 "Aggregat 3" had four false starts.
Developer of the rocket is SS-Sturmbannführer (SS No. 185.068) and engineer for mechanics, Wernher von Braun...
...his rockets are assembled by prisoners, for whom a concentration camp was set up at the Peenemünde Army Research Center on the Baltic Sea, where 1,400 prisoners vegetated.
In addition, von Braun "requisitioned" 3,000 so-called "Ostarbeiter" - slave laborers who had been deported from Poland and the Soviet Union.
According to SS files, at least 12,000 forced laborers lost their lives during the construction and testing of the "V2"...:
By using the approximately 3,000 fired projectiles...
... died - mostly in Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands - 8,000 people, mainly among the civilian population...:
To this day, the "V2" is the only weapon in history whose production claimed more victims than its use!
SS-Sturmbannführer von Braun was awarded the "Golden Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords" by the Nazis for his "achievements"...:
After the Nazis lost the war and SS-Sturmbannfuhrer von Braun and his assistants had taken all their material to the USA, the German was allowed to continue his work there...:
In addition, his work for Hitler's "miracle weapons" was swiftly reinterpreted as "scientific research work for space travel" and von Braun himself was "whitewashed" in a rush to become an apolitical rocket researcher.
Both the Germans and the Americans, but above all the former SS officer von Braun, can live with the legend!
German archives are being purged - probably by the Americans - of everything that could give clues to von Braun's SS past.
To date, only one photo has surfaced that shows the Nazi engineer in the black uniform of a mass murderer - it was taken in April 1943 during a visit by SS chief Heinrich Himmler to Peenemünde.
Von Braun - at that time still Hauptsturmfuhrer - can be seen in a black uniform directly behind Himmler. Next to Himmler is General Walter Dornberger, head of the Army Research Institute...:
The "whitewashed" Von Braun later accepted US citizenship and developed the moon rocket "Saturn V" for the USA...:
The "apolitical rocket scientist" died on June 16, 1977 of his illness in Alexandria, Virginia, of colon cancer. He is probably the only German whose hand was shaken by both Adolf Hitler and John F. Kennedy.
He has never expressed any signs of regret or even remorse...
On June 20, 1944, the first man-made object reaches space!
It is the so-called "Aggregat 4", the prototype of a rocket, which was later used by the Nazis as "Vergeltungswaffe 2" ("V2") - mainly to shell the British capital London...:
Launched on June 20, 1944, the rocket reaches an altitude of exactly 174.6 km, thereby overcoming the limit to the cosmos, which scientists have generally set at 100 kilometers altitude.
Before that, all other prototypes had failed:
"Aggregat 1" exploded during the combustion test in the army research institute in Kummersdorf, "Aggregat 2"completed two successful starts on Borkum in 1934 and exploded on the third, and in December 1937 "Aggregat 3" had four false starts.
Developer of the rocket is SS-Sturmbannführer (SS No. 185.068) and engineer for mechanics, Wernher von Braun...
...his rockets are assembled by prisoners, for whom a concentration camp was set up at the Peenemünde Army Research Center on the Baltic Sea, where 1,400 prisoners vegetated.
In addition, von Braun "requisitioned" 3,000 so-called "Ostarbeiter" - slave laborers who had been deported from Poland and the Soviet Union.
According to SS files, at least 12,000 forced laborers lost their lives during the construction and testing of the "V2"...:
By using the approximately 3,000 fired projectiles...
... died - mostly in Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands - 8,000 people, mainly among the civilian population...:
To this day, the "V2" is the only weapon in history whose production claimed more victims than its use!
SS-Sturmbannführer von Braun was awarded the "Golden Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords" by the Nazis for his "achievements"...:
After the Nazis lost the war and SS-Sturmbannfuhrer von Braun and his assistants had taken all their material to the USA, the German was allowed to continue his work there...:
In addition, his work for Hitler's "miracle weapons" was swiftly reinterpreted as "scientific research work for space travel" and von Braun himself was "whitewashed" in a rush to become an apolitical rocket researcher.
Both the Germans and the Americans, but above all the former SS officer von Braun, can live with the legend!
German archives are being purged - probably by the Americans - of everything that could give clues to von Braun's SS past.
To date, only one photo has surfaced that shows the Nazi engineer in the black uniform of a mass murderer - it was taken in April 1943 during a visit by SS chief Heinrich Himmler to Peenemünde.
Von Braun - at that time still Hauptsturmfuhrer - can be seen in a black uniform directly behind Himmler. Next to Himmler is General Walter Dornberger, head of the Army Research Institute...:
The "whitewashed" Von Braun later accepted US citizenship and developed the moon rocket "Saturn V" for the USA...:
The "apolitical rocket scientist" died on June 16, 1977 of his illness in Alexandria, Virginia, of colon cancer. He is probably the only German whose hand was shaken by both Adolf Hitler and John F. Kennedy.
He has never expressed any signs of regret or even remorse...
