lennartsmit
New member
The reason I start this thread because I'd like to know your opinion about von Braun. The problem I got with this man is because a family-member (husband of the sister of my grandma) of me has spent time in camp Dora in WW 2. Everytime I see a reference to von Braun as a hero of science I must think of the horrors my great/uncle must have faced there. I´ll give a bit of info about camp Dora.
Camp Mittelbau-Dora was a concentration-camp in the center of Germany. Most of you will know it from the place the V-2's were built. The factory in Mittelwerk used forced laborers from Dora and Mittelbau to built V-2's in an expansive tunnel-network. The tunnels were dark and workers often never saw the sun back once they entered. The unofficial motto of the camp was;''Enter via the tunnels, exit via the chimneys.''
This is a quote from Wikipedia about the conditions in Dora
My great-uncle got sent there after he was captured trying to flee to Switzerland. He fled because he was called up for hard labor by the German occupants of the Netherlands.
At the end of WW 2 von Braun surrendered to the Americans after which he was shipped to the US to work for the US army at the White Sands missile range.
There he helped testing V-2's and eventually he helped with the Apollo program.
Now, I also see the significance of this last part but still. Although he claimed he did not know anything about the horrors there are reports of members of the French resistance in 1995 that he personally ordered hangings.
My ultimate question is this:''Can his scientific career in the U.S. cleanse his actions for the Third Reich?
P.S. Please, only adult responses.
P.P.S. My great-uncle was freed from the camp after the Germans abandoned it when the Allied forces got too close in 1945. He passed away in 2007.
Camp Mittelbau-Dora was a concentration-camp in the center of Germany. Most of you will know it from the place the V-2's were built. The factory in Mittelwerk used forced laborers from Dora and Mittelbau to built V-2's in an expansive tunnel-network. The tunnels were dark and workers often never saw the sun back once they entered. The unofficial motto of the camp was;''Enter via the tunnels, exit via the chimneys.''
This is a quote from Wikipedia about the conditions in Dora
Although most of the prisoners were men, a few women were held in the Dora Mittelbau camp and in the Groß Werther subcamp. Only one woman guard is now known to have served in Dora, Lagerführerin Erna Petermann. Regardless of sex, all prisoners were treated with extreme cruelty, which caused illness, injuries and deaths. Examples of the cruelty routinely inflicted on prisoners include: severe beatings that could permanently disable and/or disfigure the victims, deliberate and life-threatening starvation, physical and mental torture as well as summary execution under the smallest pretext.
My great-uncle got sent there after he was captured trying to flee to Switzerland. He fled because he was called up for hard labor by the German occupants of the Netherlands.
At the end of WW 2 von Braun surrendered to the Americans after which he was shipped to the US to work for the US army at the White Sands missile range.
There he helped testing V-2's and eventually he helped with the Apollo program.
Now, I also see the significance of this last part but still. Although he claimed he did not know anything about the horrors there are reports of members of the French resistance in 1995 that he personally ordered hangings.
My ultimate question is this:''Can his scientific career in the U.S. cleanse his actions for the Third Reich?
P.S. Please, only adult responses.
P.P.S. My great-uncle was freed from the camp after the Germans abandoned it when the Allied forces got too close in 1945. He passed away in 2007.