The 20th century as seen by some, was perhaps the most murderous and evil century thus far in history. Unfortunately the beginning of the 21st century is not starting off any better. Out of the 20th century period came the horrors of murder and torture on an assembly line scale in concentration camps and nuclear war delivered by long range intercontinental rockets. The rockets that we use today for warfare, nuclear threats and the space program had their birth in part at least from the Nazi rocket program at Peenemunde and Mittlewerk. It is true the Goddard was the father of American rocketry, but it took the advances made in the V-1 and V-2 rockets under Warnher von Braun within Nazi domination. After the Nazi defeat in WWII, the knowledge gained was spirited to the US under the CIA's Operation Paperclip via the Vatican “Rat-line” that gave the US space program and war department its shot in the arm. The same was true for the Soviet Space program, but the Soviets managed only to obtain a handful of lesser scientists. Both got advances from the Nazis. The Soviets in their drive under Stalin, managed to develop from lesser talents, the first successful launches into space, including manned flight, the first spacewalk and the first orbiting space station Salyut (1971). The US, despite their appropriated greater rocket science talent resources had fast catching up to do from Oct. 4th, 1957 on and finally by 1969, placed the first man on the moon. There is some speculation that the USSR was ready at the same time, but due to problems on the launch pad, failed to make their bid to the moon. They gave that up, turning to planetary probes instead.

There is another sinister side to the rocket program that sent man to the moon and helped to ultimately build the International Space Station (I.S.S.). The “ideal” was set in Peenemüende-Mittelwerk where enslaved Jews and others like Poles and Russians were not paid, fed or clothed and were worked around the clock at gunpoint until they dropped dead of exhaustion at the work site. To set the incentive, several public hangings took place every day. The starved to death slaves were removed and more took their place, supplied from concentration camps like Dora close by and Berger-Belsen where actual signed documents by Warnher von Braun surfaced after the war. This is how the V-1 and V-2 rockets were developed that rained terror upon Britain and eventually took the US to the moon on their successors, the Saturn 5. Even the Proton Soviet rocket science advanced on Peenemüende-Mittelwerk. Parallel with this were developments in the rest of Nazi occupied Europe offering other technologies.

“Mass production of the V-2 took place at an underground factory known as Mittelwerk, an offshoot of the notorious Dora concentration camp. Slave laborers brought from as far away as Auschwitz toiled in the dank, freezing tunnels and workshops under the brutal direction of the SS. Thousands of these laborers, Jews, political dissidents, prisoners of war, and others died from disease, starvation and abuse at Mittelwerk. Others were executed, often publicly, as suspected saboteurs. While the details about his activities in the Nazi Party are vague, it is known that von Braun became a member in 1937, and held an honorary rank in the SS.

Established in the summer of 1945, a top-secret project known as Operation Overcast called for the capture of von Braun and hundreds of his colleagues from Peenemünde and elsewhere for purposes of "temporary military exploitation." Of the 350 German scientists mentioned by name in the order, 100 were the so-called "rocket-men," whose pioneering work had resulted in the development and deployment of the V-2. Along with the scientists and technicians themselves, components for 100 of the V-2s were shipped to the United States.

Von Braun, who died in 1977 (from old age and natural causes), would eventually become a hero to many for enabling the United States to beat Russia to put a man on the moon. But his legacy includes the production of V-2 rockets with the help of Russian, French and Polish prisoners of war working under deplorable conditions, Neufeld said. About 10,000 of the prisoners died of malnutrition and disease.…



