Light On Dark Water

Oops

From Smithsonian magazine:

In 1960, Columbia Pictures released a movie about NASA rocket scientist Wernher von Braun called I Aim at the Stars. Comedian Mort Sahl suggested a subtitle: But Sometimes I Hit London.

I posted that only because it made me laugh, but it got me to thinking: I grew up near Huntsville, Alabama, home of the Marshall Space Flight Center of which von Braun was the director.  (Everyone pronounced his name vahn brahn, rather than what I think would have been the correct fone brown. ) I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning any concern about his being an ex-Nazi; he was our local celebrity, and as far as I ever knew was respected and admired.  At the time this didn’t seem the least bit strange to me. I realized, as a teenager, that he was a former enemy, but that was all extremely ancient history to me and there seemed nothing strange about people having put it all behind them. But now the 10-to-15 years that had elapsed between the end of the war and von Braun’s public prominence as the face of U.S. space flight works strikes me as a very short period of time, and it seems slightly odd that his past would have been overlooked so lightly.

Maclin Horton

8 responses to “Oops”

  1. Janet

    I saw that movie when I was a teenager and I remember wondering at the time how a person who was responsible for so much destruction in England was given such a sensitive position so soon after the war. And it wasn’t just Von Braun, there were a whole group of ex-Nazi scientists that came over. Still, they didn’t betray the US in any way.
    AMDG

    Reply
  2. Mac

    Toward the end of college I had a big romance with the daughter of one of them. I didn’t give the implications much thought. This post made me think of it and I looked at a list of those scientists–and there was his name. I don’t recall that I ever met him. If I did it was very brief.

    Reply
  3. Mac

    I mean, I didn’t give the fact itself much thought. Little to none.

    Reply
  4. francesca

    Exactly the same for me. It came as a slow surprise in the late 1990s to realize that WWII ended ‘just’ 15 years before 1960.

    Reply
  5. Jesse Canterbury

    That quote is hilarious! Of course in that very darkly hilarious way…
    Von Braun et al. were way beyond US scientists at that time in their knowledge of rocket science, guidance, and so forth, so I’m sure it was deemed highly important to use their knowledge if at all possible. Also, it’s sometimes difficult to tell with people like that whether they chose to stay in Germany during that period, whether they were forced to work on certain things, or what.

    Reply
  6. Mac

    If Wikipedia is to be believed, he was a very willing participant. Sounds like he may have had a genuine change of heart, though. Let’s hope so.

    Reply
  7. Marianne

    I remember being very much aware of von Braun’s history when I was in college in the 1960s and wondering how in the heck he’d been so easily accepted in the U.S.
    Tom Lehrer even sang about him:
    Gather round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun
    A man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience
    Call him a Nazi, he won’t even frown
    “Ha, Nazi schmazi,” says Wernher von Braun
    Don’t say that he’s hypocritical
    Say rather that he’s apolitical
    “Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down
    That’s not my department,” says Wernher von Braun
    Some have harsh words for this man of renown
    But some think our attitude should be one of gratitude
    Like the widows and cripples in old London town
    Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun
    You too may be a big hero
    Once you’ve learned to count backwards to zero
    “In German oder English I know how to count down
    Und I’m learning Chinese,” says Wernher von Braun
    He was very good looking, though, so maybe part of what “rehabilitated” him so quickly was that very fact!

    Reply
  8. Mac

    Ha. Lehrer was brilliant sometimes. And of course there’s Dr. Strangelove. There’s no particular resemblance in the character but surely he was suggested by von B and others.

    Reply

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