Customer Reviews

The Nazi Rocketeers: Dreams of Space and Crimes of War

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I learned quite a bit about recorded history that I previously knew nothing about prior to reading this book. I think it is a necessary read for both critics and admirers of von Braun and gave the book 3 stars to help balance the statistics.

I count myself as a life long admirer of Werner von Braun and went into engineering because of his inspiring work as well as the many public appearances he made on TV in the 50's when discussing the space program before there was one.

The notes written by the author demonstrate his passion and feelings about the many poor souls who suffered injury or death from the V-2 assembly effort at the terrible work camps and the ultimate delivery of these weapons in England and particularly London. His feelings are clear and the perspective from which he drafted his thoughts on von Braun are very understandable.

From my read of this book the record does give one pause and cause to think about what was done in order to advance early rocket work by von Braun. I believe that the scientists and engineers who worked on the Manhattan Project were against the use of the atomic bomb, but fully supported and applied their talents to make the bomb to help end a war. I also believe that they had some faith in their basic form of government which according to what I have read, General Dornberger and von Braun did not.

For what my opinion is worth it does appear that von Braun certainly compromised his values to help make his rocket dream a reality. I think the book provides both sides of the story by accurately documenting history, at least as it was recorded. We will never know exactly what happened or what von Braun's thoughts were.

The record shows that von Braun was a brilliant engineer, manager, and spokesmen for all forms of rocket research in both Germany and the United States and was a loyal citizen of his adopted country until his death. While a member of the Nazi party he was jailed for his interest in developing space flight and then released through the efforts of General Dornberger. The record is mixed. The book was still a very valuable read and I would recommend it.

I got this book since the Dora Concentration Camp was liberated by the 3d Armored Division during WWII and my father was in the 3d Armored Division at that time. Even though I learned a lot from the book that I did not know, to me the author was very biased against Wernher von Braun due to his participation in developing the V-1 and V-2 rockets that did so much damage to London.

The way I look at it, Wernher von Braun joined the SS just to keep his dream alive of building rockets to go into space. He was successful in that attempt when he joined NASA where the Saturn rocket was built that took man to the moon. There is nothing in the book that I could find that definitely states that von Braun even went to the concentration camps though he did go to the factory in the mountain where the rockets were built and could see first-hand the conditions under which the prisoners worked.

The one thing about this book is that the whole chronology of the Nazi rocket program is laid out from beginning to end so you are not looking backwards to find something that happened at one space in time. That makes it a lot easier to find out how the Nazi rocket program developed over time up to the end of WWII. What is not played out is the further development of the rocket program after the scientists came to the United States where they proceeded to be the forefathers of the United States journey into space.

What is not brought out in detail is the way the United States used the Nazi rocket scientists to further develop the rockets that put man on the moon, satellites in orbit that we now depend on for everything from television, communications, weather forecasting, etc. And, let us not forget the satellites that have gone to the various planets in our solar system and beyond to learn more about this rock in space we live on. I would like to see a book devoted to the Nazi rockets scientists who more then likely were the developers of this technology.

And,I wold like to see a more unbiased biography of Wernher von Braun come out that pertains to the contribution he made to the United States rocket program.

Piszkiewicz does a good job with getting the historical documentation down but fails miserably when he outs his obvious anti-Von braun spin to them. He constantly speculates without facts about Von Braun's thoughts, beliefs and motives, always casting them in a negative manner. He goes into detail about Himmler's attempts to eliminate Von Braun and the danger that posed and still castigates Von Braun for not acting to help the Dora workers. He dedicates the book to the V2 and Dora victims which seems to be why he wrote this revisionist tale. It is his way to find someone to blame and Von Braun seems to be as good as target as any for the author to attack. He admits the V2 was not an effective weapon yet he ignores the huge drain on resources that it had on the German war machine. This drain was praised by Winston Churchill for keeping more planes and guns off the field of battle, saving lives. He also twists quotes and facts out of context, a sin for a historian. This book is not about history so much as it is an attempt to discredit Von Braun. No documentation or factual evidence is ever presented to show Von Braun could have done anything to help the Dora workers. Von Braun was not a saint but neither was he a war criminal.

I thought the book covers a lot on the effort of the Nazi's to build a new weapon to win the war, but obviously it cannot cover every little fact in the story about the team that build the V-2's. It was very interestingly how the SS finely took charge of the V-2 program in the end. The book is worth the time to read. I thought it was very interesting reading.

This is not a well written nor deeply research history of the Nazi rocket program. The main fault is the instrusion by the author and the constant judgemental editorial commentary. Research level is poor and rarely are primary source materials utilized as in actual primary source documents. This book relies far too often on memoirs of Von Braun and others involved. There is almost no scientific or engineering information in the book documenting the actual physics, engineering, design, and electronics of the rocket program. I bought this book thinking to do supplemental reading to add to reading Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. This book is a complete waste of money for serious history readers. There is a wealth of material available in major libraries like the Library of Congress, NASA, and various German libraries.

Misses the imprisonment for high treason on march 15th 1943, og Rieder VB and Dr Grottning. This was for saying in public that germany was losing the war and that they were more interested in building spaceships than weapons of war. Also the A4 was not a cost effective weapon. If the efforts had been put into fighter planes WWII would have dragged on alot longer. One ton of HE for the industrial cost of 6 jet fighters was probably the biggest sabotage of the nazi effort ever made. All it did was benifit spaceflight and science. Unbalanced. No historical perspective sensationalist trash.

Operation Paperclip allowed top Nazi scientist and engineers who were clearly involved in death camp "use of labor" and members of the Nazi party to immigrate to the US. At the time the US State Department opposed and strongly disapproved of the policy but eventually these "spaceflight scientists and Engineers" where relocated and made US Citizens by the assistance of Operation Paperclip and the US military-industrial complex (on the pretext of the Cold War). These Scientists and Engineers conveniently expounded the propaganda that they where members of the Nazi party strictly to facilitate their spaceflight dream. A Faustian pact if you ever saw one. One of the most prominent members of this group if not the most prominent member was Werner Von Braun. Von Braun co-operated with the SS in the infamous Dora cave complex. Von Braun immigrated to the US with offers of full US Citizenship by the US military-industrial complex. These so-called V-2 scientist and engineers exploited death camp inmates with the full knowledge that these inmates will possibly die in the Dora V-2 cave complex. What, to advance the course of spaceflight, rubbish! Most inmates did die horrible deaths at the hands of the SS camp guards. If anyone douts this I challenge you to research post-war Paperclip documents and Nuremberg war crimes documents. If we are to uphold our Democracy and maintain a Democratic society with morality and human decency, I think it is important that we look at books like "The Nazi Racketeers: Dreams of Space and Crimes of War" and start making questions. To maintain a true Democracy requires very hard constant work and vigilance.

(A numerical rating, as above, is required by the new Amazon format. It is offensive to this reviewer and explicitly disavowed.)

Author Piszkiewicz recounts the whole history of German rocketry, from its beginnings through the rocketeers' pact with the Devil, and on to their historical rehabilitation at the hands of the Americans who wanted their expertise.

Piszkiewicz sets the record straight, reminding us that Wernher von Braun, for instance, was a Sturmbannfuhrer (Major) in the SS who went to Buchenwald personally to select slave laborers to staff his V-2 missile plants.

Very interesting reading for students of the origins of the Space Age, military history buffs, and others who would understand the practical applications of realpolitik.