Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Michael J. Neufeld (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 2007

The first authoritative biography of Wernher von Braun, chief rocket engineer of the Third Reich—creator of the infamous V-2 rocket—who became one of the fathers of the U.S. space program. In this meticulously researched and vividly written life, Michael J. Neufeld gives us a man of profound moral complexities, glorified as a visionary and vilified as a war criminal, a man whose brilliance and charisma were coupled with an enormous and, some would say, blinding ambition.

As one of the leading developers of rocket technology for the German army, von Braun yielded to pressure to join the Nazi Party in 1937 and reluctantly became an SS officer in 1940. During the war, he supervised work on the V-2s, which were assembled by starving slave laborers in a secret underground plant and then fired against London and Antwerp. Thousands of prisoners died—a fact he well knew and kept silent about for as long as possible.

When the Allies overran Germany, von Braun and his team surrendered to the Americans. The U.S. Army immediately recognized his skills and brought him and his colleagues to America to work on the development of guided missiles, in a covert operation that became known as Project Paperclip. He helped launch the first American satellite in 1958 and headed NASA’s launch-vehicle development for the Apollo Moon landing.

Handsome and likable, von Braun dedicated himself to selling the American public on interplanetary travel and became a household name in the 1950s, appearing on Disney TV shows and writing for popular magazines. But he never fully escaped his past, and in later years he faced increasing questions as his wartime actions slowly came to light.

Based on new sources, Von Braun is a brilliantly nuanced portrait of a man caught between morality and progress, between his dreams of the heavens and the earthbound realities of his life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Neufeld, chair of the Space History Division at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, offers what is likely to be the definitive biography of Wernher von Braun (1912–1977), the man behind both Nazi Germany's V-1 and V-2 rockets and America's postwar rocket program. Spearheading America's first satellite launch in 1958, which brought the U.S. up to par with the Soviet Union in space, von Braun was celebrated on the covers of Time and Life. Neufeld has a deep understanding of the technical and human challenges von Braun faced in leading the U.S. space program and lucidly explains his role in navigating the personal and public politics, management challenges and engineering problems that had to be solved before landing men on the moon. Neufield doesn't discount von Braun's past as an SS member and Nazi scientist (which was downplayed by NASA), but concludes nonjudgmentally that von Braun's lifelong obsession with becoming the Columbus of space, not Nazi sympathies, led him to his Faustian bargain to accept resources to build rockets regardless of their source or purpose. A wide range of readers (not only science and space buffs) will find this illuminating and rewarding. 16 pages of photos. (Sept. 26)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* A historian of German rocket technology (The Rocket and the Reich, 1994), Neufeld enters the populated field of von Braun biographies with, it is safe to say, the most comprehensively researched one. Only von Braun's relatives, it seems, have denied their stories to the author, whose documentary synthesis covers the qualities that vaulted von Braun into technological leadership. Neufeld argues that von Braun's true distinction lay in organizational management. He could spot talent, motivate it with charisma, and persuade national leaders to fund his futuristic visions. That these leaders were initially those of Nazi Germany is the fulcrum of von Braun's life: Neufeld's account and assessment of von Braun's enmeshment in the Nazi system illustrates a progression arriving at party and SS membership, and involvement with forced labor. Letting readers mull the war-criminal question, Neufeld proceeds to the von Braun team's capture and transportation to the U.S. in 1945, von Braun's Christian conversion experience, and his fame in the 1950s and beyond as a space-flight proselytizer. Cautious in tone, Neufeld's judicious portrait of von Braun's outstanding qualities and his moral compromises promises to become a space-history mainstay. Taylor, Gilbert

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (September 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307262928
• ISBN-13: 978-0307262929
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.8 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #97 in Books > History > Military > Weapons & Warfare > Conventional

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Truly Outstanding Biography of a Truly Outstanding Rocketeer, January 18, 2008

By 

Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War (Hardcover)

The career of Wernher von Braun has been a subject of investigation, and not a little controversy, almost from the time that the German rocketeer came to the United States after World War II. There is no question in my mind that "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War" will be recognized as a seminal addition to the literature of space history and biography. In this book Michael J. Neufeld, the chair of the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum and a longtime friend and colleague of mine (so I confess that I am not totally unbiased in my assessment), traces the career of one of the most important rocket developers and champions of space exploration during the period between the 1930s and the 1970s. He went on to a stellar career (pun intended) in rocketry and spaceflight. Neufeld argues that von Braun should be remembered for four major accomplishments:
(1) Developing the world's first ballistic missile, the V-2, for Germany during World War II.
(2) Popularizing space exploration in the U.S. in the 1950s through a succession of articles, speeches, public appearances, and television broadcasts. The most important of these were the famed "Collier's" series of articles and the three Disney TV programs.
(3) Launching the first U.S. satellite to orbit the Earth, Explorer 1, in January 1958, a significant rejoinder to the Sputnik launches of the fall of 1957.
(4) Leading the technical development of the largest successful rocket ever built, the Saturn V launcher that took the Apollo astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s.

Neufeld's core thesis revolves around what he refers to as a "Faustian bargain" for von Braun; he was consumed with exploring space but to enable that goal he spent the majority of his career building sophisticated weapons of destruction. Not until 1960 did he work for NASA, an organization dedicated to the peaceful exploration of space. Previously, military organizations had employed von Braun to build missiles.

This thesis gets to the heart of a longstanding controversy over von Braun's motivations and a belief in his basic opportunism. Because he was willing to build a ballistic missile for Hitler's Germany, with all of connotations that implied in the devastation and terror of World War II, many of his ideals have been questioned and criticized. For some he was a visionary who foresaw the potential of human spaceflight, but for others he was little more than an arms merchant who developed brutal weapons of mass destruction. As Neufeld shows, in what will be viewed as a major benchmark in this historiographical debate, von Braun seems to have been something of both. The subtleties of this analysis are path breaking and will be significant for all interested in exploring seriously the history of spaceflight. This biography will be the starting point for all future investigation of the life and career of this fascinating, perplexing, and complex individual.

46 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive book about Von Braun, October 1, 2007

By 

Tal Inbar (Kadima - Israel) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War (Hardcover)

When I first learn about this book I thought to myself:"What else can be written about Von Braun that I don't know"? After reading everything that was published during the years on the topic, it must be an immense undertaking, to create yet another Von Braun book, but, as I got the book, I saw immediately that this is by no means "another Von Braun book".

There are many revelations, new stories and new interpretations on the deeds of Von Braun, especially in his NASA career. The amount of work and details is just stager ring, and the result is breathtaking. You can almost feel that you are in the meeting rooms at Marshal space flight center at the height of discussions on various Apollo and Saturn alternatives.

This book is with no doubt the best book ever to be published on the life and work of Wherner Von Braun, and will serve the space historians community as the definitive source for years to come.

The author does not make Von Braun any discounts, and when he has criticism on him or on his decisions at NASA (and of course on the WW2 period) we get to see a balanced account of the events.

A must have book and important addition to the history of spaceflight, on this jubilee year of the Sputnik launch.

Tal Inbar
Head
Space Research Center
Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Faustian Bargain, December 7, 2007

By 

Joel M. Kauffman (Berwyn, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War (Hardcover)

A mob followed Dr. Wernher von Braun into the armored test chamber of the M. I. T. Rocket Research Society some time in 1962. We shook hands, and he picked up a static test rocket motor we had made for liquid propellants with an innovative plug nozzle. He said, having missed the words "static test": "You got to get some of ze meat off here, here and here!", pointing. He was one of those rare people with an aura that just radiated -- highly charismatic in manner. Then I understood how engineers and others could work for him in the foul conditions at Peenemünde that prevailed after the bombing of 17 Aug 43 (p153). And at Nordhausen.

Anyhow, the RRS visit was followed by a talk on Saturn booster development in M. I. T.'s Kresge Auditorium, which would have impressed any U. S. congresspeople who saw it. But neither author Neufeld nor I have any illusions about the V-2 program. As was quoted several times from Mort Sahl imitating von Braun: "Ve shoot for ze moon, but zometimes ve hit London." So Neufeld does not indulge in hero worship.

Neufeld's exhaustive research, backed up by 120 pages of notes, uses letters sent by von Braun, other letters, interviews with relatives, and any other imaginable sources, has helped produce what must be the definitive biography of von Braun. Good index. Two groups of black & white photos are provided. And it is a biography, contrary to another Amazon reviewer, who called this book a history of rocketry, which it certainly is not. The author stated he was able to read German, which surely helped.

So von Braun's ancestors, schooling, early work in the German Society for Space Travel, movement to work for the Wehrmacht before Hitler was in power, and remaining afterwards is all there. Coerced membership in the Nazi Party and the SS was duly noted. Von Braun's brilliant escape to the US Army is given in great detail, then his debriefing, slow years near White Sands, NM, then productive years at what became the Marshall Space Flight Center, Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, AL, which I have toured, then 2 years with NASA HQ near DC, and finally some years with Fairchild Aircraft are all there.

Von Braun was a major contributor to the US Army's IRBM Redstone, the version called the Jupiter C which orbited the first US satellite, the Saturn series of boosters, including the V, without which there would not have been an Apollo program and men landing on the moon. Von Braun also helped with the Space Shuttle, and then with some of the first communication satellites. Neufeld is careful to write, many times, that von Braun was not an especially inventive engineer, but had one of the greatest talents ever to manage complex engineering programs, while also being great at public relations. And sticking with government work almost all of his career to carry out his dream of manned space travel.

My only disappointments were some vague technical details of certain rockets, and little effort to explain how fast fuel pumps or how the guidance systems worked.

Very highly recommended.