14. The Visionary Who Took Humanity to Space and Killed Thousands of Slave Workers
It is hard to tell whether, on balance, Wernher von Braun (1912 – 1977) was good or evil. On the one hand, he was a visionary genius and a brilliant engineering manager who is rightly credited as the father of America’s space program. We went to the Moon, in large part, thanks to him. If the day ever comes when humans set foot on Mars and colonize the Red Planet, it will also be thanks to von Braun in large part. Humanity owes him a huge debt for his contributions to the space sciences.
On the other hand, the man was a war criminal. He was responsible for the deaths of thousands of slave workers who perished while toiling on his rockets in atrocious conditions, of which he was fully aware. During World War II, von Braun was an SS Sturmbanfuhrer – equivalent to an American Major – who developed and oversaw the manufacture of the V-2 rockets, the world’s first ballistic missiles. His rockets, carrying a one-ton explosive warhead, rained down terror and killed thousands, most of them civilians, in London, Antwerp, and other cities.
