There is wide agreement that the collaboration between Germans and Jews was essential to the Apollo moon landings and much of the U.S. One thing also united many of the NASA Jews and Germans: a mutual hatred of communism. Army decided it was critical to national security to quietly recruit the German scientists, based on fear that Soviet leader Josef Stalin would develop long-range missiles with atomic warheads first and use them preemptively against the West. Much of the history of the underground factory was held secret from the American public until the 1970s. military authorities did a poor job of investigating the German scientists, he said. Knowledge of those conditions, absent involvement, would not constitute war crimes, said Eli Rosenbaum, the Justice Department’s longtime Nazi hunter. The factory was controlled by the Nazi armaments ministry and the SS paramilitary organization, Neufeld said, but a number of the V-2 engineers at least witnessed the inhumanity that led to the deaths of an estimated 20,000 prisoners. It was staffed by prisoners from the nearby Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, which held French and Belgian Resistance fighters, along with Russians, Poles and other Slavs, according to Smithsonian senior curator Michael Neufeld, a leading author on the German scientists. The story of that collaboration has scarcely, if at all, been written about, space historians say, though much has been written about the German scientists and some about various Jewish scientists. “My dad said NASA was built by Jews, Nazis and hillbillies,” recalled Reuben Slone, the son of NASA engineer Henry Slone, a member of the Cleveland Jewish community. NASA historical records tell the same story. Instead, their parents were laser-focused on the monumental challenge of the lunar mission. The children of both the Germans and the Jews say there was never any talk at home about resentments or bigotry. It was an era when moral judgments took a back seat to a deeply held commitment to the future of space travel and support of national goals.

That the two groups were able to work side by side suggests a level of reconciliation, or at least acceptance, that would seem a near impossibility in today’s fractious social and political climate.Īpollo-era engineers, space historians, the engineers’ children, religious leaders and political analysts say the quiet collaboration was based on intellectual respect, a belief in redemption and a partnership forged for the nation’s benefit. The Nazi regime had been dedicated to the extermination of Jews.

During the Apollo program, which landed Americans on the moon six times between 19, NASA was filled with both Jewish scientists and a large group of Germans who had worked for Hitler before and during World War II. The collaboration between Von Braun and Silverstein was not unique. Abe Silverstein whose pioneering work in liquid hydrogen technology paved the way to today’s success - Wernher von Braun.” 9, 1967, Von Braun sent a photograph of the launch with a handwritten note: “To Dr. When the first Saturn with hydrogen-powered stages was tested on Nov. Their vast personal differences were swept aside. He was certain such a technological leap was necessary for the long lunar journey.Īn observer later recalled the men sizing each other up like “spiders.” Two of the nation’s most important rocket experts were locked in a technical dispute of enormous importance that revolved around a cautious versus bold engineering approach to future space travel. Silverstein had guided research at Lewis in liquid hydrogen, a much more powerful fuel that had never been used in a rocket before.

There, he led development of the alcohol-fueled V-2 missile that bombed London. Von Braun wanted the second and third stages of the mighty Saturn V rocket to be powered by kerosene, a fuel he understood from his days in Germany. Looming before two of America’s top rocket engineers were many critical decisions, including what kind of fuel would be needed to blast off astronauts to the moon. Little more than a decade separated them from the Holocaust. He was NASA’s space flight chief and later became director at NASA’s Lewis Research Center in Cleveland. On the other side was Abraham Silverstein, who had grown up in a poor Jewish family in Indiana.

German space pioneer heinrich paetz