[WalterBright]

Have you ever found a refutation of von Braun being arrested by the Gestapo and scheduled to be executed?

I don't know why arresting von Braun would be nazi propaganda - it paints the nazis as rather stupid.

BTW, I read the book because of the technical details, which were quite interesting to me.

Google "was von braun arrested by the nazis" and you'll see essentially the same thing I posted.

Confirmation of the same by "An Interview with Michael Neufeld, PhD, of the National Air and Space Museum": https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/wernher-von-b...

[Teever]

No, the arrest most certainly happened, it's corroborated from enough sources that this isn't in question, though from what I can tell the arrest report no longer exist, but there are contemporaneous notes made by Alfred Jodl. Additionally from a cursory search there are conflicting reasons given for the arrest including what you've mentioned and even communist accusations.

When I said "Nazi" earlier I should have been more precise, I was referring to von Braun, Dornberger, and his ghostwriter as "Nazis" even though AFAICT von Braun was the only actual card carrying Nazi of the bunch.

With that said, the problems with this source remains. The ghostwriter has a financial conflict of interest with the subject which would bias him to make as flattering of a portrayal of the subject, and the people involved are all intrinsically untrustworthy because well... look at the bunch... a Nazi propagandist, a Major General from the Wehrmacht, and an actual Nazi.

Look at the circumstances around this, you have the Nuremberg trials having only recently taken place which saw a bunch of dudes these guys personally knew publically shamed and hanged, These guys themselves were directly targeting civilians with these weapons, It's the middle of the McCarthy Era -- There's no way these guys could tell anything remotely close to an objective truth.

Everything they're going to say in this context is to save their skin. They're gonna write "Oh yeah, arrested by those evil Nazis for being too peaceful and science-minded" not something more realistic like "von Braun made a deal with the devil that was an absolutely psychotic and dysfunctional authoritarian regime and the deal almost blew up but that von Braun is so damn lucky he must have a horseshoe up his ass."

An adjacent topic that I've wondered about for years is his come to Jesus stuff after the war. It's plausible that he had a serious reckoning with his world view from his experiences during the war but it also seems just a little bit too convenient, you know?

[WalterBright]

Yes, von Braun was a card-carrying Nazi. But something to consider. Professors could not get their research papers published unless they were card-carrying Nazis. Von Braun could not have headed up the rocket program unless he was a card-carrying Nazi. Did he make a deal with the devil? Yes.

He was also arrested by the Gestapo and threatened with execution if he was not more diligent in his efforts to develop the V2 missile.

I don't think it is implausible that he was less than enthusiastic about nazism. And once he was in the rocket program, there was no way out for him.

[Teever]

It is well documented that von Braun had contempt for the Nazis, the problem is that he didn't have enough contempt for them to not work for them and leave Germany when he had the chance.

Taking the position that it is acceptable to use slave labour to save your life from the authoritarians that you volunteered to work for during war is only a hop, skip and a jump away from saying that it is acceptable to use slave labour to save your life from the people attacking you during war.

This is but one of the moral hazards of the kinds of activities that von Braun wilfully participating in.

In a different world where the United States and Britain more closely followed the moral ideals that they profess as cornerstones of their nations von Braun and other Nazis would have been tried and executed for their actions. Or in the very least coerced to work for them in sparse cell in a remote location for the rest of his days.

The rehabilitation of von Braun and his admittance into American society is a great stain on the ethos of the nation.