Von Braun's Insulting Use of the Word "Holocaust" (1950)

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2900

There's a very subdued and whitewashed biography of Wernher von Braun sleeping in a few pages of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society¹, published in March 1950, when war wounds were still wounds, and the dead still of course dead.

Probably one of the worst examples here of gliding through history is the mention that “some 4,450 men and women were employed at Peenemunde...”. It is unclear who the author is referring to, or if he is at all making reference to the more than 20,000 concentration camp inmates and others who were slave labor and forced to work on the rocket projects, living an dying in abject squalor. It has been established that von Braun knew of the conditions and knew of these workers, but later after capture he insisted that he did not know of the KL or of the Holocaust. It is bitterly bad that a quote from him is used in this biographical minute that actually employs the word “holocaust”, though he uses it referring to the combat between two opposed forces with the same “star-inspired ideas”, and not to The Holocaust. It is also a matter of record that well into life that the conservative right-wing German nationalist von Braun had nothing to say about the Holocaust, and would not add anything to what he already hadn't said much about. He was at least comfortable with the Nazis if not a Nazi himself, and was comfortable with the deals he made with Hitler, even in spite of being arrested by the Gestpo late in the war.

By choosing to not address the Holocaust, and by using the term "holocaust" to describe diametrically opposed political struggles between scientific communities is a gross violation of decency. That blatantly chooses to lessen the impact of the meaning of "Holocaust" to use in a relatively trivial way is obscene. And yet, there it is.

In any event I've included the two-page bio, bellow.

Also in this issue of the journal there is a great review of a German film on rocket development and the history of rocketry that spreads out over 8pp and which was evidently released sometime during WWII. The film is reviewed by members of the Society, and the comments on it are incisive and useful. It would be great to see the film, though to know that it exists is a step forward. Of a side interest to interplanetary flight is a short reference to "Spaceship I" (pictured below)--it is all very intriguing, though outside of two images of models for the proposed dirigible-like behemoth almost no other information is presented.

Notes:

1. London, 1950. (von Braun, Wernher) "A Biography." In: Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, March, vol 2 #9, pp 57-8 in the issue of pp 49-92.