NASA's Nazi Memorials - Honouring War Criminals 2024 

I remember hearing in the 60's concerning the space program that our Nazis were better than the USSR;s Nazis.

Rule no.1 of the Geneva convention: Its only a war crime if you lose

Twenty years ago I had a German girlfriend who came from Nordhausen, the town directly next to Mittelbau Dora. I visited her parents for Christmas with her that year and her father, a lovely man, knowing I was interested in the history of WWII, took me to the Mittelbau Dora site. He told me that at the war’s end, the Russians took the lower ranking technician staff while the Americans took the top engineers, men like Von Braun. He quoted Von Braun as saying ‘At the war’s end, we knew we’d have to work for someone. We didn’t want to work for the Russians and the British couldn’t afford us, so we went to work for the Americans!’

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ~ Orwell

“Von Braun aimed for the stars…and hit London.”

I grew up in Huntsville from the beginning of the space program. My father was in charge of the gyroscope program for Mercury, Gemini,and Apollo. He worked on The Arsenal. One day in fifth grade our teacher Mrs. Jackson led a discussion on great Americans and included Von Braun. I raised my hand and said he was German, not an American, and questioned whether he was a war criminal. All shiz hit the fan at that moment, and a very stern letter was sent home to my parents. To his credit, and despite the fact that the space program put a roof over our heads and food on our table, my father wrote a longer letter back defending my opinion.

What is really sad is the way that the " other " father of American rocketry, Robert Goddard, has been my marginalized and ignored by mainstream history. Then there is Willi Ley , the great forgotten rocket scientist and engineer who fled Germany in 1933. He too has been airbrushed aside by the mainstream media, and is almost unknown today

My grandfather was the Chief Propulsion Engine Inspector of the V-2 rocket programme, and the senior Luftwaffe officer involved in its operation. He was the man that personally fired the first man-made rocket into outer space. He was recruited to North America following the war. This video is correct that the programme was under overall command by the SS, and they were responsible for the slave labour camps and production; but the technical design, engineering and operational use were conducted by the Luftwaffe. My grandfather hated Hans Kammler and the SS, yet ironically Kammler saved his life when their bunker at La Coupole was bombed by RAF Tallboys in 1944. I have attempted to access historical records held by the USA, the UK and DE of my grandfather's interrogation and cooperation with the Allies, as well as his service records -- but they are still classified under 100 year protective seal until 2045.

I would be satisfied if the memorials were given contextual plaques. We don't need to cover up our history, we need to deepen our understanding of it.

A friend,former TV News presenter and reporter told me of his meeting with Werner at a NASA party in the late 1960s. Werner was telling him about working on satellite communications, primarily for spacecraft relay transceivers. He said that within a decade or so the public would have transceivers the size of a pack of cigarettes. Two men in shiny shoes hustled him away while another told my friend to take no notice,Werner was lost in science fiction fantasies. My friend lived long enough to see the cell phone and have an FB page.

What about doctor Shiro Ishii. He was basically the Japanese Mengele and retired in Maryland on a US government pension.

History is always rewritten by the winners. Some things are best forgotten while others should remain in our memory forever. I do agree that a notation should be put after his accomplishments that he was also tied in with the Nazis during World War II. I have been aware of project paperclip for a while and put two and two together rather quickly that these brilliant scientists were coerced / convinced ( call it what you will ) to come to America to work for the Americans after being coerced to work for the Germans during the war. I appreciate your view on how this issue was handled and understand how you being a British citizen could make you a little angry how these people managed to escape Prosecution after the war. As usual, your videos are educational in the history of the second world war. Keep up the good work, Mike from Montreal.

I meet Von Braun as a child and had lunch with him and my uncle at Huntsville. Von Braun ate two large cheese burgers that day and loved American fast food. Von Braun was a cheerful smiling man and often had a quirk of in the middle of a conversation sort of to look off to the side and kind of talk to himself to resolve a question. My uncle told me after lunch that despite being a likeable guy never forget that he was a dangerous man as was not completely reformed. As an adult looking back what troubles me most is how a smart likeable guy like Von Braun could live in his own world and not really care who he worked for as long as he got "to play" doing what he loved.

Such are the politics of reality. History and geopolitics are never clean.

My father-in-law, PFC John H. Atsatt of River Edge, NJ. was a soldier in the U.S. 104th Infantry Division, the Timberwolves. They were among the liberators of Dora-Mittelbau, where they found 3,000 corpses and 750 barely alive survivors. John was no stranger to the horrors of war; he was one of a group of 350 men from the 81st Engineer Combat Battalion, of the U.S. 106th Infantry Division, and the 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, who served under the command of Lt. Col. Thomas Riggs, who guarded the roads leading into the city of St. Vith, Belgium, which was the central point of the surprise German attack that began on Saturday, December 16, 1944, and is known as the Battle of the Bulge. This December will mark the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Bulge. The young men serving under Lt. Col. Riggs -- John had turned 20 on December 2 -- held off the Fifth Panzer Army for a crucial five days, helping to doom Hitler's timetable for penetrating American lines quickly and reaching Antwerp. They were later recognized with a Distinguished Unit Citation. The 106th, the Golden Lions, distinguished themselves during their first combat experience. But the division was badly damaged, losing two regiments on December 19, when they were forced to surrender after fighting fiercely for three days until they were out of ammunition, medical supplies, food, and water. The division was so decimated that in 1946 The Saturday Evening Post would respectfully call their fate a "glorious collapse." So John found himself becoming a replacement in the 104th Division, which fought through the maelstrom of fire that was the Battle of Cologne, for example. They had seen lots of death and destruction, but the gruesome sights at Dora-Mittelbau tore them apart. John recalled to his wife that there was one large-framed GI he knew who was the very picture of a warrior. (He even carved notches in the butt of his rifle to count the Germans he killed.) But after about a half-hour's tour of the human carnage at the slave-labor camp, the tough guy just dropped down in a dead faint. Their command ordered the GIs to enter the nearby city of Nordhausen and bring the able-bodied citizens to the camp, by bayonet point if necessary, to dig trenches to bury the hundreds of dead. I don't know if John was one of the soldiers ordered into Nordhausen, but if he was, he would have carried out the duty in a black fury. John never forgot the atrocities he witnessed at Dora-Mittelbau. Knowing that the country he and others served so nobly felt it had to recruit the Nazi slavemasters responsible for tens of thousands of murders to build its space program, which Dr. Felton's documentary fills with one of his most compelling narratives, must have made them bitter. Or maybe it didn't; the Cold War was a desperate struggle for technological dominance, and whoever used the former Nazi scientists the most successfully would win. What a choice. John didn't live to see men land on the Moon. He died at age 41 in 1966 of lung cancer from a four-pack-daily smoking habit he acquired during the war. If he had survived, he would have turned 100 this December. In 1962, when my wife, Janet, was 5, she was riding with her father as they drove home one of her relatives, who, unfortunately, was an antisemite. During a conversation about the war, this man ventured the disgusting opinion that Hitler hadn't killed enough Jews. John wasn't going to have that kind of talk around his daughter. He immediately pulled off the road and ordered the old man, a Great War veteran, out of the car to make his own way home (30 miles!). God bless forever the incredible men and women who won the Second World War.

You know when you're a history buff , when your stoner friends ask you on 4-20 " guess what day it is" and you reply "Hitler's birthday"

In 1966 Von Braun visited the Antarctic. I was serving a year at New Zealand's Scott Base. We had a visit from him and 3 other NASA engineers. Although I was in the lab, I also was back up dog man (we had a number of husky teams in those days pre greenies) I took him for a run on a dog sledge. I have a letter from him thanking me.

The appallingly gentle treatment of Japanese war criminals was much worse.

Hipocrisy is a human trait

,,The good man say‘s ,Sorry‘ for the mistakes, that he made in the past. The better man corrects them!!‘‘ - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Bob Hope related a joke he told when he was visiting Moscow. The joke told to them was how he wanted to talk with Russia's top rocket scientists - but he couldn't speak German. He said the audience response was a cold quiet silence.

The only lesson here is be invaluable and irreplaceable and you can pretty much get away with anything.

I've said before and it's worth repeating, one of the most shameful actions that the U.S. engaged in, concerning WWII, was Operation Paperclip! They could have gathered the research materials, used them as they wished, mostly free of complicity, but in excusing these criminals, the American political machine became complicit in the crimes of the NAZI, but they are certainly not alone. One other thing that bears mentioning is that von Braun was also motivated by a "science at all cost" attitude, which, I'm sure, helped him sooth his conscience, if he had one, over the horrid treatment of his slave labor force. Thanks again, Dr. Felton, I appreciate your frank and honest report here!

Annie Jacobsen wrote a brilliant book about Operation Paperclip. I first saw her on one of Joe Rogan's Podcast. Kurt Debus and a lot of the Operation Paperclip scientists had academic duelling scars. They would pack them with horse hairs to make them scar more. Dueling scars were popular amongst upper class Germans and Austrians involved in academic fencing at the start of the 20th century and seen as a badge of honour. Annie interviewed the son of a top medical doctor who had 6000 Jews with tuberculosis gassed, and purposely infected many with the plague to test vaccines, and gave the sickest in the camp Malaria by bringing mosquitos to see if they could outcompete typhus lice. He was saved by the Americans in the Doctor trial from the gallows in 1947 to give information about chemical and biological weapons to the US, he them went on to work for MK-Ultra- his name was Kurt Blome.

Dr Strangeloves arm approves

I was a sometimes NASA contractor for nearly 40 years. I met Von Braun several years before his death. It was early in my career, and speaking with him was very interesting and intimidating. I was aware of his NAZI background, but the intimidation factor kept me from asking about it. I also knew and occasionally worked with one of his rocket-propulsion proteges. (No names here) This person fled to Argentina after WW2 because of his propulsion involvement in the development of V1s and V2s (so he inferred). He was keenly aware of the slave labor that was used in NAZI rocket assembly facilities. He stayed in Argentina until 1952 when he was recruited by Huntsville to come and work in the US. In his later years, I asked him about his WW2 work several times, but never ever got an answer. He would always remain silent. He never appeared to resent my questions.

As a historian, you should know very well that history, like the humans who make it, is messy. Musical satirist, Tom Lehrer sang a birthday song for Werner von Braun saying, "Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down - That's not my department" says Werner von Braun. Yes the US got to the moon with the work of murderous war criminals. However, the US also used their work to counter the Soviets and their nuclear missile program. That is pretty important to your home in Great Britain as without US nuclear protection and missile technology from us to develop your own nuclear deterrent, you would have been blown just as high and glowed just as much as us Yanks, at the hands of the Soviets - who would have happily taken the US Nazis scientists and used them to gain overwhelming superiority over both of us. I don't think that these awards need to be maintained without an enormous asterisk and an equal explanation for their reprehensible war crimes, but then, History is Messy!

Dr von Braun's last job was vice-president of Fairchild Industries, an aerospace company in Maryland, whose offices were only 1-mile from where I am now sitting. He died in Alexandria, Virginia and is buried in a prestigious cemetery in that city.

Funny that you uploaded this on Hitler's birthday.

'Countries don't have friends. They have interests'. Kissenger

A very well done and informative documentary. As a boy of 10 and upwards in the 1950's, I was hooked on aviation and space flight. Von Braun, of course, was always in the spotlight and it appeared that he could do (and could never do by extension) anything criminal. He was my hero at the time. Later, more of truth became available and I was able to see his questionable past. Thank you for putting the rest of the pieces of the puzzle together and for publishing the truth.

Mark, I will always remember that during a news conference just before Apollo 11 launched, a reporter asked Von Braun if we could be sure that the Saturn V wouldn't land on London.

I think the sad fact is that great monuments and achievements have always been achieved on the broken backs of labour. The Pantheon and Roman aqueducts weren't built by volunteer boy scouts. Behind all those stately British manors, lies the "Conditions of the Working Class in England" a true horror story by Richard Engels. The life expectancy of a "free labourer" on Guano Island was about three weeks after which they died of horrible lung disease. Whether a plantation owner surveilling his field of slaves or a general who brushes past a soldier who has been standing at attention for six hours, callous indifference is the principle characteristic of the human species. We ought not kid ourselves.

Many years ago I was serving civil process after retiring from the San Antonio Police Dept. In one of my stops, I chanced onto a neighbor of the people I was looking for. He informed me the person did not live at the location any longer. I noticed a German accent, and that was the beginning of a lengthy visit. Being of Irish decent I have no trouble carrying on a conversation. It seemed he worked at Brooks AFB in the space program. He went on to tell me of his wartime experiences. He had been set to leave with his crew on the rocket program there in Germany to another location by air. He had turned up sick that morning and was unable to make the flight. He watched as the Tri Motor plane started to take off. The plane didn't even clear the runway when it crashed killing everyone aboard. I've always found it interesting speaking with men that was on the other side of the Allies. I have always regretted not remember this man's name.

After that first generation of Germans left NASA, the agency lost a lot of its talent.

I always thought Stanley Kubrick was exaggerating in Dr. Strangelove.

There's a few things, where I might give them a pass: -You had to be in the nazi party for anything from having any serious job to even attending a higher school. -Bombing cities was widely accepted by all countries in the war. -However, no pass on slave labor. Especially in leading positions, they could have had influence on their treatement. But my point is, history is not just black & white. Those guys were war criminals and helped progress a lot. It is not a contradiction, but a reality. We should not let our brains be too lazy to work on that. But we need to be honest, and if we honor them for the good stuff, we should not ignore their crimes. So thanks Mr Felton, for keeping things present in our minds.

“If We Had Lost The War, We All Would Have Been Prosecuted As War Criminals” - General Curtis LeMay

So should any one driving a Porsche take it back for a refund then ?

It's one of those" The enemy of my enemy is my friend" situations but it came with a cost.

Dr. Felton, I grew up in Huntsville beginning in 1963 at six years old. You have to remember the absolute shock that the Russians had delivered with Sputnik, which not only beat the U.S. into orbit, but insinuated that the Russians had the capability to create an ICBM. The German scientists’ original mission was to scale up the V2 for the U.S. Army. Adding to the impetus was the call President Kennedy gave to get to the moon “. . .by the end of the decade.” Kennedy’s assassination sealed NASA’s determination to succeed in landing on the moon. A man who was like a father to me was a NASA engineer there “on the Arsenal.” He respected the Germans as engineers but didn’t care for them personally because as expatriates they always spoke of everything being better in Germany. My recollection was that von Braun was respected at the time as the head administrator who was “standing up” a major scientific and engineering organization with the stated mission of accomplishing what had never been done and carried the nation’s honor with it. Huntsville named its civic center after von Braun for his NASA accomplishments and to avoid naming it after some politician. I understand your moral outrage at the honors given to von Braun in today’s political milieu which still correctly detects Nazism but forgets the terror of the Cold War with its real threat of nuclear war. As a teenager I heard that every American city over 100,000 people was targeted by Soviet ICBMs, information which was confirmed when I became an airborne infantry officer with the 101st Airborne in 1979. Finally, my Japanese father was converted to Christianity by my missionary mother in 1947. My father became a Presbyterian minister serving churches around Huntsville. One of the original German scientists who worked with von Braun at Peenemunde, White Sands, and Huntsville played organ in my father’s church. As a young man I used to marvel that a small Presbyterian church in Gurley, Alabama had two men, my father who as a 14 year old survived the night General LeMay’s B-29s started a firestorm in Tokyo and killed more people than at Hiroshima, and another playing organ, who had survived twice being a radioman with German infantry divisions on the Russian front, conducting services as accepted American citizens. They both died and were buried in Huntsville. You have to admit the winds of wars sometimes blow very strange indeed.

You should consider doing a video about Kurt Waldheim, another former Nazi officer who had a very successful career after the war. An Austrian diplomat and politician, he was secretary-general of the UN from 1972 to 1981. Later, despite his Nazi past being well known at that point, he still became president of Austria in 1986.

I'd like to know who wouldn't choose life over death in that situation? You're a brilliant scientist that doesn't want anything to do with the war or genocide, just want to continue your research in your field of study and see an avenue of not only survival but reverence. If the choice is take the job or die, not much of a choice is it? I'm sure if you study your own English history you could find dozens of attrocities to cry about as well. Stop trying to erase history, stop taking down monuments, they are not there to celebrate a particularly dark time in history, but to remind us not to repeat it. It should be remembered that those men brought the impossible into reality, just as it should be remembered the cost of their actions.

Trying to mask his German accent, he ended up sounding suspiciously Jamaican.

I love how RU-vid feels the need to do a disclaimer under the video of an award winning Historian. Give it up Google, Mark is the real deal not like your bots

Great show Mark. I’ve been a space nut since I was a little man. Built and flew Estes model rockets and designed and flew a couple of my own before I turned 12. Loved Werner. Was shocked to find out his background later in life. My dad and I were contractors. We were working in a beautiful mansion home on Youngstowns north side for a very old Jewish couple. Wonderful folks. Every day we would sit down to lunch and eat with them in their kitchen with them. Then they blew my head up and showed me their concentration camp tattoos, and told me and my dad of the horrors of concentration camp life. I’ll never forget them.

Dr. Felton, what would you suggest for the best source on Operation Paperclip? I think my father may have been involved but don't know where to begin looking. Thank you for all you do.

In the 1960s Disney had Von Braun some episodes of the "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" to talk about space flight. He was considered part of the team and one of the "good guys".

“Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down! That’s not my department! Says Wernher Von Braun.”- Tom Lehrer

While stationed at Patrick Air Force Base in the mid-sixties, we lived in “North Wherry housing” on base. Dr. Debus had a large-ish house (larger than the tiny 3 bedroom, one bath, or duplexes for officers) located on the extreme north section on what was known as Riverside Drive. In high school at the time, I knew, we all knew, that he and von Braun were among the German scientists that had come into the country so the US could gain the advantage in the space race. We were really never told of the full extent of the use of slave labor involved, nor of the brutality of that system. But we were young and well, pretty much ignorant of the dreadful system that existed. As an aside, one evening forty plus years ago, at a neighborly get-together, a couple of us thirty something’s were chatting in the presence of an older Polish gentleman (a NASA employee), about the marvels of our space program (early Space Shuttle days then) and the German engineers for who gave us the foundation on which the program was built. We ran our mouths talking about the great planes they made, their great cars, and blah, blah, blah. He sat there in silence listening to our praise of German engineering. Then, without a word, he unbuttoned the left cuff of his shirt, rolled up his sleeve, and there, as clear as the day it was forever tattooed, was THAT number midway up on his inner arm. No explanation was given, nor was it necessary. That was his response to our misdirected praise. I’m old now, but I will never forget that.

In a world of opportunists, you dare to point out just these two? As for evil men who are now honored, make a list, baby - there are hundreds of them.

Mr. Felton, can you study the genocide of the German folk who were murdered in Galacia after WW2. My great grandfather was murdered along with uncles and aunts. Some of my Aunts who survived being raped immigrated to Canada but were unable to have children.

Never thought I'd see the day Mark Felton uses Wolfenstein Imagery as a Thumbnail.

Breaker Morant’s defence attorney summed it up like this: “The fact of the matter is that war changes men's natures. The barbarities of war are seldom committed by abnormal men. The tragedy of war is that these horrors are committed by normal men in abnormal situations. Situations in which the ebb and flow of everyday life have departed and have been replaced by a constant round of fear and anger, blood and death.” The difference is that not only was Breaker Morant tried, convicted and shot, but that his own army did this to him.

Mark you wouldnt believe some of the symbolism on the mission patchs. You have to know what to look for but the Latin phrases always gives it away. Its amazing the stuff put on mission patches. Most of it is from Top Secret stuff but the patches are all online. Its fun to speculate. The easiest way to spot them is there will be 6 stars or 6 birds and 1 of them will be separate from the others. This always means Area51. Its symbology, it takes a while to learn how to read all of it but you csn easily translate the Latin. Might be a good video, definitely a fun rabbit hole. Thanks for all the great content Dr.Mark!!!

Dear Dr. Felton... As an English historian, I hardly have to explain to you that the only way to achieve or advance something in Nazi Germany was to cry with wolves. And how little a personal position could be worth, even at the end of the war, shows how brutally Hitler had his highly decorated brother-in-law Fegelein killed. I certainly don't want to engage in Nazi moor laundering here. Nevertheless, we should imagine ourselves in the reality of the Third Reich. It sometimes helps to pick up books like those by Sebastian Haffner and read them. So from British citizen to British citizen... Von Braun and his boys wanted to reach the moon from the beginning of their careers. And to get closer to this goal, they would have made a pact with the devil, which is where they almost ended up. This should not be ignored when considering. They were obsessed with science...

The Germans credited a yank, Robert Goddard (1882-1945) for his basic rocketry 🚀 research, even securing patents, but the shortsighted u.s. had no interest in Goddard, while the Nazis used and developed their rockets on Goddard’s initial work.

There is a little known fact about Von Braun that I'd like to share. In the late 1920s, before Hitler came to power, Von Braun, Willy Ley and Hermann Oberth consulted in the making of a Fritz Lang film called Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon). They had a great deal to do with a sequence of the film showing a great rocket being prepared for a trip to the moon. The footage of this scene, which uses models, looks remarkably like what Von Braun did in real life for NASA, including the Vertical Assembly Building and the flatbed tractor that moved the rocket to the gantry.

The Soviets were led by a bigger criminal than Hitler and had amongst them some of the worst criminals ever, yet very very rarely this thing got mentioned, since they were "the good ones".

That's cool. When is your video on the USS Liberty set for release?

Mark woke up angry today

I worked for several years of active involvement in the US human space exploration program, having direct participation in the last sixteen STS missions. It was some of the most fulfilling work I've ever done, and this report, some of which I already knew, is indicative of how good can come in the aftermath of evil deeds. Dr. von Braun was always something of an enigma to me. If I had to characterize him, I would say von Braun was a man driven by one thing: his absolute passion for the rocket. Such a passion can be a dangerous thing, and, that passion also led him into the NSDAP and the SS to help advance his own aims, while his masters put his work to dark purposes, to say the least. That was a Devil's Bargain of monstrous proportions. I wonder if he would have achieved such progress in rocketry had there not been a war such as the world had never seen to spur its development. That war still leaves its mark on humanity to this day.

Interesting research, even though I don't see it quite the way you see it. Being an SS officer didn't necessarily mean a war criminal, at least not for everybody. It depended on where they worked, and what orders they had been given. I believe that in general the Operation Paperclip was a great succes for the United States, and for the free world as a whole, for our democracies. Many of these German scientists hadn't been given much of a choice to begin with. In the United States already millions of Germans were living in communities from a time long before the war. The hostilities with the Soviet Union, the new enemy had begun, and Washington just couldn't afford to let these men with their valuable knowledge, slip away. There was an arms race going on, and the U.S. had to be in space before the Russians did. German scientists and engineers were known for their top quality contributions, it was a matter of honour and prestige. And let's be honest, not only the U.S. had this kind of policy. After all, isn't Lord Roberts and many more like him, honoured in the UK and by the Royal Family, although he played a leading role in the Boer War, and it's concentration camps, where the Boer women and children were being held hostage and were starved to death? I don't mean to justify all this, but that is the way how it works in the world. Priorities, that's human nature.

von Braun surrendered to my grandfather’s 114th infantry regiment

In college I had a nuclear science professor who was clearly german and told everyone he was from Argentina. We all thought he was a former nazi.

When Felton drops, I’m here for it!

The fact that Mark Felton does so much reading and research and still believes these guys are the bad ones is beyond shocking I hope these great men will always be honored as them and there forefathers and comrades who died fighting for a great cause will always be

Wernher von Braun was arrested by Nazi regime for expressing his thoughts about the war and his regret working on missiles rather than space program. Himmler brand him having "defeatist" attitude and Gestapo detained him for 2 weeks. Armament minister Albert Speer persuade Hitler to reinstate him to the V2 program and protected from all prosecution as long as he is indispensable according to Speer's memoirs. Also there was an account von Braun was approaching a concentration prisoner about his treatment by SS Guard.. he was asked to move away and SS guard threaten to shoot him.. on hindsight everyone is bad including Winston Churchill.. he was very opposing giving freedom to all British colonies.. we should take down his statues then..!!!

What about Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and all of the engineers, draftsman, factory workers (not the slave laborers)?

This is why History needs to remain both the good and the bad so people can make their own decisions about what happened.

We haven't gone to the moon since those men passed on.

I grew up with many of the children of these Germans .I still live next door to great- grandchildren of these Germans .They do not speak German. I live in the Cape Canaveral area of Florida since early1960's .So many people retire to Florida and Germans who worked in aerospace just stayed here when they retired .My father used to go to estate sales all the time around here .At some of these garage sales he would find old German items with NAZI markings .I still have these items. I went to school with children of these Germans here and in Huntsville,Alabama .I borrowed lederhosen from German neighbors for a school play in Huntsville . Von Braun's house had a paved yard painted green in Huntsville .He didn't have to mow that yard.

My Nephew, who did his degree in astrophysics, applied for a job with NASA. He currently lives in South America, but is a UK citizen. His rejection letter said NASA only employs Americans.

When Space Camp was around, we had frequent seminars about the early US space program and the people who manned the helm. It was the first time I heard the name Werner von Braun, and they didn't hesitate to mention that his first major place of employment was Nazi Germany. All things considered a ballsy move to be factually frank, if only briefly and to a crowd of impressionable children whose primary interest was learning about space ice cream and the Shuttle.

"Once the Rockets are up, who cares where they come down...That´s not my department, says Wehner von Braun"...

Dr. Felton, I won’t defend the abhorrent actions of those men before being captured and given the opportunity to turn their skills into something beneficial to all mankind. Should they continue to be honored for their contributions? Those accomplishments achieved in peacetime ARE laudable, but as men? Hard to reconcile the crimes committed if not impossible….

That flag is actually less offensive than the MTV version.

I just read a book about Werner Von Braun. You are correct in everything you stated. I don’t think he was political; rather, he was the supreme opportunist. He was patriotic to his country. He was singularly focused on space travel. Using rockets for military purposes was a means to an end.

It is well known that acquiring skilled and trained labor is not an easy task. It is also known that in a time when CNC machines, robots, etc., did not exist, a rocket production line relied on highly skilled workers to perform tasks such as quality welding, precision machining, and mastering complex casting techniques, among other complex techniques. It is therefore difficult to understand how the Nazis managed to provide technical training to slaves, making them technically capable of producing rockets. Apparently, this was done so easily that they could afford to starve or kill thousands of these slave technicians as punishment, and still manage to produce thousands of rockets. Even more intriguing is the fact that nowadays the German industry faces a very high deficit of skilled technicians!

The work of these men is still benefitting the mightiest nations today. 😮

Sadly,in this day&age, one man’s criminal is another man’s hero. Perhaps these people are both? Perhaps these people are neither? But it’s sad truth in these time🙁

As an American I appreciate your honest interpretation of history. We often gloss over the true cost of “progress”. Good, bad, and somewhere in between, I want my kids to know and be humbled by the truth and cost of our current state.

The UK would, in the 1950's, accept the rocket technology given to it by the US. The UK is not clean either as Dr. Felton would like everyone to believe. The fact that he doesn't cover the various UK governments benefitting from US rocket technology, no doubt shared with these Germans, is sad.

Thank you Mark Felton for exposing these people for who they actually were.

I shared my first office with one of the German scientists, Dr. Walter Hauserman. Nice to me, and a handy office mate when I had engineering questions during my master’s degree. I never told him I was the son of a Holocaust survivor. My father, the survivor and ever pragmatic and forgiving, admired von Braun.

And All Soviet war criminals got off Scott free!

Nations don't have permanent enemies, only permanent self-interests.

„German scientists got America to the moon in 1969“ - otherwise all the places they‘d gotten to would have been Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan… ☺️

I'm from Huntsville Alabama and many of the Germans who worked for NASA lived there. In fact the city civic center is called the Werner von Braun civic center built in the mid 70s.

This is what we need, education, not eradication of history. Thanks Mark!

You’re right about this….forgiveness is unmoral…after tens of thousands were murdered by those Nazi scientists 😞

We'd pass the Huntsville rocket on trips as kids...any time I pass it now it won't be the same. Thanks for covering this! 💜

Let us also recall that the Germans were admirers of American rocket pioneer: Robert Goddard. I recall reading that in initial debriefings the Germans asked why are you asking us these questions? Your Dr Goddard taught us.

In Canada the government invited a Waffen SS soldiers into the House of Commons

My Grandfather was an ARP Warden in London and saw the product of Mr Brauns studies first hand. One of the people to pick up the pieces.

a decent documentary as usual.... but how's that U.K space program working out? Don't recall seeing any criticism of Oppenheimer or other German scientists in that bit of WW2 that the UK/EU largely forget about (allies v. Japan)

It was Norman Mailer who wrote how "NASA" and "NAZI" so aptly went together. Even as a high schooler in 1961 I knew about this, but our main focus was "beating the Russians" to get into space and on to the moon. Well, is this a story of redemption or of evil? How long does a former enemy have to be shunned? Tough moral questions.

😂 *I love that photo description "You know who"*

Given the fact that this Von Braun was able to speak fluent English with hardly any accent. Makes me believe he was a genius indeed.

I think Mark's analysis is excellent as usual. I agree that Von Braun and his ex-Nazi comrades should receive no new honors and current use of their names in place of honor should be considered for replacement. I have a small bone to pick with Mark's own use of honorifics on his channel. I have commented on this several times in the past but this video gives me new grounds to bring pick the bone again. In his videos, Mark consistently refers to the chief propagandist of the Nazi party as "Dr. Goebbels" rather than as "Joseph Goebbels". Goebbels received a doctorate in German philology, a field that is the study of "structure, historical development, and relationships of a language or languages". Not exactly a PhD in propaganda, but it was probably useful. Von Braun received a doctorate in physics which certainly was applicable to rocket development. Yet Mark does not refer to the rocket scientist one time in this video as "Dr. Von Braun". Why not? More to the point, why use the honorific of "Doctor" for a Nazi war criminal at all? I have objected in the comments section to this regarding the despicable Goebbels many times. I can almost see using it when referring to a practicing member of a profession, e.g., Hitler's physician. I think it shows undue respect to someone like Goebbels and it should stop. Thankfully it was not used for Von Braun in this video.