Throughout the Space Race and when the United States stuck a flag on the lunar surface, von Braun, a German scientist scooped up by the U.S. in the waning days of World War II, became the public face of the American space program, as well as one of its chief architects.
The Cold War era coverage of von Braun downplayed the darker details of his past when he was building rockets for Hitler.
Germany launched more than 3,000 V-2 missiles designed by von Braun against Britain and other countries, killing closed to 5,000 people. As many as 20,000 concentration camp prisoners died assembling the weapons.
In the years after the Space Race, historians reassessed von Braun’s legacy, some portraying his time working for the Nazis as a survival strategy, others going as far as to blame him as a war criminal.
Von Braun died in 1977, but his image as Cold War hero, whitewashed Nazi villain continues to be debated more fiercely than ever, as is the extent of America’s moral bargaining in using him to propel its otherworldly ambitions.
In many respects, the life of Werner von Braun - one of the greatest rocket engineers - looks like the life of a modern Faust of the 20th century.
