Von Braun flees to the US before WW2 starts?

ITTL, Werner von Braun is mistakenly targetted by Nazi party members, souring him to the new regime and causing him to join the various scientists and intellectuals who fled Germany prior to the outbreak of war.

Now in the United States, can von Braun convince the allies to fund his rocketry research? Will the German V series rockets be delayed, or worse, gone entirely with his absence? And finally, what will the state of NASA be post war if he is already present before operation paperclip?
 
Unlikely. Goddard & his backers had been lobbying for decades & had some technical results in the 1920s & 30s to show. The US Army actually had Goddards shoulder fired rocket launcher near production in 1918 & shelved it until WWII. A number of Goddards other rocket motors of the 1930s were suitable for rocket artillery, ect... Its unlikely Von Braun would gain any traction until 1941 when the Army finally restarted rocket research in a serious way.
 
It's not all that implausible. He got arrested briefly by the Gestapo in 1943 for saying something along the lines of 'really wish we were launching things into orbit instead of at the British.' If he pisses off the wrong Nazi before the war, he might decide to emigrate.

I doubt he'd have much impact in the U.S., though. Unlike Germany, the U.S. was not in the desperate straits that justified a propaganda weapon like the V-2, and its actual military utility is limited until the atomic bomb is actually invented (and even then, American ICBM development was hampered by the inaccuracy of rockets--which could be addressed only by improved control systems or the hydrogen bomb).

Not sure who replaces him in Germany or what happens to the Aggregate rockets without him.
 
Likely outcome is Werner finds a place in US rocket development circa 1941-42. I'd have to revisit his 1930s research to see if he'd have much impact at that point. Goddards solid fuel development was disseminated 1941 & the industry was already using that as a starting point. Unless Von Braun has brought all his key research docs along, and translated them, he is not going to have a useful starting point. The critical details of his research will have to be reconstructed in the lab before further development of his work can be continued.

So, does this eliminate the V2? Or could other German rockteers have built that?
 
The biggest innovation needed for the V-2 was a useful turbopump, which Von Braun's team developed in conjunction with Hellmuth Walter. If most of the German team stays behind, I'm sure they'd figure out the same device--and that Von Braun and his American colleagues can do the same in America. Peroxide decomposition was fairly well-understood by 1941.

The issue, again, is funding--frankly, the V-2 was a waste of Deutschmarks, and the Americans weren't quite so wasteful. Von Braun can bring notes about turbopump development, but I'm not sure he'd get the funding to pursue it.
 
The one thing that would accelerate the US rocket Program would be VB defecting right as Allied Intelligence was getting the first data on the V-2.

Nothing puts a better shine on a program than the bad guys having one, and you just scored their top guy.

Say Enrico Fermi flipped in 1942, think the Axis would put a lot more into Uranium research than OTL?
 

Perkeo

Banned
Tom Lehrer wants a word with you.

And I want a word with whoever came up with the "apolitical" bullshit they teach schoolkids in this country.

Von Braun was a Nazi war criminal. Him "fleeing" Nazi Germany would be about as likely Jefferson Davis "fleeing" the Confederacy

Von Braun was a mercinary who sold his knowledge to whoever was willing to fund his dream of making rockets. He didn't care about anything else - including the workes who built his favourite toys.
 
Von Braun was a mercinary who sold his knowledge to whoever was willing to fund his dream of making rockets. He didn't care about anything else - including the workes who built his favourite toys.

He completely wasn't. That's just a lie they tell kids to justify America's association with him. I remember being told it myself.

He was a member of no less than Five Nazi Organizations including the SS where he was a major (promoted three times by Himmler himself) and according to his slaves he personally ordered executions. If it walks like a Nazi and kills like a Nazi, regardless of what its dreams are, it's a Nazi.
 

Perkeo

Banned
He completely wasn't [a mercinary who sold his knowledge]. That's just a lie they tell kids to justify America's association with him. I remember being told it myself.

He was a member of no less than Five Nazi Organizations including the SS where he was a major (promoted three times by Himmler himself) and according to his slaves he personally ordered executions. If it walks like a Nazi and kills like a Nazi, regardless of what its dreams are, it's a Nazi.

I don't really see how you argumentation debunks my theory. I didn't say he wasn't a Nazi criminal, I said he became a Nazi criminal for reasons other than conviction.

His membership in Nazi organizations can be explained both ways, but the difference is: Mercinaries do change sides when their current customers are outbidden, as Werner did in 1945 - late, no question, but since he wasn't really offered the chance to defect earlier, there's room for speculation on what his choice would have been, isn't there?
 
I don't really see how you argumentation debunks my theory. I didn't say he wasn't a Nazi criminal, I said he became a Nazi criminal for reasons other than conviction.

His membership in Nazi organizations can be explained both ways, but the difference is: Mercinaries do change sides when their current customers are outbidden, as Werner did in 1945 - late, no question, but since he wasn't really offered the chance to defect earlier, there's room for speculation on what his choice would have been, isn't there?

And my point is it doesn't matter what his excuse was for doing what he did.

I mean, if someone offered you your dream job, and in exchange all you had to do was rape and murder a child, would you do it? (I'm assuming) Of course not. And yet here you are defending it because rockets are teh coolz!!1!

The fact that he literally enslaved, tortured, and murdered people so as to get his dream job kind of leads to the conclusion that he was a bit more than a mercenary, no?

I can't believe I even have to type this out.
 

Perkeo

Banned
And my point is it doesn't matter what his excuse was for doing what he did.

I mean, if someone offered you your dream job, and in exchange all you had to do was rape and murder a child, would you do it? (I'm assuming) Of course not. And yet here you are defending it because rockets are teh coolz!!1!

The fact that he literally enslaved, tortured, and murdered people so as to get his dream job kind of leads to the conclusion that he was a bit more than a mercenary, no?

I can't believe I even have to type this out.

You think I disagree with your point, which I don't - and that's why you're missing mine.

The OP's question is what would have happened if he'd been offered to work for the allies instead. Would he - in this timeline - have sold his country rather than his soul? Could he just by mistake have ended up as one of the good guys? And my answer to that question is: absolutely plausible. All you have to do is
- have him or his father fall into disgrace with the Nazis (plausible PODs do exist: Von Braun was arrested for ill-advised statements about his motives, and his father's political career was ended when Hitler siezed power)
- Let the Nazis be less and the Allies more enthusiastic about "Wunderwaffen" during some time in the war. (e.g. Let the allies see the potential of the combination nuclear warhead+large rocket)
 
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