He was obsessed with it, fanatic about it. This is particularly remarkable in that the early 20th century, his formative years, was not a time when space travel seemed remotely possible. The scientific basis had been worked out, by Goddard, Oberth and Tsiolkovsky, but only Werner could see the engineering was already within reach. And he lived to see his ship land men on the moon.

von Braun made it all happen, through his superb talents as an engineer, administrator and politician. He played the Nazis just like he played us, telling us what we both wanted to hear and making promises he probably wasn't sure he could keep. He was a man obsessed, and more than any one other person, he made it happen. Without him, we would probably still be working up our way to Sputnik and Apollo.

No one can say for sure WvB knew about the slave labor that went into the V-weapons. I suspect he did, but I don't know. Still, I don't particularly think he was cruel, or a racist, or an anti-Semite. He might not even have been a fascist. I just think he didn't care. I don't think he was an ideologue at all. What really mattered for him was space travel, and nothing else. If he had been captured by the Soviets, he would have worked just as hard and skillfully for them as he did for us and for the Nazis.

All he ever cared about was going to the stars, the end justified the means.

Werner von Braun reminds me a lot of Albert Speer. And like Speer, he succeeded very well in covering his tracks.