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Friday, July 13, 2007

Before There Was NASA - There was Nordhausen











One of my favorite stories to tell in my Earth and Space Science
classroom was the saga of Werner Von Braun and the Nazi V-2 rockets.
It is a timeless story about how this man was such a brilliant scientist and a real genius - but he was also tainted by his
relationship to the Nazi Party. After 33 years of telling these
stories to my 7th graders - I finally got the chance to see the place
where they happened. Nordhausen. Yesterday - I visited hallowed grounds - but they moved for other reasons than I expected.

A brief history. During World War II - in an era of bombs - tanks -
and machine guns - a group of German scientists lead my Werner von
Braun - had designed - built - and mass produced guided missiles. The
V-2 rocket was able to deliver 2000 pounds of explosive a distance of
200 miles. This was during a time when the biggest gun could fire a
bullet maybe 15 miles - a real anachronism. Several 1000 rockets hit
London causing terror - killing mostly civilians.

The Germans decided to mass produce these rockets inside a mountain
in the Harz Mountain area of German - near Nordhausen - about 100
miles southwest of Berlin. This way American bombers could not
destroy the factory. The Nazis used Jewish slave labor to built the
factory - then they established a concentration camps to provide
slave workers to build the rockets.

Back to Yesterday. On the last day of our trip - and also Lulu's
birthday - We (I) decided that we must go to Nordhausen to see what
is left of the factory and area. Nordhausen was inside East Germany
for 40 plus years - that not many people could see this place first
hand.

At about 11 PM on Wednesday night - our train pulls into Nordhausen
station - and only 2 passengers get off - Lulu and me. The station
was deserted - but clean and in nice shape. It reminded me of the
start of a really bad mystery movie. We walked out into the plaza and
main street - the only activity was the very modern trolley going by.
We started down the main street looking for a hotel - several we
found looked closed. Finally - about 6 blocks in - we found an old
hotel - maybe 10 rooms - they wanted 80 Euros for the night but
quickly settled on 60. While getting ready for the next day - we were
lucky to find free internet wireless out the window - we wrote home
to our kids to tell them we made it.

Thursday morning - we caught the trolley for the 3 mile trip to the
Mittelworks Museum. We had to walk the last 1/2 mile or so - and we
were out in the country - it looked very much like New Ringgold or
Lewistown Valley back home in Pennsylvania. We couldn't see a soul
around. Then we turned the corner - there it was - a tunnel into the
mountain and the concentration camp outside.

It turns out the bigger story was the Dora Concentration camp that
housed 60,000 Jews and other people that Adolph Hitler did not like
- gays - disabled - mental patients - and gypsies. We went in the
museum to find out that the guided tour was free - problem was that
it was all in German. We took the tour because the price was right -
and it was the only way you could go into the mountain. My one year
of high school German helped a bit as did Lulu's 4 years of Verna
Britton. But the pretty young girl that could have played a "Hitler
Youth" - made every effort to translate the important information
into English for us.

Finally - our very small tour group of 8 people entered the
underground tunnel - it looked very much like the number 8 tunnel my
Dad entered every morning when he mined hard coal for 25 years in
Coaldale. Inside - it opened up into these gigantic rooms. It was
basically two giant 1 mile long tunnels going thru the mountain. In
some places it was tall enough to stand up a 50 foot tall rocket.
They used Henry Ford's assembly line model - railroad cars came in
one side empty and out the other side with finished rockets.

They made a total of 6000 rockets there - I am playing a little loose
with the number - but I re-call them killing 30,000 slaves in the
process.

Werner von Braun was captured at the end of the war - he was sneaked
into the United States along with about 100 of his rockets. He spent
many years in White Sands, New Mexico making better rockets for the
United States - and he eventually led NASA to landing men on the
moon. He was a brilliant man - was visionary in his thoughts. Later -
it became known that he was a member of the Nazi Party and a major in
the SS.

It was a very serene and sad scene there in the Harz Mountains. It
was as beautiful setting as one might want to see - lush fields and
forests - temperature around 65 - just pretty rolling hills. Then -
you realize how many people were killed here - to make these rockets
- to wage war. The crematorium waste is still there just outside the
door.

I love visiting Germany - many of my few ancestors that I know of -
came from Germany. I love their tidy homes and landscapes - well-
manicured towns - transportation systems - and the people. I am just
puzzled how this country could follow Adoph Hitler into that terrible
war. The people of Nordhausen knew everything that was going on in
the camp - they would even use the slaves in their homes and
businesses - free of charge. They knew that the war was over by 1943
and they could not win - and yet they continued making these "miracle
weapons" in hopes of turning the tide.

Werner von Braun went on to write many books about space travel - one
of my favorites as a child was "I Aim For The Moon." After seeing
this terrible missile factory a better subtitle would be "But I Hit
London Instead."

This factory and concentration camp has few visitors - especially
very few Germans - they do not want to be reminded of what their
ancestors did. My German ancestors were in America long before this
terrible Nazi War - but when looking around that peaceful setting -
one has to feel a little guilty for what happened there. Some of
things that humans beings do embarrass all of us.

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