Our Hero, the Nazi

I was born and reared to age eighteen in the town of Huntsville, AL. Werner Von Braun, the Nazi rocket engineer, had settled there after having been captured by the Allies at the end of WWII. That was long before I was born; I only knew him as the town hero, whom the civic center was named for. And he wasn’t the only one. So many Germans lived in our town during that time that all the speed limit signs were posted in both miles and kilometers. They worked at the Marshall Space Flight Center, where astronauts were trained and rockets tested. A few of their wives opened a German cuisine restaurant, The Old Heidelberg Kitchen, that was very popular.

I acquired an early interest in space and astronomy that was fed by the main economy of the town, the Apollo program. I remember being in elementary school when suddenly the ground would start shaking. Dishes, window and door frames rattled for several minutes. This, we children were told, was the Apollo rocket engines being tested. When I was ten years old my summer was spent almost entirely at the Space and Rocket Museum, which was near my house. My friends and I snuck in almost every day and played on the exhibits and rides. Von Braun was featured prominently for his part in all of this glorious tech. I began seriously studying astronomy and physics in elementary school, using the library as my main resource. In high school I formalized my study, and went on to college as a physics major.

After I went to college I read that many of the German rocket engineers in my town, now in their seventies and eighties, were being put up for possible deportation due to their Nazi past. I learned about how the US had (temporarily, as it turned out) forgiven their involvement in WWII for the sake of enlisting their help in fighting the Cold War. Now, apparently, was the time to become righteous again.