We'll never know the actual circumstances, but Von Braun's account was basically they came round with a signed request from Himmler and said "You can join the SS or we kick you off the rocket program and put you under surveillance as a potential dissident"
On the other hand we know he lied about wearing the uniform only once, and he was a member of the SS riding club for a short time some 7 years before which is not a good look.
He was also given a multitude of platforms with which to talk completely out of his ass about colonizing space and never be fact-checked. The 1950s were wild.
Von Braun and most of the others were indeed quite opportunistic, but anyone who was SS was by definition a committed Nazi.
We'll never know the actual circumstances, but Von Braun's account was basically they came round with a signed request from Himmler and said "You can join the SS or we kick you off the rocket program and put you under surveillance as a potential dissident"
On the other hand we know he lied about wearing the uniform only once, and he was a member of the SS riding club for a short time some 7 years before which is not a good look.
He was also given a multitude of platforms with which to talk completely out of his ass about colonizing space and never be fact-checked. The 1950s were wild.
Truly the Elon Musk of his time.
not really, von Braun was an actual engineer and not a reddit level dipshit