Werner Von Braun, the world-famous rocket engineer who is credited with putting American astronauts on the moon, began his career in the United States in secrecy, arriving at Fort Bliss in the fall of 1945 and working at White Sands Proving Ground after he and many of his fellow Nazi German rocket team scientists surrendered to the U.S. military shortly before the fall of Berlin.

As director of the Nazis' extensive research and production facility for rockets at Peenemunde on Germany's Baltic Coast, Von Braun helped develop the V-2 rocket, which the Nazis fired as a weapon against civilian populations in London and Antwerp, according to Darren Court, director and curator of the White Sands Missile Range Museum and author of "Images of

 

Von Braun is a "controversial" figure and will always remain so, Court said in an interview.

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