Alabama museum removes quotation by Nazi scientist
A quotation by Wernher von Braun, a NASA scientist who had worked for the Nazis during World War II, was removed from a Smithsonian-affiliated museum in Huntsville, Alabama, months after the Forward reported that it was displayed there.
The quote — “The rocket will free man from his remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet. It will open to him the gates of heaven” — had been prominently displayed on a large panel overlooking a hall in the U.S. Space & Rocket Center museum.
The Forward mentioned the panel in a January 2022, article, part of a two-year investigative project documenting more than 1,500 statues, streets and other memorials to people who collaborated with the Nazis. The same article noted that the museum had removed a bust of von Braun several days after a Forward reporter inquired about it.
Von Braun, widely seen as the “father of space travel,” was among a group of Nazi scientists brought to the U.S. in a secret federal program after the war. He had previously designed Germany’s deadly V-2 missile, which was used to shell Allied cities. It was constructed by concentration camp inmates, an estimated 10,000 of whom were killed in the process.
A spokesperson for the Huntsville museum could not say exactly when the quotation had been removed.
There are still numerous honorifics to von Braun in Huntsville, as well as at the Redstone Arsenal U.S. Army base and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
If you know of any monuments to Nazi collaborators not listed in our project, or of statues that have been removed or streets renamed, please email editorial@forward.com, subject line “Nazi monument project.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.