Magnus von Braun
Magnus "Mac" Freiherr von Braun (10 May 1919 – 21 June 2003) was a German chemical engineer, Luftwaffe aviator, and rocket scientist at Peenemünde, the Mittelwerk, and after emigrating to the United States via Operation Paperclip, at Fort Bliss. He was the brother of Wernher von Braun.
Von Braun was born in Greifswald, Pomerania, to Magnus Freiherr von Braun and Emmy von Quistrop. After completing boarding school at Hermann Lietz-Schule in Spiekeroog, he began his studies in 1937 at Technische Universität München. There he remained after receiving his Masters degree in organic chemistry, and became an assistant to Nobel laureate Hans Fischer.
Von Braun arrived at Peenemünde in July 1943 at the request of Wernher von Braun. In March 1944 he was arrested with fellow rocket specialists Wernher von Braun, Klaus Riedel, Helmut Gröttrup, and Hannes Lüersen, but was later released.
Von Braun arrived in New York on 16 November 1945 aboard the SS Argentina and was soon at work at Fort Bliss, Texas and later at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. He became a US citizen and produced a version of A Christmas Carol, but with the future in the year 2000 and 88-year-old Wernher von Braun seeing man's first flight into space.
Von Braun was interrogated as a witness for the Andrae war crimes trial in which Mittelwerk general manager Georg Rickhey was acquitted. Fort Bliss Army CIC agents believed Magnus von Braun was a "dangerous German Nazi", with one agent remarking, "his type is a worse threat to security than a half a dozen discredited SS Generals."
After evacuating from Nordhausen, Magnus von Braun was at the Behelfsheim in Weilheim when Wernher von Braun arrived there from Oberammergau on April 14, 1945. The next day, Magnus had arrived at the Haus Ingeborg in Oberjoch by the end of the day.
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