NAZI SPACE PROGRAM IN 1947

Sci-fi enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists tend to obsess about the possibilities of a space-faring Third Reich. Robert A. Heinlein authored a tale about a German lunar base as early as 1947. Nowadays, fans are abuzz for the 2012 release of "Iron Sky," the Finnish film full of scene-chewing space Nazis and swastika-stamped spaceships.

Is there any factual basis for these outrageous fantasies? Did Nazi Germany actually have a space program?

Absolutely not, according to Smithsonian Space History Curator Michael Neufeld.

There is Only War
The Nazis held power from 1933 until the German's surrender in 1945. It was a time of vast military expansion and ultimately total war. Very little scientific activity took place that did not directly benefit the war effort, and this was especially true of rocketry.
Even if German scientists such as Wernher von Braun dreamed of purely scientific space exploration, the only outlet for their skills was in the development of rocket-propelled weapons.
"They recognized the follow-on to the weapons program would be space exploration," says von Braun biographer Bob Ward. "Eventually, there would be a space program, and this was the route that had to be traveled, through the military, to advance the technology. But I don’t think the German power structure had any plans for a space program."
In fact, German space zeal took root not during Nazi rule, but prior to it in the 1920s and early '30s. That was when German theorists, such as Hermann Oberth, wrote about the feasibility of space travel, says Neufeld.
"Then the Nazis came into power and started throwing money at military rocketry," Neufeld says.

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