Dr. Wernher von Bron was appointed as the first director of the Marshall Space Flight Center by President Dwight Eisenhower. Von Braun had been interested in space as a young man growing up in Germany prior to World War II. He studied under the famous rocket theoretician, Hermann Oberth, and had joined him in early rocket experiments under the sponsorship of the German Society for Space Travel.
During World War
II, von Braun was technical director at the Peenemunde Rocket Center in
Germany. In 1945, more than 100 members of the von Braun team agreed to
come to the United States to work under U.S. Army supervision. They
first worked at Fort Bliss, Texas. In 1950, the Germans came to Huntsville
to work at the World War II facilities originally used to produce chemical
compounds and pyrotechnical devices.
