>Well, the choice was basically, > * Become a member of the Nazi Party > * Death That's not true. No more than 10% of the German populace were Nazi part

>Well, the choice was basically, > * Become a member of the Nazi Party > * Death That's not true. No more than 10% of the German populace were Nazi party members at any given time. In fact, it was illegal for soldiers to join political parties until after the war started, and even when they were allowed to join most of them didn't. Of course joining the party is always your ticket to wealth and power in a totalitarian system, so it's not surprising an administrator like von Braun would be a party member even if he was completely disinterested in the party ideology. It's also not surprising he joined the SS when pressured directly by Himmler to do so. Himmler wasn't the kind of guy you said "no" to. To all accounts he supported the party in the '30s because the Nazis were promising to reverse the injustices of the Treaty of Versailles. And he probably soured on the party by the time he was arrested and accused of sabotaging the program he was running (for which he could have been shot). Clearly he knew what was going in in Mittelwerk. How much culpability you assign is an open question. And it's not surprising he didn't off himself or hide after the war. He had something very valuable to offer whomever took him in, so that's not very dispositive as evidence of innocence.