It is now well-known that von Braun was an honorary officer in the S.S., Hitler's feared security police, and that V-2 production was made possible by slave labor at both Peenemuende and Mittelwerk _ facts that were hidden or glossed over by the U.S. government and von Braun himself.-snip-
Von Braun's complicity in Nazi atrocities is less clear, Neufeld said. But there is at least one document _ a letter _ in which von Braun discusses a trip to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he apparently spoke to the commandant about obtaining more skilled laborers to use at Mittelwerk.