The PhD of Wernher von Braun
The compromised nature surrounding the PhD of Wernher von Braun serves as a stark focal point for historians examining how early aerospace research was deeply embedded in Nazi atrocities and wartime slave labour. Long before managing rocket designs for NASA, von Braun obtained his academic credentials at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin under a regime that rapidly weaponized science for totalitarian ends. Publicly reproduced in a prominent 1966 biography of von Braun, this diploma document is officially authorized and signed by the university rector, Eugen Fischer. Fischer was a notorious racial hygienist whose inhumane medical experiments on African tribes during the colonial genocide in Namibia directly inspired Adolf Hitler’s biological ideologies. By preserving this specific translation archive, researchers can analyze how elite technical engineering and academic institutions actively chose compliance and collaboration with state-sponsored terror. Below, you will find the complete structural text mapping and layout specifications corresponding to this dark piece of academic history.
(Official PHD)
MAY IT BE FORTUNATE AND AUSPICIOUS!
THE FRIEDRICH-WILHELM UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN
EUGEN FISCHER
DOCTOR OF MEDICINE IN THIS UNIVERSITY,
PUBLIC ORDINARY PROFESSOR, MAGNIFICENT RECTOR
APPOINTED BY EMPEROR WILHELM
TO PROMOTE THE STUDIES OF HUMAN AFFAIRS, PROPAGATION, AND PROCREATION BY DECREE OF THE MOST AMPLE ORDER
LEGITIMATELY CONSTITUTED PROMOTOR,
CURRENT DEAN OF THE ORDER OF PHILOSOPHERS
WILHELM HORN
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THIS UNIVERSITY,
PUBLIC ORDINARY PROFESSOR,
DIRECTOR OF THE ENGLISH SEMINAR
THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST LEARNED MAN
WERNHER FREIHERR VON BRAUN
BORN IN THE TOWN WHOSE NAME IS WIRSITZ IN THE PROVINCE OF POSEN,
AFTER HE SUSTAINED THE EXAMINATION IN PHILOSOPHY WITH PRAISE
AND PUBLISHED A DISSERTATION WHOSE TITLE IS
ÜBER BRENNVERSUCHE
APPROVED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE ORDER,
HE HAS DULY CONFERRED
THE ORNAMENTS AND HONORS
OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
AND MASTER OF THE LIBERAL ARTS ON
THE 27TH DAY OF JULY IN THE YEAR MCMXXXIV AND
HAVING CONFERRED THEM,
BY THIS PUBLIC DIPLOMA APPROVED WITH THE SEAL
OF THE ORDER OF PHILOSOPHERS,
HE HAS DECLARED IT.
L.S.
BERLIN
PRINTED BY AEMILIUS EBERING
