Dora-Mittelbau was near the town of Nordhausen. It was originally a subcamp of Buchenwald, but was put under it’s own administration in 1944. The Germans built their rockets there. And, yeah, von Braun said he knew nothing about the Holocaust. He had gone to the camp. He had seen corpses. He had seen people hung. He had ordered people hung. But he didn’t know anything about it.
The Holocaust really is the weirdest thing in the world, because it happened, but no German ever knew it was happening. If you don’t believe it, just ask them. One is forced to conclude that Hitler planned it and carried it out all by himself, with no help from anybody. It’s just the damnest thing.
Captain Amazing, he knew people were being killed in a time of war. He knew (presumably) that he was living under a repressive autocracy run by a militaristic madman. He even knew that if he didn’t go along to get along, he would be next in line for the Big Goodbye.
Did he know of the systematic genocide being carried out by his government? Did he know that the people in the prisons weren’t criminals, but innocent people picked up by goon squads? Did he ever tour the showers or the ovens?