10 Things You Might Not Know About the First Space Age

WORK IN THE TUNNEL, WOODCUT BY CONCENTRATION CAMP SURVIVOR DOMINIK ČERNÝ, 1952. MITTELBAU-DORA CONCENTRATION CAMP MEMORIAL
In the UK during World War II, experts at MI6 were on the tail of the German rocketeers—a search the ended up with England launching one of the biggest bombing raids of the War to knock out Peenemünde, Germany’s secret rocket facility.The assembly line for the V-2 rockets, master-minded by Wernher von Braun, was then moved underground, where slave labor at the Dora concentration camp toiled and where tens of thousands of these prisoners were killed or died of mistreatment.More V-2 rockets fell on Antwerp than on London, as the Germans desperately tried to cut off Ally supplies before the Battle of the Bulge.Wernher von Braun held the honorary rank of SS-Sturmbannführer in a political game of cat-and-mouse between the SS and regular German Army.As its technical director Von Braun led Adolph Hitler on a tour around Germany’s secret rocket facility. Years later, he toured President Eisenhower around the Marshall rocket facility in Huntsville, Alabama. A few years after that, he toured President Kennedy around same.Wernher von Braun has been placed at the UFO crash site at Roswell.That the Walt Disney/von Braun collaboration of three TV shows broadcast in the 1950s, includes a moment in which astronauts view a hidden base on the dark side of the Moon.That Hitler and his accolytes participated in occult magic and that, in America, Jack Parsons was a follower of Aleister Crowley, believed whole-heartedly in sex magic—and came up with a formula for rocket fuel based on ancient Greek fire, a formula that had more or less vanished from civilization.That Walt Disney was a Freemason, as were many prominent players in the first Space Age, which culminates with Buzz Aldrin bringing a Freemason Lodge flag to the Moon, and helping his Lodge form its first Moonbase on Earth.That the father of Russian rocketry Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was sent to a gulag, where he almost perished, before returning and eventually launching Sputnik and the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin.Bonus: That many high officials in the military and governments worldwide accept completely the existence of alien life, alien craft, and have never doubted it, including one of the German pioneers of rocketry Hermann Oberth. The First Space Age is replete with efforts to work within this framework, while keeping it as secret as the Manhattan Project.  
To find out more, read ALL UP: Odyssey of the Rocketmen , my historical fiction novel about the first Space Age. Reviews are IN:
“Hang on for the jet-propelled ride of your life. You won’t want to stop till you find out how it all comes out!”—Roy Thomas, writer/editor, member Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame
“Rinzler is a meticulous and thorough researcher—which is evident in his Star Wars making-of books—and that same dedication is on display here. All Up is long, intricate, and absorbing.”—Jamie Greene, Geek Dad online magazine

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