text: In reality, he was imprisoned by the Nazis for embezzling war effort funds for his space aspirations. The Nazis employed slave labour, Von Braun was an academic.
  
  His clandestine research documents and technical equipment were hidden from the Nazis on a stolen train in an abandoned mineshaft, and provided to the Americans by him in exchange for the opportunity for he and his scientists to continue their work. 
  
  It was he that convinced Kennedy to turn the rockets toward the moon as the cold war intensified. His was the Saturn V. It resulted in humankind's most spectacular achievement, the spin offs which all of us, regardless of race, use in every aspect of our life today.
  
  And the technology derived from the intensity of the Apollo program is that which has indeed globalized the world's economies and resulted in the unshackling of China, India, and many other third world countries from intense systemic poverty and starvation.
  
  The world owes Von Braun and the US a great debt.