German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie: Making Sense of the Nazi Past during the Civil Rights Era, by Monique Laney
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German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie: Making Sense of the Nazi Past during the Civil Rights Era, by Monique Laney
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This thought-provoking study by historian Monique Laney focuses on the U.S. government–assisted integration of German rocket specialists and their families into a small southern community soon after World War II. In 1950, Wernher von Braun and his team of rocket experts relocated to Huntsville, Alabama, a town that would celebrate the team, despite their essential role in the recent Nazi war effort, for their contributions to the U.S. Army missile program and later to NASA’s space program. Based on oral histories, provided by members of the African American and Jewish communities, and by the rocketeers’ families, co-workers, friends, and neighbors, Laney’s book demonstrates how the histories of German Nazism and Jim Crow in the American South intertwine in narratives about the past. This is a critical reassessment of a singular time that links the Cold War, the Space Race, and the Civil Rights era while addressing important issues of transnational science and technology, and asking Americans to consider their country’s own history of racism when reflecting on the Nazi past.
German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie: Making Sense of the Nazi Past during the Civil Rights Era, by Monique Laney- Amazon Sales Rank: #686981 in Books
- Brand: Laney, Monique
- Published on: 2015-06-23
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.25" h x 1.06" w x 6.13" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 320 pages
Review “Laney, a daughter of Alabama and Germany, has produced an insightful, nuanced study of a unique historical phenomenon: the moral and cognitive dissonance that ensues when former agents of the Third Reich are transplanted to a segregated southern community and charged with winning the Cold War space race.”—Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Carry Me Home (Diane McWhorter)“Much has been written about the German-American rocket engineers led by Wernher von Braun. But Monique Laney’s important, original and well-written book opens a new dimension: how they were integrated into Huntsville during the Civil Rights era and what that tells us about how that city processed, or did not process, their Nazi past while grappling with Alabama’s shifting racial climate. Her work makes especially noteworthy contributions to history of “transnational memory,” but it will also intrigue a wide variety of readers and scholars interested in space history, the history of technology, Southern history, immigration, social history and American Studies.”—Michael J. Neufeld, author of Von Braun (Michael J. Neufeld)“That the engineers who helped lift the United States into outer space were complicit in the cruelty of the Third Reich is the paradox at the heart of Monique Laney’s fascinating book. Her moral concern drives a superb work of ethnography as well as history.”—Stephen J. Whitfield, Brandeis University (Stephen J. Whitfield)“This book explains how the Huntsville community wrestled with historical memory, denying, rationalizing, or confirming past atrocities for self-preservation, civic boosterism, or ethnic identity.”—Wayne Flynt, author of Alabama in the Twentieth Century (Wayne Flynt)“A sparkling migration history, Laney’s rich ensemble of oral histories and thoughtful analysis recreates the complexities of life and labor in the post-war Southern community where rocket experts sought to reconcile identities past and present.”—Alan Kraut, author of Silent Travelers (Alan Kraut)“What makes this book so important is the access to oral history and personal materials from the Huntsville German community. A tremendously solid piece of scholarship.”—James R. Hansen, Auburn University (James R. Hansen)“Laney's perceptive analysis examines the shared basis for Nazi rocket scientists and Jim Crow townspeople to form a cosy community, expanding the local to a national technology narrative.”—Dirk Hoerder, Arizona State University (Dirk Hoerder)“This richly documented study of postwar migration and memory illuminates the history of a town integrated and divided under the long shadows of Nazism and racism.”—Alexander Freund, University of Winnipeg (Alexander Freund)“In 1950, more than 100 German rocket experts, many with a Nazi past, settled in Huntsville, Alabama. Reinventing themselves and their families in the Jim Crow-era American South, they transformed a backwater town into ‘Rocket City, USA’. Ten years later, these space personae had fully integrated and become highly admired citizens, with Cold War techno-celebrity Wernher von Braun as the town’s national and international figurehead. Based on more than 70 oral history interviews, Monique Laney’s study analyzes the making and dismantling of a community whose memories transcended national borders. Located at the intersection of migration history, memory studies and space history, German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie is fascinating, rich and timely.”—Alexander C.T. Geppert, New York University (Alexander C.T. Geppert)“This study is a call for Americans to be honest about confronting their past in all its complexity and to understand the dangers of their failure to do so.”—Choice (Choice)Winner of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 2016 Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award. (Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 2015-11-05)Won honorable mention for the Deep South Book Award sponsored by the Frances S. Summersell Center. (Deep South Book Prize Francis S. Summersell Center 2016-05-25)
About the Author Monique Laney is assistant professor of history at Auburn University. She lives in Auburn, AL.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful. Fascinating raw historical data, no clear answers By Aaron C. Brown On the plus side, this book is an in-depth investigation of a tremendously interesting historical juxtaposition that weaves together some of the most important threads in mid-20th century history. On the negative side, while the author is able to compile some fascinating observations, she is not able to build any sort of larger meaning from the account. The other good news/bad news is the author is a careful researcher and fine writer, with dual qualifications (German and Alabamian) to investigate and understand this story; but she adapted it from her PhD dissertation and left in some turgid theoretical stuff that will not endear her to general readers.There are three knocks on the German rocket scientists who followed Wernher von Braun from building anti-civilian missiles for the Nazis, to building anti-civilian missiles for the US, to building the rockets that took us to the moon. I merely list these without comment, I have no idea what kind of choices I would have made under the conditions they faced in life. First is that some seem to have been early and enthusiastic Nazis. Second is that some seem to have personal involvement with horrors, primarily mistreatment of slave laborers but also denouncing and persecuting of Jewish colleagues and other crimes. Finally, it's morally dubious enough to use extreme professional skills to kill innocent civilians for one regime, if when that regime falls you do the same for the victors, people have a right to suspect you'll kill for anyone willing to pay you (as Tom Lehrer put it, "'In German oder English I know how to count down, und I'm learning Chinese,' says Wernher von Braun.")The author probes the attitudes of both the rocketeers and local Alabamians to these issues, a little on the first, a lot on the second and only briefly on the third. Unfortunately, she is only able to get superficial reactions. This is interesting in itself, even fifty years and more later, it's hard to have deep conversations with survivors of the era about such issues. A philosopher or lawyer would probe more deeply. If someone claims to have been forced into an evil action, that means the person doing the forcing was doubly evil: both causing evil and forcing another to participate. So the person using this argument should point to some greater sinner, either individual or systemic. After all, some really, really bad stuff happened, and it's impossible that no one and nothing is to blame. Without these kinds of hard follow-up questions, we don't learn much about either the history or morality, only that almost everyone prefers not to insist on clear answers.Nevertheless, this material is very interesting. We have plenty of intense interrogations over issues like these, but far less material of people voluntarily discussing them at a distance in time such that there seem to be few likely consequences of admissions. The author made attempts to get opinions from black and Jewish Alabamians, but they seem to have little interest either way (younger Jewish people who were not adults during the period have clearer positions, but they don't seem to be much different from similar people in other places). It's hard to know if this is genuine uninterest, or if the author failed to gain their trust.Another issue is the complicity of US authorities in covering up some Nazi crimes in order to exploit scientific talent; and arguably reversing course in the 1980s and using pressure tactics and dubious evidence to harass the same people in retirement. Again, I merely list the charges, I'm not taking sides in these complex issues (okay, I guess I am, I'm against government lying, and two wrongs don't make a right, but some of the scientists involved were pretty unsavory, even by their own accounts). Here the author goes a bit off the deep end, comparing letting someone into the US to work and then expelling them when they were no longer useful to working innocent people to death in slave labor camps. She does not suggest that these are morally equivalent, merely that they have parallel elements, but I think is a false and offensive analogy.Another misdirected analogy that is more central to the book is Nazi war crimes to both black slavery and Jim Crow laws in the South. Slavery is not comparable, because virtually no one living in Alabama at the time had ever participated in it, you can't compare some historical cultural guilt with personal war crimes. Jim Crow laws were fading at the time the rocketeers moved in (racism, of course, was still alive and well), but for the vast majority of the population these crimes were simply not comparable to Nazi horrors. There were certainly people in Alabama who had participated in lynchings, or blew up churches with people inside, or acquitted people who lynched or blew up churches, but throughout history there were about 3,500 black people lynched in the US, versus 11 million murdered by the Nazis (not counting war deaths or indirect deaths), mostly in two years. Without defending lynchings, there is a difference between choosing to live in a society where some people get lynched, versus building WMDs to defend a regime with a massive network of death camps.These excursions into extreme moral equivalence do not detract from the interest of the book. Despite the author's writing skill, the book is not a lot of fun to read, partly due to occasionally intrusive theory and partly due to the amorphous material. But it contains a wealth of interesting data about a fascinating cast of characters in a unique time and place. It will enrich your thinking, without pushing it in any particular direction.
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