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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-01/who-got-america-to-the-moon-a-unlikely-collaboration-of-jews-and-former-nazi-engineers

One former Nazi, one American Jew. Little more than a decade separated them from the Holocaust.

Looming before two of America’s top rocket engineers were many critical decisions, including what kind of fuel would be needed to blast off astronauts to the moon.

Silverstein had guided research at Lewis in liquid hydrogen, a much more powerful fuel that had never been used in a rocket before. He was certain such a technological leap was necessary for the long lunar journey.

When the first Saturn with hydrogen-powered stages was tested on Nov. 9, 1967, Von Braun sent a photograph of the launch with a handwritten note: “To Dr. Abe Silverstein whose pioneering work in liquid hydrogen technology paved the way to today’s success — Wernher von Braun.”

The collaboration between Von Braun and Silverstein was not unique. During the Apollo program, which landed Americans on the moon six times between 1969 and 1972, NASA was filled with both Jewish scientists and a large group of Germans who had worked for Hitler before and during World War II. The Nazi regime had been dedicated to the extermination of Jews. That the two groups were able to work side by side suggests a level of reconciliation, or at least acceptance, that would seem a near impossibility in today’s fractious social and political climate.

“My dad said NASA was built by Jews, Nazis and hillbillies,” recalled Reuben Slone, the son of NASA engineer Henry Slone, a member of the Cleveland Jewish community.

There is wide agreement that the collaboration between Germans and Jews was essential to the Apollo moon landings and much of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

The Times reviewed hundreds of pages of NASA’s Apollo documents, dozens of oral histories by Germans and Jews, and interviewed the children of the engineers to understand how these two groups interacted in one of the greatest technical achievements in history.

“Not to have brought them over would have been a crime,” said Daniel Goldin, a Jewish engineer from New York who became the longest-serving administrator in NASA history. “You could get dogmatic about it, but the Cold War could have ended the world.”

On the Jewish side, Silverstein helped set up the entire human space flight program before NASA was created in 1958. Abraham Hyatt, who fled Ukraine with his family before World War II, was a headquarters planning director. Milton Rosen was chief of NASA’s science mission directorate. George Low became deputy chief of NASA, known for his advocacy of the gutsy 1968 decision to orbit the moon after only one human test flight of the Apollo system. Louis Rosenblum was a key technologist in energy. Slone specialized in propulsion. Erwin Zaretsky was one of the world’s top experts in ball bearings and machinery lubrication.

He was low-profile, but liked working in the technical trenches and brought an ambitious agenda to NASA — pushing for a revolutionary type of rocket engine and conducting the research to achieve it at the center in Cleveland. It was Silverstein who chose the moon program’s name of Apollo, for the Greek god of light, music and the sun.

Asked how the Jewish scientists could work with the Germans, the synagogue’s leader, Rabbi Enid Lader, said: “It shows the potential for forgiveness. These engineers were driven by a very sincere Jewish value to work for the good of society. For the German scientists, this gave them the opportunity to turn their work used for evil to good. It is redemption.”

By no means were Silverstein and the other Jews afraid to stand up for their beliefs. By the 1960s, they founded the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism, aiming to expose the persecution of Soviet Jews.