Tom Lehrer (1928-2025)

This wonderful performance in Copenhagen on 11 September 1967 illustrates the full range of Tom Lehrer’s political satire. It was filmed for Danish TV and released as ‘Tom Lehrer Live in Copenhagen 1967’. He sings nineteen of his songs, including ‘Wernher von Braun’, whose role in America’s space race with the Soviets conveniently overlooked his past as a Nazi and SS officer.

The film below by the Imperial  War Museums is based on Depravity’s Rainbow by Lewis Bush. It explains how von Braun avoided Nuremburg and responsibility for the deaths of thousands of slave workers and was feted in the USA until his death in 1977.

The British Interplanetary Society records on its website that it awarded von Braun an Honorary Fellowship in 1949, but added the following contextual statement in 2026 after representations by Peter Sinclair, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society:

In 1949, the British Interplanetary Society awarded von Braun an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his technical contributions to rocketry and early spaceflight. That decision was taken in a very different post‑war context, and it did not properly confront the ethical implications of his role within the Nazi regime.

Today, the BIS’s mission and values are firmly grounded in human rights, international cooperation, and the peaceful use of outer space. After detailed consideration, Council resolved to retain the historical record of von Braun’s Honorary Fellowship rather than revoke it, but we explicitly condemn the atrocities associated with the V‑2 programme and von Braun’s involvement in them. This contextual statement is part of our commitment to transparency, ethical reflection, and respect for the victims of Nazi crimes.

This does not imply endorsement of his actions or beliefs. Rather, the Society’s position is that confronting difficult aspects of our own history, and documenting them openly, is more consistent with our educational mission than removing them from view. Revocation can sometimes risk suggesting that the past has been “fixed”; we believe that retaining the record, accompanied by clear contextualisation and explicit condemnation of the associated atrocities, better supports public understanding of the complex relationship between scientific achievement and ethical responsibility.