When US scientists put a man on the moon 50 years ago, they had a helping hand from Nazi scientists who were seen as war criminals and accused of mass murder.

Wernher von Braun was a rocket engineer who designed the V2 missile that killed thousands of people in Allied cities such as London during the Second World War.

He was scooped up by the Americans in the last days of the war and secretly moved to the US where he became an architect of the Apollo space programme that led to the moon landing in July 1969.

On that day half a century ago, ex-SS major von Braun and two fellow German scientists – Kurt Debus and Arthur Rudolph – celebrated with American scientists at Apollo Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas.

But a former concentration camp prisoner says Rudolph would hang victims from a crane if he wasn't happy with their work on the V2 rockets.

The scientists' legacy was revisited last week as the world prepared to mark the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and walk.

Von Braun joined the Nazi party in 1937 and was also an officer of the SS.

He is regarded as a war criminal who helped Adolf Hitler to kill upwards of 9,000 civilians and military personnel, but some have argued he was following Nazi government's orders and had no choice.

It is estimated that as many as 20,000 concentration camp prisoners died in the production of Hitler's secret V2 rockets, which were the world's first long-range guided ballistic missiles.

After being moved to the US, von Braun appeared in Disney's 1955 television special called Man and the Moon.

Speaking with a German accent, he explained how America would put a man on the moon.

His daughter Margrit, who was born in the US in 1952, defended her father's place in history.

She told AFP: "The things that happened during wartime are very difficult to unravel. You may be asked to do things, but it's not like you can say no."

"I don't think people have the kinds of choices that we living in a democracy in America can relate to.

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