Tom Lehrer - Wernher von Braun - with intro

Tom Lehrer on public domain (2020):
tomlehrersongs...
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Use the above link and get the uninterrupted Lehrer TV-performance and The Tom Lehrer Collection from Amazon.com.
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If you live in the United States you can also buy the collection from Shout! Factory, using the above link.
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Use the above link to buy Tom Lehrer's songs on iTunes.
- -
Enable 480p and use the arrow icon! "Wernher von Braun" is now REPUBLISHED for the third time to celebrate a lot of video views for the first versions published to KZbin. Why? Well, to offer the song in (even) slightly better quality. Use HQ if possible and play back the video on a single KZbin page to get a bigger video window. The older versions will stay on the channel.
The song "Wernher von Braun", written well before 1964 -- and years before the landing on the Moon itself -- was recorded to Ampex video in Oslo, Norway, in 1967. The song was originally published on The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel in July of 2007 and was, in fact, the channel's first video. The original 4:3-version is still on KZbin, as is an experimental 16:9 converted version. But in reality you should use THIS version, which preserves the original 4:3 aspect ratio and is a great leap forward in terms of technical quality. Of course this version also includes Tom Lehrer's spoken intro.
To make this song even more spot on, Lehrer used eight bars from the well-known German national anthem "Das Lied der Deutschen" as a song intro :-)
Check out more about the German national anthem here:
en.wikipedia.or...
Wikipedia on Wernher von Braun:
en.wikipedia.or...
In 2008 Lehrer really said "OK" to "The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel" on KZbin, as long as the performance is not altered and as long as it's free in the KZbin flash video format.
Click on the user name and visit the channel's front page. The channel is Lehrer only. And here is a link to the channel's support page:
home.broadpark....
For more, use this link:
home.broadpark....
© Tom Lehrer
Recording date: September 11th 1967
Format: Ampex Quadruplex PAL 4:3
Status: A very rare recording
Storage: Sony Digital Betacam
2009 KZbin Source: 720 X 576 mp4 with H.264 compression
Production and preservation: The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation - the NRK, Norway. More here:
www.nrk.no/info...

[@Exurb1a]

"That's not my department, says Wernher von Braun." In the event you ever read this Tom, we all love you.

[@BobJoeman]

Oh shit, wasn't expecting to see you here.

[@randommodnar7141]

Well then, cant say i didnt expect you to listen to tom lehrer

[@maximiliansus2629]

r u a famous guy

[@codehorse8843]

exurb1a I'm not surprised

[@gerritsevereid4657]

exurb1a hi

[@loneranger86]

This song is particularly funny to me because when I worked at the Air Force Weapons Lab in the early '70s and I would call the White Sands missile range, the phone would invariably be answered by someone with a heavy German accent.

[@NUFIGHTER]

Good ol' Operation Paperclip, right?

[@joeyknight8272]

Hahaja

[@cageybee7221]

but of course, america has never had anything to do with fascism. other than incorporating it into their military.

[@kenetickups6146]

CageyBee Just like the soviets

[@fartsneed9464]

Reminder that black people will never put a man on the moon like the Paperclip gang did

[@silasfatchett5693]

"I aim for the moon, but I often hit London" ...

[@itimonium9062]

Silas Fatchett isn't it actually " I aim for the stars ... but sometimes I hit London"

[@yonatanbeer3475]

"the rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet."

[@Xemwood]

Exactly the phrase that brought me to this video ... again.

[@EO-jr7li]

Itimonium The greatest disaster in space exploration history is not Apollo one, Columbia, or Challenger, but rather the 2700 Londoners who died as a result of US prototype rockets crashing.

[@eliasschneeberger1337]

@@EO-jr7li I thought the song refered to the german v2 rockets that were fured at london

[@playasadonejoe]

It's amazing how his eyes can go from 'friendly teacher' to 'death glare' and then back again.

[@robertschmidt7879]

When you spend enough time in the classroom that skill becomes second nature :-)

[@DB-wg4jo]

He really fucking hated nazis

[@olivercuenca4109]

@@DB-wg4jo Then again most people did back then.

[@paris5410]

@@olivercuenca4109 Most people still hate Nazis.

[@yanivrubin4166]

@@paris5410 and they should

[@VRichardsn]

"I aim at the stars... but sometimes I hit London". Context: "I aim at the stars" was the title of Braun's biopic. Edit: it was brought to my attention (by Peter Flood) that it was not a book, but rather a biographical film.

[@SaintSwithinsDay]

The second half of that quotation was supplied by Spike Milligan, if I'm not mistaken. I think the canonical version is "...but usually hit London instead."

[@VRichardsn]

@Peter Flood You are right! It has been edited now, and you have been given proper credit .

[@isabellemoreton9608]

For anyone who's wondering, like I was: - the instrumental passage in the intro is a quote from Haydn's "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser," which supplies the melody for the German national anthem - the repeating phrase that links the verses is the Viennese song "O du lieber Augustin"

[@UrbsDei21]

Oh, good! I was hoping someone else noticed.

[@ernesthill4017]

Gawd, I love smart women 😍

[@michaelcar3708]

In nazi Germany, the original first stanza of the German hymn set to the Haydn music was used in an aggressively patriotic way, being translated as "Germany, Germany above all". Nowadays, this stanza is taboo in Germany and the 3rd stanza only was declared as the official hymn, translated as "Union and justice and freedom...". Tom Lehrer's innuendo here is obviously the notorious first stanza.

[@walterbushell7029]

@@michaelcar3708 "Germany, Germany above all". translates to "Germany First"

[@drewrandall8161]

"''Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun." Now that's good satire of immorality masquerading as bureaucracy.

[@ulture]

what Arendt later called 'the banality of evil', after watching Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem

[@ulture]

@Soaring Hawk as for Hollywood paedophiles, that's capitalism buddy. When the communists get into power, the Epsteins of this world are for the guillotine. Listen to TrueAnon podcast some time

[@nightwish1000]

eh it's not von Brain who is the immoralist here but the USA who had no problem to profit from nazis, to whitewash them and to build them up as national heroes.

[@ulture]

​@Matthew Reichlin meaningless

[@noone-pl2gj]

@@ulture what the fuck

[@Alex_OBL]

It is pure genius how he worked in the German national anthem into the intro.

[@roberthill799]

It is and also "Ach Du Lieber Augustin" in the middle.

[@andresemilfer]

YEARS of listening to this tune, never realized this, thank you

[@Chrischi3TutorialLPs]

I'm German and i never even noticed like how?

[@quadraticreciprocity782]

Wow I missed it too! I think it's because it's played in a different key.

[@kamikazemelon787]

with the lyrics, "Nazi, schmazi" schm- prefix coming from Yiddish originally as a mocking term. Let's also not forget "I'm learning Chinese" dude was looking into the future

[@BryanDelMonte]

The use of this performance in "For All Mankind" was epic.

[@Y3MINEM]

That's why I'm here.

[@NativeTexMexican]

Same.

[@RiverandtheWorld]

Just realized that Tom is still alive at age 96. You go dude!

[@corhydron111]

This is an infinitely classy burn...

[@randommodnar7141]

original diss track

[@sfctw1]

" 'Muh mixtape fam "

[@1503nemanja]

The "and I'm learning Chinese" was an example of a 3000C burn. :D

[@Afarrell18]

I didn't get that bit.

[@wbiro]

It is not classy, it is 'clever'. You mistake cleverness for enlightenment. A city pigeon is clever, but not enlightened. Ditto for Lehrer.

[@strongwilledwoman]

"You too may be a big hero, once you've learned to count backwards to zero." That (deservedly) biting line always makes me laugh.

[@bensas42]

That line rubbed be the wrong way. I know this is satire, buy implying that von Braum's work was unexceptional is just cheap, dishonest rethoric. Von Braum was a "hero" because of his scientific prowess, and that cannot be ignored in good faith.

[@lampwick4427]

@@bensas42 It absolutely can the man was a fucking nazi

[@ebuzzmiller34]

@@bensas42 That's like excusing Leni Riefenstahl as being a great filmmaker despite her films being used as propaganda pieces for the Nazi regime. Technically they're brilliant, but like Von Braun and V2 it doesn't reduce culpability in how they were used.

[@godofallpotatoes1614]

@@ebuzzmiller34 you can be brilliant and morally bankrupt, those aren’t mutually exclusive. I don’t think Bensas ever tried to excuse Braun, rather just said that his work was still exceptional and disagreed with discounting it.

[@thecaynuck]

@@ebuzzmiller34 To be fair, both Riefenstahl and Von Braun were initially victims of their environment and the times. I'm sure most people would've fallen for Hitler with the amount of charisma and promise he gave German citizens at the time after Germany felt disrespected by Europe after the Treaty of Versailles. Effective propaganda makes it easy to sell a narrative. Riefenstahl didn't kill anyone and Von Braun wasn't the one who demanded slaves build the rockets. While they served for the wrong side of history, their post-war work defines them just as much if not more, and they both died much better people. Someone who changes and spends the rest of their life bettering society after they had done things for evil people in my opinion had redeemed themself to a certain degree. Same reason why we should try to rehabilate criminals instead of only punishing them in prisons.

[@6funswede]

It is important to remember that Tom Lehrer was a satirist and a comedian, making fun of paradoxes. Oppenheimer was born in the United States, and Einstein became an American citizen as early as in 1940. Wernher von Braun stayed in Germany and worked for the Nazis until the end of the war, and that's a difference. As for Lehrer's comedy songs, people should listen to more than one of them before making up their mind about his work.

[@ethancheung2696]

E Fox I agree with your point, just a tiny nitpick. Von Braun, like him or not, definitely had the knowledge of a rocket scientist, not “allegedly” as you imply. He was the force behind NASA in the 60s. He knew his shit. Second, nuclear science was not banned outright, but frozen in Nazi Germany for the given, definitely racist, reasons. They did research into nuclear fission, but froze at the laboratory level because of politics and anti semitism, as you said. However, rocket science is not directly related to nuclear science and was not banned or suppressed in any way. The v1 and v2 missiles being examples. Tom Lehrer really did make some awesome satire about this situation here.

[@schore69]

@E Fox get your shit straight... tell me where rocket and nuclear sience are linked like you implie. Also what are these accusations of v.Braun making use of that "stolen invention"? What stolen invention? Rockets? You dumb ass

[@Holyproperty]

@E Fox what kind of bullshit you were talking about??.. german also developing itsown nuclear bomb, that why einstein wrote a letter to Eisenhower to speed up developing nuclear bomb before german get them first, ally force even interrupt many german nuclear research.. btw von braun is engineer that perfected rocket science, the slave labour just to produce his rockets at industrial scale, the design is made by his team.. military use his technology to carry bomb and slaves labour are used to mass produce rocket, get your fact right..

[@rvhill69]

Wernher von Braun probably killed a lot of people. More people probably died at Peenemünde and Mittelwerk Then at Auschwitz

[@schore69]

@@rvhill69 Partei deutscher äpfel??

[@sr60627]

Satirical humor that cuts like a razor blade.

[@mrglibb]

A razor dulls, Lehrer's work holds its edge like an obsidian scalpel.

[@SetzerII]

@@mrglibb Obsidian dulls quickly, as glass and similar materials are only semisolid (Look at a really old window, you'll see it thicker at the bottom after enough time). Mental wanking over physics aside, he's definitely a mind for the ages. Unfortunate George Carlin is gone, the two of them would have been the most amazing tour.

[@cheeselord3655]

@@SetzerII I think they didn't quite like each other as Carlin became more aggressive in later years. But I don't know that much about it, so yeah

[@Sara3346]

@@SetzerII How has this myth persisted for all these years, why should anyone not think older glassmakers simply created not the most evenly thick panes in the world? If was true why haven't we seen ancient metoric type natural glass ever forming a liquid patern neatly as far as I know? Glass at room temperature is at best an ''amorphous solid '' I'll give you that it is not a normal solid like quartz(because of arangement of molecules even though these are the same chemically). io9.gizmodo.com/the-glass-is-a-liquid-myth-has-finally-been-destroyed-496190894 science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/everyday-innovations/glass-liquid.htm%20www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-fiction-glass-liquid/%20www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-glass-really-a-liquid/%20www.thoughtco.com/glass-a-liquid-or-a-solid-608340 www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070809130014.htm

[@SetzerII]

@@Sara3346 Then my phrasing may have been crude, but isn't any more innacurate than another quick way of saying something. But the links are a good read.

[@emptank]

The V2 rocket preformed admirably. Sadly it kept landing on the wrong planet.

[@VengefulLeprechauns]

That wasn’t his department

[@Ryotenian7826]

Says Wernher Von Braun

[@LEEboneisDaMan]

Honestly I think that’s revisionism after the fact. Von Braun always knew what the rockets were going to be used for and the slave labor needed to make them. On some level, he just didn’t care.

[@Living_Dead_Girrl]

@@LEEboneisDaMan Von Braun started the entire program and not only *chose* to use slave labor - being he was a member of the NSDAP before AH and was a proud elitist Antisemite born into immense wealth & power who stole the fundamental design and invention of the V2 rocket from a *real* rocket scientist who was Jewish (just like most elite Inner-Circle Nazis did), but he brutally ran HIS underground “camp” - executing all who couldn’t keep up (or worked to fast… Nazi logic); and intentionally exposing every prisoner to the rockets’ toxic chemicals; causing every single prisoner to die within months of production. The problem is that Von Braun cared. He cared very much. Idk why so many revisionists trust the single biography written about the brutal war criminal who was brought to the US by the American-Nazis that infiltrated Congress in the early 30s & 40s, mostly known as the America Firsters, under *Project Paperclip* Anyone who doesn’t get that this song is about Project Paperclip, isn’t really listening to a single word Tom Lehrer is saying. Lehrer’s Jewish, and he was old enough to understand what Truman did when it went down. My Grandfather, a Jewish soldier in the Ritchie Boys, figured out what his beloved country was doing at the very end of the war after FDR died under mysterious circumstances. That’s why he killed as many SS as he could before he was physically restrained by his own men - and for the rest of his life, as a war hero that fought in the very first Battle, the Egyptian Campaign, then Battle of the Bulge & D-Day; part of the small groups of soldiers that were actually first to liberate camps before and announce it to the prisoners in a language they could understand: Yiddish; and celebrated Passover in Berlin in 1943, etc - he was treated like scum by the War Dept for finally “losing it” after 5 solid years of war and seeing the atrocities done to his own people. He was one of the first soldiers to go, and the last to leave. Typically, Armies don’t make experienced Veterans stay to do clean-up at the end of the war… but they made most of the Ritchie Boy Soldiers do it. All that, just to be used at the very end to “interrogate” Nazi war criminals in the American-Occupied German zone (due to his language skills), while elements in the OSS that’d later found the CIA secretly used this for the dual-purpose of selecting “Scientists” (and non-Scientsits) to not only get away with it - but be awarded full American citizenship for them and their entire family (something the US wouldn’t do for Jewish refugees), and jobs running powerful US governmental depts. Not just the head of NASA’s space program, like Von Braun, but the head of the DOD. I’m shocked people watching this video, don’t know about any of this - let alone the very well documented evidence of WHO Wernher Von Braun was. *The FBI Files on Von Braun are public* !! Everyone - go take a read! Then tell me literally anything short of what I spelled out is true. I haven’t gone far enough. I read the file! Absolutely no one in Nazi Germany was forced to join the Nazi party, work as Head of anything, nor was their life at risk for NOT joining the SS or doing “science” for the Reich. The only people forced to do anything in Germany - were Jews and/or anti-Nazi activists/resistance.

[@Living_Dead_Girrl]

@Android Guy Ok, Nazi-apologist. See post above 👆🏼

[@francescaroques4219]

2021 And he’s still getting new fans ..I’d never heard of him 6 mths ago & now I can’t get enough of him!

[@Badawgboy]

I was introduced to Lehrer as a small child.

[@slkjvlkfsvnlsdfhgdght5447]

2023 now, and he's gained me as a fan

[@ozreads]

That "and I'm learning Chinese" line is so beautifully creepy

[@mynameised6381]

It's amazing the amount of people who never heard of this man...

[@mynameised6381]

UncleMikeNJ Lehrer

[@FijneWIET]

+UncleMikeNJ Both are true...

[@westbrit4714]

+My Name Is Ed I know and with out him it is unlikely that man would have walked on the moon ( Neil Armstrong was in fact listening to Vatican rag at the very moment of touch down)

[@utahraptorfast]

I'm guessing people who've never heard of him aren't that interested in aerospace tech or space travel anyways

[@thecaynuck]

People have probably heard at least one of his songs before, but just don't know who wrote/sang it.

[@tcsam73]

I have always gotten a laugh out of the fact that the same man who wrote and sang songs like "Silent E" or the LY song from Sesame Street, a show that I watched every day till I started school, is the same man who wrote and sang songs like "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" or "The Masochism Tango". Truly Mr. Lehrer is a musical genius.

[@ernesthill4017]

He'd never make in today's entertainment world, far too cerebral. 🪔

[@grahamtroy9381]

Lehrer’s face is what really makes this great: notice every time he says “Werner Von Braun”, his head moves down. In addition, Lehrer’s eyebrows are not level, except when he’s imitating Von Braun, in which case they are level. There are other things that bring this from a good song to a great performance.

[@PhilAndersonOutside]

My parents had this record when I was a boy. I didn't understand the songs but sang with them and they stuck in my head. As the years went by and I grew, I slowly started to understand their meaning. Some 40 years later, I'm still listening and learning from them it seems.

[@dylanchouinard6141]

This becomes a lot more acidic when you remember Tom Lehrer is Jewish.

[@writersthatcook1651]

This. 👍

[@franklydoodle350]

Hassidic, you could say.

[@dylanchouinard6141]

@@franklydoodle350 You. I like you

[@yanivrubin4166]

@@franklydoodle350 leharil et ha yonim ba-park

[@alitlweird]

@@franklydoodle350 Damn it… I was gonna say that. You beat me by a mere two years.

[@lagrangepoint9386]

This little ding-ding after "hypocritical" gets me.

[@6funswede]

@uetzel, the answer is very simple: Tom Lehrer was -- and still is -- ahead of his time. He will remain hot for the next 250 years.

[@playasadonejoe]

Yes, we should put him in a lead safe and only let him out on special occasions.

[@alanpennie8013]

@@playasadonejoe The story goes that he has kept youthful by tap dancing in his basement.

[@rboosterman9944]

Von Braun and Elon Musk will be remembered far longer than jew Tom Lehrer will be. I doubt Lehrer will be remembered in 100 years, let alone 250 years.

[@gomist2018]

I’m a fun Swede too and I have loved Tom Lehrer for some 60 years now!

[@IainOElliott]

But how prophetic of Tom all the same - learning Chinese.

[@DOGMA1138]

Ian Elliott China in the 50's was exploding, civil war, atomic program, transforming European communism into Mao-ism, 21st century politics don't look that much different than the one's from the 20th century or even the 19th century. Heck if you look at the late 19th century it's pretty much a loop since then, big wars in Europe, the middle east exploding, Russia invades Korea, war with China, war with Japan, the US invades everything from mexico the the Philippines. We've been stuck in the same TiVo box forever....

[@SacredDaturaa]

In the intro to this song in his Copenhagen show, he talks about how China had very recently (then) detonated their own nuclear bomb. So that wasn't necessarily a random reference.

[@1503nemanja]

That part killed me, such a fine burn. Brings a tear to my inner troll's eye.

[@charliesmith6137]

You have to immerse yourself in the time. Right after China exploded their first atomic "device" Dean Rusk testified in Congress that there wasn't a big problem, because they wouldn't have missiles to deliver the bombs for "at least five years". It was not reassuring.

[@somethinglikethat2176]

The father of the Chinese rocket program (an American at the time) was the one who conducted the first paperclip interview of Wernher von Braun. Long story short he was hounded out of public life and academia around the time of the Korean War which he didn't want to have anything to do with owing to his Chinese background and he eventually went to China and built up their rocket program.

[@johanflorin4430]

I wonder how many people miss the lovely interpretation of the first four measures of the German national anthem in the intro. I know it took me a while to recognise it.

[@thethirdman225]

It's more obvious in some other recordings.

[@theresaschmidt1226]

I‘m German and I missed it the first time. ^^

[@davidfetter]

I guess a few early measures of Horst-Wessel-Lied would have been a bridge too far.

[@troyevitt2437]

Deutcshland Uber Alles is still sung at sporting events, but lyrics citing racial supremacy have been changed to a more healthy form of patriotism.

[@karlwilhelmmeinert7592]

@@troyevitt2437 It never contained any.

[@Adam130694]

You know what the clue was in Space Race between US and USSR? Who had better Germans...

[@SnowElf_96]

+Adam130694 That was the case for most time periods.

[@darthparallax5207]

+Ghost also how most conflicts are resolved.

[@SnowElf_96]

Richardsen LMAO, so true though

[@VRichardsn]

Ghost Exactly. That makes it even funnier.

[@TheD3rp2]

+Adam130694 Well, the Soviets had far less Germans and they won the Space Race, so there's probably a correlation.

[@cubusaddendum]

"Like the widows and cripples of old London town". Actually it was my great grandfather that became a widower. All they found was her wedding ring - the rest of her boiled away in the heat. They were Jews too, escaping Western Pomerania in the 1880s.

[@anthonydamico727]

Fun fact, my grandma used to drive Werner von Braun to work at NASA. i have to upload a few of the pictures "he was a nice good looking man on the outside" she used to say

[@buckplug2423]

They alway are, aren't they...

[@thefamily8655]

It was eather death or progress and so if wherner von Braun wasn't with the USA we would of probably lost the space race

[@Pixelslet]

Bit chunky for my taste

[@ethanyeung6216]

look forward to it

[@cageybee7221]

@@thefamily8655 that wouldn't be the end of the world, quite the contrary. perhaos the side collaborating with the nazis are not the good guys.

[@cromwellcruiser]

did anyone notice the Deutschland uber alles on the right hand in the introductory notes?

[@PatrickHotelEchoRomeo]

It is the melody of the anthem of the Federal Republic of Germany, which goes „Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit“ and not „Deutschland, Deutschland über alles“.

[@becomepostal]

Distant Promise no, I didn’t notice that before.

[@cleverick]

Omg

[@kaibroeking9968]

And also "Ach, Du lieber Augustin", first at 1:05.

[@DieFlabbergast]

@@windows95leon "Hayden"?? Who he? (You mean Haydn.)

[@williamrasengan]

Even tho it's a satire, it's the best song about moral indifference that I've ever listened to.

[@Nightriser271828]

And the absurdity of claiming to be apolitical.

[@BlisaBLisa]

good ol banality of evil

[@slkjvlkfsvnlsdfhgdght5447]

@@BlisaBLisa he wasn't just banal: he would visit the forced labor camps and tell guards to punish prisoners

[@no1weezerfan]

Rings harshly true especially now

[@RootlessNZ]

Unsurpassed in musical satire and comedy - a true comedic genius. Thanks for uploading

[@MarkMones]

Happy 96th birthday, Tom Lehrer!!

[@dylandarnell3657]

Though I love the song, I feel compelled to point out that Wernher von Braun was in fact very concerned with where his rockets kept ending up -- they landed on the wrong planet entirely.

[@svenlittlecross]

Dylan Darnell hes talking about the V-2's

[@eduardog3000]

svenlittlecross Even the V-2s. His job was to design a rocket that could be launched from Germany and land in England.

[@Scorponox93]

svenlittlecross I think the joke is that Wernher always wanted to make rockets for space exploration but the only way to develop his ideas was by selling them as weapons to bomb London instead, hence "landing in the wrong planet".

[@svenlittlecross]

Scorponox93 thats twisting the truth, but yeah the joke is that they landed on the "wrong planet" sure

[@Music6446heart]

Dylan Darnell This is why I love Tom Lehrer he encourages folks to 'insult' but without all the cussing. It's classier that way.

[@ChristopherDazey]

This is especially brutal in that one episode of For All Mankind.

[@felipefalcao7705]

Us:if only I had a way of organizing these papers of mine The CIA:I might have an idea

[@venum17]

📎

[@brendanmeylor8489]

just a quick question: How was the audio so high quality even though most audio from back then sounds incredibly scratchy?

[@aaronbrown8377]

This is a video recording, not a record being played back. A record can sound scratchy due to dirt or needle wearing. Just depends on the method of information storage.

[@hazelnotxyz]

@@aaronbrown8377 to;dr: vinyl sounds scratchy, magnetic tape doesn't

[@Neville60001]

@@hazelnotxyz, it does have a lot of hiss, though, which usually has to be cleaned up using current audio equipment.

[@timeliebe]

Sometime during the first season of Apple TV's FOR ALL MANKIND, Colm Feore, who played von Braun, has to resign from NASA in disgrace because of a Nixonian "dirty trick". I remember watching it with my wife at the time and saying, "All this needs is Tom Lehrer's song"-and by God, they played it in its entirety, complete with clips from this special, over his walking out of NASA for the last time....

[@grassfuse]

What a brilliant man,kind of like 50's Weird Al!

[@88michaelandersen]

Weird Al said that Tom Lehrer was one of the people that inspired him to become Weird Al.

[@MrDirtystoner]

88michaelandersen was he a illuminati pig like wierd al?

[@Cyberplayer1337]

MrDirtystoner what makes you think weird al is illumnati?

[@dylandarnell3657]

***** I'd advise against digging too deep into the motives of conspiracy theorists. That's a rabbit hole people tend not to come back out of.

[@MrDirtystoner]

***** do some reasearch and you will figuer why i think he is illuminati :)

[@tomsbeststuff2134]

I first heard Tom on one of his records that a neighbor played back in 1967 or 68. His intelligence and wit has stood the test of time. Well done, Prof!

[@nothingmusic42]

just came here to say that this song was recently used on the Amazon Prime show, Hunters. great alternate universe story where a group of Holocaust survivors and their allies hunt down all the Nazis that were taken in by the US government, and this song was used when they went after von Braun (who learned all about household electrical currents...).

[@cimbalok2972]

My hero since 1965. Thank you Dr. Lehrer!

[@maskedman1337]

That last line was and remains sooooooo incredible.

[@julianhermanubis6800]

If you ever visit the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Alabama, one of the first things to greet you is a reproduction of his office space complete with a life-size cardboard stand-up of Wernher von Braun. They also have parts of one of his V-2 rockets in another exhibit.

[@andrewhorning6680]

I loved your songs when I was young. And your songs have aged better than I have. Thank you, sir!

[@stevend.bennett427]

My dad was a fan since the early 60s so I grew up listening to his stuff since.

[@leemumbray-williams2440]

Lee Mumbray-Williams “In German or English I know how to count down, & I’m learning Chinese” says Werner Von Braun!

[@nanotechnicianhq]

Thanks for Public Domain!

[@CallinicusHu]

Watch For All Mankind everyone. ;-)

[@drdarkeny]

The most unlikely place to have seen this clip was in the Apple TV+ series FOR ALL MANKIND, where von Braun is leaving the space Center in disgrace as this exact clip just plays right under the whole thing.

[@marinko29005]

Whats this? Sit-down comedy?

[@dillscriv22]

It's called a Satirist

[@DB-rw5vu]

1950s' version of Weird Al.

[@rustyshackleford5989]

Old timey Bo Burnham

[@pingulinchenslife4704]

I was today years old when I realised that the intro is the German national anthem...I listened to this song a hundred million times->I'm german...now my husband told me->he's Brazilian...😂🤣😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂🤣😂

[@dirtytreerat14]

Deutschland 🇩🇪!

[@bloodyhell8201]

@@dirtytreerat14 begone wernher von braun

[@deepspacedruid7673]

Und ach du lieber augustin ist auch drin

[@one0nine]

"he's Brazilian" Well, that's what he told you, anyways... :-p

[@slkjvlkfsvnlsdfhgdght5447]

@@bloodyhell8201 that's the flag of the 1848 revolution and the weimar/modern republic. very anti nazi

[@joakimandersson7769]

I love how the comments mostly assume Tom is dead. He's only 93 ma dudes.

[@ballistichorse6221]

That’s still a good bit above average life expectancy for a male in America.

[@leemumbray-williams2440]

Bessie, why do you imagine that TomLehrer hasn’t performed in front of an audience for decades? I can assure you that he has and that watching him perform live is a magical experience!

[@janegiegold8454]

You're an idiot!

[@ted.angell7609]

The only thing magical here is your imagination, perhaps fueled by some magical mushrooms 😄

[@libbybollinger5901]

This comment thread makes me so confused

[@ted.angell7609]

@@libbybollinger5901 OP is making a preposterous claim. Tom Lehrer hasn’t given a live performance in decades.

[@annewyckoff9720]

Und I'm learning Chinese, ..... These songs never go out of style!

[@Kristofisto]

This is just too good

[@ShubhamBhushanCC]

this man is a prophet

[@maxr5799]

I really thought this was created for All Mankind. I had no idea it was real.

[@leemumbray-williams2440]

I just love how relaxed Tom looks in front of an audience! Saw him in concert in Copenhagen recently and the audience just adored him and his performance. He was greeted by them with a standing ovation and I heard lots of very flattering comments from the people seated around me!

[@flyingfox707b]

He still does concerts? I didn't know. I thought he was concentrating on his teaching.

[@janegiegold8454]

@@flyingfox707b This person is a nut -he hasn't given a concert since the late sixties. He will be 92 years old next month. I wish this person would stop posting all this crazy shit.

[@ted.angell7609]

Wait, what? Mr. Lehrer is about 95 now and hasn’t performed in decades.

[@msfyn]

Okay I can't help myself I'm addicted to Tom Lehrer. Perhaps I should become a peanut loving pigeon?

[@Saturnares]

it's been 10 years, are you a peanut loving pigeon now?

[@msfyn]

@@Saturnares Still addicted to Tom, the pigeons can fend for themselves

[@Georgesbarsukov]

"Once rockets are up, who cares where they come down. That's not my department." Lmao, I feel the same way about my work on rockets.

[@BlisaBLisa]

bro????

[@thekingofthisworld2154]

53 years later it still makes me laugh 😂

[@Bacchasnail]

This is good shit. This guy would fit in well with millenial and gen z comedians.

[@CodyHomes]

Wernher Von Braun is a role model of mine. This song is too relevant to me in my life currently. Once I talk to my neighbors talking politics on my levels and demotions it's not my department the results. I'm learning Spanish and German at University. Say simply that I'm a Comedian Jester. I'm also a Diplomat. I just got called a N*zi by my grandma. Ha N*zi smosi. I wish I could meet Him.

[@gabriel300010]

This is the perfect lullaby

[@Debunker246]

thanks for posting this ...all I ever heard in the sixties was the elements song.

[@simoncito17]

A great song. Sehr schön. Of course, the good Herr von Braun just did what most of our good countrymen did back then - they came out of these, ah, unfortunate happenings like ducks out of water, with hardly a feather moistened or ruffled, and let their memories be firmly ruled by "expedience" during their new careers. The remarkable thing is that Herr von Braun managed to pull that off in the US and not just in Germany itself. He was much admired here, of course.

[@Chrischi3TutorialLPs]

A long time ago, i saw a clip of this in some documentation about Wernher von Braun, and could never find it since. It wasn't until years later that i came upon Tom Lehrer through the KZbin channel of a candy store in Tallahassee of all things that i rediscovered this.

[@6funswede]

I truly enjoy the comments posted on this version of "Wernher von Braun". It's interesting to read messages from people who seem to take Lehrer's comedy songs too seriously, after listening to -- perhaps -- only a few of them. But this is a fact: Tom Lehrer stopped writing comedy songs in the mid-sixties. He is still able to get three million plus views for the videos on this one channel alone. As a comedian he was ahead of his time. Play all the videos on the channel. That'll help.

[@ShikataGaNai100]

93 and still kicking ass.

[@playasadonejoe]

Yeah, I think he recently called a group of rappers motherfuckers and let them sample his records.

[@slkjvlkfsvnlsdfhgdght5447]

now 95, i can't believe he's still alive!

[@Y3MINEM]

“Learning Chinese” was prescient.

[@leemumbray-williams2440]

Always thought Tom was gorgeous and this video proves it!

[@beek.4860]

wow, i wouldn’t like to get on tom lehrer’s bad side! this is some biting satire lol

[@sakar181]

@6funswede I remember the first time I heard Tom. Drama class, 8 years ago. I played a cd my English teacher gave me in the stage's sound system. Me and my girl were dancing to this as the student body looked on as we were mad. FSM bless Tom!

[@PaleoalexPicturesLtd]

"For All Mankind" brought me here :)

[@jvisme321]

Bye, Bob :'-(

[@dirtytreerat14]

@@jvisme321 Hi bob

[@dalethelander3781]

Great series.

[@andrewwhitbread9362]

"CHIVALRY is recognising a Girl for WHATEVER HER accomplishments MAKE HER." - St. HMAJW."

[@leemumbray-williams2440]

Wonderful song and I’m so proud to be able to acknowledge the close friendship I have had with the magnificent Tom Lehrer for many years!

[@inkycat5542]

Bullshit

[@ExperimentIV]

i’m so envious. what i wouldn’t give to talk to him once

[@ted.angell7609]

In case anyone is taking this commenter seriously, he is quite a teller of stories… and not of the true variety 😉

[@anderslarsen4100]

Brilliant.

[@FijneWIET]

#OperationPaperclip

[@nutsackmania]

Gotta pick 'em up and attach 'em to our empire

[@thesupremenecroticdakimakura]

@@fuzzydunlop7928 Nope, lel. They declassified unit 731 documents last year.

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

@@thesupremenecroticdakimakura Took them long enough. lol

[@thesupremenecroticdakimakura]

@@fuzzydunlop7928 _Hey, morals don't mean jack shit if it means we win against the commies_ Fun fact, Masaji Kitano ended up founding Green Cross and sold pharmaceuticals to Korea and China.

[@meldroc]

Ugliest fact about the V-2. More people died building the V-2 than were killed by the V-2. They were built by concentration camp prisoners, and the conditions weren't exactly humane... And Wernher von Braun supervised.

[@leemumbray-williams2440]

Tom Lehrer has the most eloquent eyebrows I have ever seen on KZbin. Always knew you were gorgeous, Tom, but these clips just confirm the fact! Miss seeing you though - it was fun for Mick and I to have you as a house guest, though I still think it’s bizarre to eat pizza 🍕 for breakfast!

[@Beatlefan67]

Incomparable. Utterly brilliant.

[@gtmattz]

Regardless of the reasons why the men were sent to the moon, none of the men who went were 'idiots', they were all very intelligent talented men who had more bravery and determination than just about anybody alive today.

[@cannedbollocks]

gtmattz Right over your dumb head.

[@pretzelstick320]

cannedbollocks how did so many humorless fucks end up at this video?

[@Afarrell18]

How did it go over his head? there's usually real opinions of the comic expressed in satire/comedy

[@TheEloquentEye]

lol, this clown actually thinks that happened 😂 Boomers might be the first generation to believe everything they were told.

[@UberTankred]

YT subtitle: Wernher von Braun = very funny bro ...which is technically correct!

[@martinfederico7269]

Before there was Hicks, before there was Carlin...

[@spumatei]

This song appeared in a documentary on the Space race, and is the only reason I ever got into Tom Lehrer's songs.

[@FijneWIET]

genius

[@leemumbray-williams2440]

How I love watching the wonderful Tom Lehrer performing on KZbin. It’s a delight!

[@freek9335]

Truelly a man ahead of his time and still alive believe it or not.

[@CodyHomes]

55th anversery if I'm not mistaken. My, how time flies.

[@Diorama42]

no i mean 20,000 SLAVES, died of starvation and exhaustion and execution building his rockets. and its not like he was faxing in the plans from his beach condo, he knew exactly what was going on.

[@coffeeblack1057]

BEAUTIFUL!!

[@mortenbund1219]

Very ironic that Tom's last name is "Teacher" in German.

[@haggidubious]

So much Tom Lehrer on youtube!

[@KingBanter]

How right Tom was all those years ago re: “and he’s learning Chinese!!” Decades later so relevant

[@guy-sl3kr]

Pretty sure he's referring to the Kuomintang, not the Communist Party of China

[@SacredDaturaa]

@@guy-sl3kr This was in the mid 1960s, when the PRC had just become a nuclear power, so he's definitely alluding to the PRC here. Taiwan had a nuclear program in the sixties but never successfully detonated a nuclear bomb.

[@cheekybastard7798]

Someone should really get this guy a fricking medal

[@walterbushell7029]

Hey we don't want our youth to think before going to war. The US does have a habit of undermining democracies world wide. and indulging in torture like waterboarding and fighting against wars of national liberation.

[@NickyKnickerson]

Scathing!

[@billsaupe1243]

Classic satirical "Rocket Age" humor from a Harvard educated Math Professor who taught classes at MIT, Wellesley, and UC, Santa Cruz. 😂 Very well educated, and VERY well done!! 👍

[@gswdeclan]

What a great talent, he went on to be a math professor at UCSC for several decades after he quit releasing music.

[@HConstantine]

@GoblinKnightLeo Carpet is a technical term for using strategic bombers to attack enemy troop formations. It was sued exactly twice in all of history on the easter and western ends of the German lines surrounded the Beachhead in Normandy in the summer of 1944. The fact that still persist in using to refer to strategic attacks against cites shows that you are not even wrong.

[@bowserhunter1]

"Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down. That's not my department" Attitude of the American government.

[@stalinsmyth8370]

Typical American philosophy: blame someone, something else so you dont get the red ass.

[@squiglemcsquigle8414]

@Radwyn Althor The US is that bully though