My 2 cents...plus some.
Von Braun did not invent the liquid fuel rocket engine.
This was invented by Robert Hutchins Goddard, an American scientist, in the 20s.
He started with a crude alcohol and liquid oxygen rocket with a strange design. The exhaust nozzle was at the top!
This allowed the lower fuel tanks to act as a crude inertial stabilization system, with the weight of the lower section hanging under the thrust source.
He later developed liquid fuel rockets with the thrust chamber at the lower section, gyro stabilization, and vectoring thrust with vanes deflecting the exhaust as needed to correct direction.

Von Braun and his friends started a research club that was primarily interested in advancing rocketry. Much of their work was based directly on Goddards work; both Von Braun and Wiley Ley said exactly that in numerous writings. If pressed I can provide documentation.
VB and company used RHG's research as a starting point to develop larger more practicle vehicles; first for scientific interest, then for military uses.
I have seen films from both early Goddard experiments and the Germans.
Goddard was first...but if he hadn't, someone else would have.
They both had rockets that failed on the pad, blew up, went unstable.
They both had early liquid fuel rocket that went thousands of feet into the sky.
They both turned towards military applications as the Second World War approached. They both were annoyed that their efforts were repeatedly ignored by their governments.
Goddard invented the bazooka.
Von Braun made the V-2s arc to England.
The power of Urban Legendry not withstanding, Sir George's was not likely the first manned flying. Look to the Chinese with their huge kites for that honor. His claim is one of many loosely documented events that propose to knock the Wrights off their pedestal.
What the Wright's did was to combine carefully researched wing shapes, a superb engine for power, a workable control system. Their lab work is well documented.
\ A goodly amount of their work was inspired by early German glider builders.
All of these craft were barely controllable. Dozens of would-be pilots died in many countries.
Two more items: For a slightly cockeyed look at the world of early winged aircraft in England, one might do well to watch the film, "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines". If you strip away the lame plot, it gives a strange view of the events that occurred at Brooklands in Weybridge.
If you know when to look, you can see the banked track of the Brooklands racecourse in the background of incidental shots behind the hangers sheds.
The Benny Hill character, "The Fire Chief", was REAL.
Fairey, Avro, Vickers, Hawker, Sopwith and many other great names in British aviation development made great strides after their dips into the nourishing waters of Brookland's sewage pond.
Lastly, NO-ONE SHOULD EVER LEARN HISTORY FROM HOLLYWOOD.
A single viewing of "Pearl Harbor" should be all one needs to convince one of this truth.