Magnus von Braun was born at his family's manor of Neucken, an estate the von Brauns had owned since 1803,[5] near Pr. Eylau (present-day Dubki in Bagrationovsky District, Russia) in East Prussia to Maximilian von Braun (1833 – 1918) and Eleonore (née von Gostkowski; 1842 – 1928).[3][6]
He studied law at the universities of Göttingen and Königsberg and joined the Prussian civil service in 1905, at first at the Department of Trade and Commerce in Berlin. Von Braun was from an old noble family and bore the title of Freiherr (equivalent to Baron and translated as such in English).
He became the Stadthauptmann (head of the administration) for the Baltic town of Daugavpils in 1918. Following the conclusion of World War I, Braun was appointed Commissarial Police President of Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) in 1919. Braun then worked again at the Department of Interior and became the President of the Governorate of Gumbinnen.
He was dismissed from the civil service after the Kapp Putsch in 1920 for his role in the coup.[9]
Braun returned to his family's manor in East Prussia and was active in several agricultural organisations like the Raiffeisen cooperative.
In 1930, he became the Vice President of the Reichsverband der Landwirtschaftlichen Genossenschaften (Association of Agricultural Cooperatives).[10]
After the Nazis came to power on 30 January 1933, Braun moved to his manor in Silesia, which after World War II became part of Poland and Braun was expelled to Western Germany in 1946.[8]
Braun followed his son Wernher to the United States in 1947, but returned to Germany in 1952, where he died in 1972 at Oberaudorf.
Braun married Emmy von Quistorp (1886–1959) on 12 July 1910. They had three sons:
^Regarding personal names: Freiherr is a former title (translated as 'Baron'). In Germany since 1919, it forms part of family names. The feminine forms are Freifrau and Freiin.
^ abcMagnus Freiherr von Braun, Von Ostpreußen bis Texas. Erlebnisse und zeitgeschichtliche Betrachtungen eines Ostdeutschen. Stollhamm 1955 (also published as: Weg durch vier Zeitepochen. Vom ostpreußischen Gutsleben der Väter bis zur Weltraumforschung des Sohnes in America. Limburg, 1965
^Michael J. Neufeld: Von Braun, Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War, ISBN0-307-38937-5
