The Apollo program employed hundreds of engineers and scientists to develop the Saturn rockets and Apollo program in general, yet how come its portrayed as if Wernher von Braun was the one who designed everything? Like if he designed everything, then whats the point of all those hundreds of engineers and scientists? What did Wernher von Braun do exactly for the Apollo program? To give an example, many people claim that the Falcon 9 rockets are Elon Musk's design, yet he employs hundreds of people in order design them. So exactly how much did Wernher von Braun contribute to the Apollo program?
Though a commander of an army does not usually do any hand-to-hand fighting, having a competent leader can be very important. von Braun was the director of a vast organisation -- to understand why he was valuable, one has to look at his prior history.
In 1920s and 1930s many amateurs and professional engineers, in USA, USSR, France and Germany were dabbling in rockets. It was quite fashionable, and there were many small research groups, rocket societies, etc.
Quite uniquely among this over-abundance of small projects, in the late 1930s German army and air force have established an absolutely massive operation -- with over 4000 scientists and engineers directly involved in only one of their several R&D centers, and many more contributing through contracts for various components.
von Braun became the technical director of this, first in the world large scale rocket R&D center, which opened in 1937. Earlier, he wrote a dissertation on his own experiments with rocket engine development. As the director, he of course no longer designed or tested anything himself -- in fact there were several layers of management under him before you got to the people who did the detailed work. But he understood the situation, set the goals, understood what was being done, explained it to others in a way which was clear to everyone, and made sure his team was all working together. He was well regarded as a competent manager who made people enthusiastic about their work, and got results. Due to his privileged upbringing he was also at ease in dealing with the dignitaries visiting his center.
At the end of the war, he and most of the "celebrities" of German rocket program, (with some rare exceptions) have chosen to offer themselves and the results of their work to the USA, with the understanding that their value will be appreciated and that they would be in the best position to continue their work. Even larger number, mostly less famous, but also very competent people started to work for the USSR. A smaller number went to France and have greatly contributed to the French and later European space program.
The main value of German know-how was in the sheer scale of the work accomplished -- it was vastly bigger than anything else in the world. They had the specific hardware, the results of many, many systematic experiments across many relevant disciplines, the understanding of what it takes to get things done in the large scale rocketry.
This was what von Braun and about a hundred of his colleagues brought to the USA (together with the many trainloads of rocket components and documentation.) They may not have all been exceptionally talented as engineers, but they were a unique, competent team with experience of working together well on a very complex, groundbreaking rocket project. They stayed together as a team.
After the rocket designed by von Braun's team launched the first US satellite, he became quite a hero in the USA -- having restored US image after USSR's coup of launching the first satellite in 1957. That lead to his appointment as the head of NASA flight center in Alabama.
In this capacity, he and his team have contributed to Apollo top level planning, design decisions and coordination of the program. In the USA, as it was in Germany, the actual work was done by an army of engineers, technicians, scientists -- if you account for everyone involved it will be hundreds of thousands of people for Apollo and probably tens of thousands for the German projects.
Curiously, although all Allies have tapped German know-how after the war, the detailed paths of rocket development quickly diverged in different countries, reflecting their strengths and weaknesses. USSR may not have gotten the top German talent, (and they certainly did not have the most advanced industry), but they managed to produce a very formidable missile / space launcher which was well ahead of what german teams in USA and France were able to accomplish at that period.
Another important thing to remember is that although von Braun is remembered as the public face of US space program, the public part was hardly the whole of the US space program. Concurrently with much publicized NASA launches, a vast amount of work went into secret satellite reconnaissance programs, which were managed without german help.
For more information on the subject, I recommend this very good and I believe quite objective Deutsche Welle documentary: "Wernher von Braun – Rocket Man for War and Peace" (note that it is split into multiple short parts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrytmBgL8fY
The definitive biography of von Braun:
Dr. Michael J. Neufeld "von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War"
https://www.amazon.com/Von-Braun-Dreamer-Space-Engineer-ebook/dp/B06XR1PK9V
Also, this dissertation gives one of the best overviews on the history of early German rocketry and also covers very well some aspects of war-time developments:
"ENGINEERING CONSENT: PEENEMUENDE, NATIONAL SOCIALISM, AND THE V-2 MISSILE, 1924-1945," Michael Brian Petersen https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/2577/umi-umd-2357.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
These excellent 5 part series show the breadth of US R&D which was involved in the Apollo program -- from MIT scientists to Pennsylvania company specializing in sports undergarments:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTu8nanTJo7GvulBxz9JT9JcXeXimM1Vr