Well, there was Goddard, Korolev & quite a few others. But it could indeed have taken longer if the military implications were not clearly demonstrated by Von Braun.

Still, an interesting possibility of a fully civilian space program from the start & how it would look like & how it would be different.

Kinda like in Wings of Honneamise.

Not only the military aspect. His staff literally were absorbed into the Russian sand US space programs. Von Braun himself famously designed the Saturn V.