German Rocket Society - Verein für Raumschiffahrt by Frank H. Winter - Part 9

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Official Secrecy On Rocketry Imposed In Germany From 1933

Ordway and Sharpe comment that “...open (i.e. private) rocket testing had suddenly and mysteriously ceased after Hitler's takeover.” The apparent Nazi-governmental imposition upon both private rocket experimentation and rocket groups as well as a censorship on the mention of the word “rocket,” for potential military use, are other areas that are extremely difficult to document and pin down. We can therefore only show a general trend but it seems for certain the censorship did exist from that time in Germany and that all these trends were linked directly to the then top secret military rocket program.[1]

The situation regarding any alleged ban on private rocketry experimentation during the early years of the Hitler regime is somewhat ambiguous, however. More than a decade after the war, Walter Dornberger, who had served as the military commander of Peenemünde where the A-4 (later called the V-2) was developed, explained in a letter of 28 February 1956 to Andrew G. Haley of the American Rocket Society and a pioneer of space law: “The VfR died because of internal fights with the Society (everyone against everyone).” That is, the military were not involved in the downfall of the VfR. “The only restriction we as military (the German Army) imposed on the Society,” he continued, “was that they should abstain from publishing articles in newspapers about the military use of liquid fuel rockets (i.e. partial censorship). Besides, we, the military, were very upset about the disappearance of the VfR from the scene. The Society got a lot of publicity we, the military, did not want to get for security reasons.”[2]

Dornberger had earlier offered the same explanation to Ley but Ley amplified what happened afterward: “After the war,” wrote Ley, “in one of my long discussions with Dr. Dornberger, the talk turned to the complaints of a number of people, Nebel among them, that they had been snubbed or suppressed. Dornberger was emphatic in saying that the (Army) policy had been just the opposite. The officers of the Waffenprüfamt (Weapons Proving Office of the German Army) felt that the publicity obtained by individuals would distract attention from their own work...The Weapon Office might have even strengthened such a 'smoke screen' with money had it felt certain that there would be no talk.”

“This, of course,” Ley continued, “was the main difficulty as far as the Weapons Office was concerned, because it had subsidized somebody and that somebody had talked, that would have been a definite tip-off that a real secret was hidden elsewhere. What the (German) Army could hardly have prevented was the pressure brought by the Nazi party organizations on all levels; Dornberger, for example, was unaware that (Joseph) Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda at one point, issued a directive to all newspaper editors that they were not to mention even the word 'rocket' in print. The logical outcome of all these currents was what actually happened; individual experimentation ceased and all the better men were hired by the Army.” But inquiries to the Bundesarchiv – Militärarchiv ((German) Federal Archives – Military Archives) in Freiburg have failed to find any specific law that forbade any private rocket experimentation in Germany during that period. [3]

In regard to censorship, Ley recalled in the conclusion of his 1943 article, “The End of the Rocket Society,” that a year later was slightly re-worked in his book Rockets - The Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere (1944), that about April 1935, or three months after he had emigrated to the U.S., “...a daring (German) editor wrote to me that the (German) press had been forbidden to even mention the word 'rocket,' no matter in what connection. And four weeks later somebody overheard a telephone conversation with the Army Ministry. It contained the sentence: 'Now all the rocket people are on ice, (and) we can see what they are doing.”[4]

But the experience of P.E. Cleator in his communications with Ley in Germany provides even more specific and dramatic evidence of this censorship. In another letter of Cleator, to Pendray, dated 30-31 October 1934, he told the American: “Apparently there is some trouble brewing in Germany - trouble about which Herr Ley dare not write. It seems that all my letters (to him) are opened, and their contents carefully examined. Moreover, most of the letters I get from Germany have been neatly slit open, and then gummed up. Moreover, I am requested to be very careful what I write in future, in order to, the message goes on to say, avoid trouble...Finally, my letters must refer to nothing but space travel - apparently the word 'rocket' is taboo.”

It is also interesting that he added that he had seen Steinitz when he came to London “two weeks ago...” and that “I understand from him that the German Government had offered to grant the EVFW much money for research work providing the results of their work were not published in any shape or form, but were to become the property of the Government. The German Society refused the offer, knowing full well that the idea was to develop the rocket as a weapon of war...” Then he ended with a somewhat prophetic statement: “It seems to be that rocket research in Germany is becoming a closed book - until the fighting begins.”[5]

Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda is known for certain to have issued several “Anweisung” (“instructions”) to the German press from 1934 to 1935 that relate to reporting on rockets during that period, as found in the Brammer Collection of the Institut für Zeitungsforschung (Institute for Newspaper Research)) in Dortmund. One is, “Instruction Nr. 588 v. 6.7. of 1934: “It is once again reminded (you) that when reporting on rocket aircraft, etc. (use) extreme caution.” Another instruction, Nr. 933 v. 26.11 of 1934, reads: “There is a United Press message about Gerhard Zucker trying rocket mail. This message should not be published,” and a similar instruction for 1935. Thus, there may have been several instructions that collectively imposed a censorship that forbade German newspapers (and probably magazines and journals as well) reporting on rockets in the German press during these years.[6]

But perhaps, at another point (or as remembered), there came to be just one overall directive. Notably, W.L. Schlesinger of the Astronomical Society of South Africa informed Andrew G. Haley in a letter of 21 April 1955, that when he (Schlesinger) had been the editor of a Jewish newspaper in Germany during 1934-1935, one day he received an official directive “to German Newspaper Editors” from the Reichsverbund der Deutschen Presse (Reich Association of the German Press) that announced that as of that date, “no stories about rocket research of whatever origin, were to be published, unless submitted, prior to publication...” Lastly, we summarize the contributions or legacy of the VfR.[7]

Contributions Or Legacies Of The VfR

Phase 1

First, it is very clear that the history of the VfR saw two very distinctive phases: Phase 1, the non-experimental Die Rakete period, from 1927 to 1929; and Phase 2, the Raketenflugplatz, or experimental phase, from 1930-1934. Closer examination shows that Phase 1 was decidedly more theoretical and literary; Phase 2 was not theoretical, or was less theoretical, and was fixed upon experiments, albeit the Society (or rather, the Raketenflugplatz under Nebel) involved increasingly more showmanship that also led to its downfall. Thus, in assessing the overall contributions or legacy of the VfR, the answer is at least twofold.

In making this assessment, we have to be mindful of the context of the times. The period from 1927 to 1934 were not only far simpler years, but the field of what was now coined as “astronautics” was relatively brand-new and even “novel” or “exotic.” As seen, it is true that we now know that the Russian Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky and Robert H. Goddard had laid the theoretical foundations of astronautics from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, in theory on the part of Tsiolkovsky and through both theory and extensive experimentation on the part of Goddard, that centered around their findings that the rocket (i.e. rocket propulsion) was then the only feasible method of man achieving spaceflight.

Yet we have also seen that paradoxically, the works of these two pioneers were quite unknown to the rocket and spaceflight “enthusiasts,” as they were often called in their day, which founded and nurtured spaceflight advocate groups like the VfR, the American Interplanetary Society, and the British Interplanetary Society. That is, details of the works of Tsiolkovsky and Goddard were simply unknown in Germany, the U.S., and England, and no doubt elsewhere on the globe.

In the case of Tsiolkovsky, as seen in his biographies and other studies, there was not only a language problem but Tsiolkovsky was not a scientist but an almost impoverished girl's schoolteacher residing in a small, provincial city of Kaluga, Russia, about 150 km (93 mi) southwest of Moscow. For these reasons, the publication of his earliest written works on the subject (again, in Russia, known as “cosmonautics”) were usually paid for out of pocket and saw a very limited distribution, even within his own country.

It was only after the publication of Oberth's ground-breaking work, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket in Planetary Space) in 1923, that Tsiolkovsky's name started to become better known outside his country; although in our close examination of the pages of the VfR's Die Rakete, it is evident his name only became introduced into the wider astronautical community in Germany as late as 1928. Even so, only the barest details of his works are mentioned and the original works in Russian were undoubtedly extremely difficult to come by in Weimar Germany and could only be read by those fluent in Russian; however, his countryman Boris Scherschevsky did a great deal in summarizing aspects of his work in German aviation journals and newspapers of the day, as well documented by Jelena.[8]

In the case, of Goddard, time and again we have seen that despite his enormous and indisputable technological accomplishments in the field of rocketry, as is manifest in the pages of the three-volume work The Papers of Robert H. Goddard, there is no question that he was habitually secretive, even in his own country. Neither Pendray in the U.S., nor Winkler in Germany, could gain any meaningful information as to what he was doing and his own first launches of the world's first liquid-propellant rockets were wholly unknown to them at the time. Thus, neither the works of Tsiolkovsky nor Goddard had that much of an impact in the fields of both astronautics and rocketry throughout the existence of the VfR. Also, as rightly pointed out by Peterson, the foundation work of Tsiolkovsky and Goddard, “were almost totally inaccessible to the lay public,” much less to those closely studying and espousing these subjects, like the membership of the VfR.[9]

The situation with Oberth was altogether different. To begin with, his seminal 1923 Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen inspired and motivated people like Valier and Winkler to form the VfR in the first place and for both of these men to initiate their own experiments toward the ultimate goals of spaceflight. (Petersen gives credit to Valier for his writings and well-attended lectures for popularizing Oberth’s ideas, although this popularization was additionally carried out by others, including Ley.) Moreover, according to Ley, it was Oberth's Die Rakete, plus his (Ley's) own popularization of the topic, Die Möglichkeit der Weltraumfahrt (The Possibility of Spaceflight) of 1928 that had inspired Fritz Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou to produce the film “Frau im Mond.” Released in 1929 and well publicized in the VfR's Die Rakete, the movie became another international catalyst for spreading both the space travel and space rocket ideas, whether the technology was then primitive or not.

Peterson is also correct in his observation that “Though by no means a simple book,” Oberth's work “was far more available than Tsiolkovsky’s writings, none of which appeared in the West between 1903 and 1923, and far bolder than Goddard’s cautious work. Thick with complex mathematical equations as it was, it remained accessible enough to the layperson so that it was able to energize its readers with the possibility of space travel.” (In fact, due to Goddard's secrecy, he purposely made the title obscure, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, so that it did not overtly suggest spaceflight.)[10]

But by stark contrast, Oberth's revolutionary work, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Planetary Space), led directly to the founding of the VfR - the world's first spaceflight advocacy group and also the largest and most influential of the period. Likewise, the VfR helped spread Oberth's concept of the liquid-propellant rocket as a viable means of man eventually achieving spaceflight. The VfR's journal Die Rakete itself not only helped create and spread what may be termed the international “spaceflight movement,” but made it part of the culture of Weimar Germany and other countries.

But Die Rakete, for all its faults as a sort of 1920s “fanzine,” or “fan magazine,” in modern parlance, rather than a bonafide “scientific” or wholly academic and self-disciplined publication, it played another extremely important key role in recording and spreading the additional spaceflight concepts of other leading pioneers in astronautics, notably people like Franz von Hoefft, Guido von Pirquet, Walter Hohmann, Robert Esnault-Pelterie, and Herman Potočnik (i.e. Hermann Noordung), among others. Some of the latter are regarded as “disciples” of Oberth. Valier's popularizations, although less scientific, and even the few “sample chapters” of interplanetary novels (some of the first works in science fiction) that appeared in the earlier editions of Die Rakete, played their part too in helping popularize both the concept and finer details of these concepts, of spaceflight to wider audiences.

These, then, are several of the highly significant contributions of the VfR, insofar as Phase 1 of its history is concerned.

Phase 2

In Phase 2 of the history of the VfR, the situation is not only different, but more complicated. If we divorce the “showmanship” aspect of their experimental activities, the VfR's Raketenflugplatz may be said to have, at the beginning of this phase to have made some genuine technological breakthroughs, in at least taking the first steps beyond the theories of Oberth 1923 Die Rakete, and without any knowledge at all at the time of the accomplishments of Goddard. Thus, von Braun credited the modest test of Oberth's little Kegeldüse motor on 23 July 1930 at the Chemische-Technische Reichsanstalt that had been conducted in the interest of the VfR, as “...the first appearance in Germany of the liquid fuel rocket motor...”

(Technically speaking, however, von Braun was not correct here. Notably, for instance, the Austrian Max Valier began his liquid-propellant rocket experimental phase earlier in the same year and, in fact, he was killed in the accidental explosion of one such motor during a test of it on May 17 1930. This is also not to leave out the work of Walter J.H. Riedel and Arthur Rudolph at the Heylandt Company; both had assisted Valier, and there was even the possible launch of a liquid-propellant rocket as early as 1929 by Friedrich Sander, although the latter claim has never been satisfactorily proven.)

At very least, the VfR went on to more publicly demonstrate the “work ability” of the liquid-propellant rocket, besides pointing to areas that needed further development.

These fundamental first steps, or lessons, were brought home not only by Pendray since his visit to the Raketenflugplatz in April 1931, which led directly to the American Interplanetary Society embarking upon their own experimental program, but to Col. Becker, Capt. Dornberger, and others of the German Army whose secret rocket program had started in 1929 only with solid-propellants. Peterson thus rightly observes: “The instruments (i.e. the rocket motors) developed at the Raketenflugplatz represent the first real steps toward the large (i.e. large-scale, V-2 type), liquid-fueled rocket.”

One interpretation of this statement, that may or may not have been implied by Peterson, is that since no members of the German Army's Ordnance Department had apparently ever seen a liquid-propellant actually fly, before the demonstration of the “One-Stick Repulsor” was demonstrated at Kummersdorf in June of 1932. (Certainly, none knew, much less witnessed the liquid-propellant flights of Goddard up to this period; nor had any of them witnessed the flight of Winkler's rocket 14 March 1931, for that matter, then believed to have been the “first rocket flown anywhere.) Hence, the demonstration of the VfR's Repulsor in June 1932, as wholly unsatisfactory as it was in control and accuracy, at least showed the Army officers that these liquid-propellant rockets demonstrated flight. Although they clearly required a great deal more development, they (Army Ordnance) were entirely capable of undertaking what now had to be done under the greatest secrecy.

As for the patent granted jointly to Riedel and Nebel in 1931, again, this specification was rather basic and insignificant and was abandoned by the Army for consideration as early as 1934. As related by von Braun, it is true that later, on 2 July 1937, the Army did purchase the same patent for some 75,000 RM (then $ 30,000) to be paid jointly to Nebel and Riedel. But the carefully worded contract, conceived by von Braun and Dornberger, included a condition in which only Riedel, as one of the co-patentees, could be employed as a civilian employee for the Army “in order to make their knowledge fully available.” As later explained by von Braun, “The purchase was nothing but a convenient bureaucratic vehicle to pay Nebel off...” and prevent him from raising additional claims against the Army for not working at Peenemünde, yet at the same time strictly acquiring the services of Riedel.[11]

In retrospect, what was far more important to the next, more advanced phase in the development of the liquid-propellant rocket was the Raketenflugplatz testing site. As crude as it was by later standards it had provided invaluable experiences in the rudiments of this technology to people like von Braun, Klaus Riedel, Hüter, Hanisch, Zoike, et. al.

Von Braun, of course, was soon hired by the Army in late 1932 to work on its own fledgling and secret rocket program. But five years later, by the 1937-1938 period, he and his steadily increasing team had made such enormous technological strides in the development of this technology at Kummersdorf that Riedel, Hüter, Hanisch, Zoike, and perhaps other former Raketenflugplatz cohorts, were likewise hired by the Army and joined von Braun at their newly opened rocket development center at Peenemünde. (In fact it appears von Braun himself was directly responsible for requesting these particular individuals and here, they became among the key developers of the “A-series” (“A” for Aggregate, or Unit) of experimental rockets, that culminated in the A-4, later known as the V-2, the world's first large-scale liquid-propellant rocket. It is also well documented that the V-2 was the direct forerunner of among the world's first launch vehicles and the beginning of the same evolutionary line that led to the Saturn V vehicles that carried the first men to the Moon.

In fact, according to Neufeld, “When von Braun began to work at Kummersdorf, Ordnance’s own liquid-fuel rocket program can fairly be said to have begun.” Indeed, prior to this time there was only a single test stand at Kummersdorf for solid-propellant rockets. Now, upon the hiring of von Braun, Ordnance quickly built a new test stand, completed in December 1932, for liquid fueled engines besides two new work buildings and these facilities were a vast improvement over what he had known at the Raketenflugplatz, even though he was permitted to limited use of one half of the stand and initially had only one staff to assist him, the mechanic Heinrich Grünow, another possible Raketenflugplatz recruit.

This was just the beginning of his career with the German Army and he quickly rose to become the Technical Director of the Army's liquid-propellant rocket work. Then, after the war, von Braun along with the core of his “rocket team” people as they were called came to the U.S. under Project Paperclip. By the early 1950s, they developed the Redstone rocket, the U.S.'s first ballistic missile.

In turn, this team was responsible for the modified Redstone known as the Jupiter-C with upper stage that launched the U.S.'s first successful artificial satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958; in 1961, another modified Redstone, the Mercury Redstone 3 (MR-3) vehicle, sent the first American into space, Alan B. Shepard Jr..

Von Braun, with his rocket team, next went on to direct the development of the Saturn vehicles, leading up to the 1.5-million lb. (680,389 kg) F-1 rocket engine that propelled the first stages of Saturn V missions to the Moon. A closer examination of the respective histories of the F-1 rocket engine, as well as the third and second stage J-2 engines of the Saturn V, also shows they all descended from the same Redstone engine.[12]

The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, launched on 4 October 1957 that opened up the Space Age, was boosted into space by the two-stage, multi-engine R-7 vehicle that had been initially designed as an ICBM and was the world's first ICBM. However, the Soviet missile program had started in the immediate post-war years with the R-1, a Soviet derivative of the V-2. (R-1 was the designation for the Soviet copy of V-2.)

In fact, at the end of World War II, both the U.S. and the USSR had scrambled to rapidly acquire both V-2 hardware and personnel from which to gain as much knowledge as they could about Germany's wartime “wonder weapon” towards laying the foundations for their own missile programs. In the case of the Soviets, in 1945, they quickly captured several former key V-2 rocket production facilities besides acquiring the services of some German engineers and technicians connected to the V-2 project. In particular the Soviets gained control of the main V-2 manufacturing facility at Nordhausen, and by September 1946 had 30 V-2 missiles assembled there.

By 1947, R-1 derivative vehicles were flown as the Soviet Union's first large-scale rocket test vehicles (including upper atmospheric research vehicles), including the R-1A, R-1B, R-1V, R-1D and R-1E. Thus, while the development of the R-7 began in 1953 and embodied many new features and were far-removed from its progenitor, the R-1, there is no question its roots went back to that vehicle and before that, the V-2. The Vostok-K vehicle that launched the first man in space, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on 12 April 1961, was a member of the R-7 family of rockets.[13]

In sum, the R-7 and the Jupiter-C, the world's first satellite launchers, and the MR-3 and Vostok-K, the first vehicles that sent men into space, besides the later Saturn V that took the first men to the Moon, all descended from their common ancestor, the V-2. By the same token, the V-2 owed much to the VfR's experiments at the Raketenflugplatz and elsewhere, crude as they were, and their histories are intertwined.

Thesis Of Michael B. Petersen And The VfR

Here, we will only concentrate upon Petersen's coverage of the VfR, not about the very small Heylandt Co. team. Also, the following comments are all based upon his original thesis, “Engineering Consent,” available on-line. However, in several instances where applicable, corresponding pages in the published version of the thesis, appearing as Missiles for the Fatherland, are also furnished in the footnotes.

A lot of Peterson's findings and analysis about the VfR in his thesis, and later book, is compelling, particularly about: (1), the virulent nationalistic rhetoric in VfR handbills and other literature, notably in touting their work and slogan of “Helping build the spaceship!” as “a new great act of German technology”; (2), the emphasis in some of the VfR literature on the application of the rocket for military rather than potential spaceflight applications, and therefore a veering away from their original goals towards a program that had more militaristic and ultra conservative appeal; and (3), the “politicizing” of their aims such as “by tapping into German resentment of foreign restrictions imposed on the nation in the wake of World War I” (i.e. using their handbills, etc. to arouse anti-Versailles Treaty restrictions sensitivities); and (4), Nebel's clearly political (his National Socialism connections) and self-interest machinations with the Army.

However, Petersen entirely neglected to closely study the first half, or Phase 1, of the history of the VfR, as presented in detail above; he therefore mistakenly casts his findings and judgments over the whole history and makeup of the VfR from 1927 to 1934. He likewise missed the crucial fact that the two phases were so distinctive, as defined above, that the history of the VfR really constitutes two histories, not one.

By the same token, the above page-by-page survey of the Society's Die Rakete, besides other sources on that period of the Society's history from 1927 to 1929, has revealed no examples whatsoever of the virulent “nationalistic rhetoric” and “politicization” that forms the central core of Petersen's thesis. Indeed, a closer re-examination of what may be considered the “original” VfR “Help Build the Spaceship!” plea as published over a five month period of Die Rakete in the issues of 15 July 1929 to 15 November-December of that year compared with handbills and other VfR literature dramatically reveals that save for the “Help Build the Spaceship!” slogan, the entire messages are changed, or rather, are altogether different and now reflect the nationalism, etc. as identified by Petersen.

Peterson offers an example of one such nationalistic (i.e. Phase II) handbill as follows:

“Help Build the Spaceship! This call goes out to everyone who wants to help with a new great act of German technology. As at the beginning of aviation, interplanetary travel is created first by unselfish promotion on the part of those who see great cultural progress in the problem of space travel...Only if we all unite will we be witnesses to the implementation of space travel, which has as its final goal the visiting of neighboring heavenly bodies.”[14]

He also offers, in his wording, a more “aggressively nationalist” example in another VfR handbill of the same period:

“`Rocket flight call! For decades, German scientists and technicians have worked on the problem of the rocket. Finally, tangible results are within reach. For the continuation and expansion of our findings, we are missing that which we have the least help with – money. Foreign nations have made monstrous efforts to tear the results of our studies away from us. Hindering these efforts must lie in the heart of every German. Everyone should give according to his means so that the fruit of our decade’s long labor will not escape us. Through the solution of the rocket problem, Germany, at least in an economic and cultural sense, will strike a blow for the quick reconstitution of its international standing.”[15]

Petersen not only seems to assign this kind of rhetoric and mindset to the VfR throughout its entire history, but to all the Society's membership from 1927 to 1934, although he does say these kinds of pronouncements were “written most often by Nebel, who was rapidly becoming the mouthpiece of the rocket engineering community in general...” Yet he does not note that Nebel joined the VfR by 1930, or in late 1929 at the earliest; nor does he seek out possible names of others who might have been involved in generating this kind of propaganda. He similarly writes, “the Raketenflugplatz enthusiasts acknowledged a sincere desire for space travel, but in so doing ingrained in the act important cultural and even nationalist significance” and he additionally uses the expression, the “...nationalism of the Raketenflugplatz members...”

In the same context, Peterson misleadingly states: “The nationalist histrionics of the Raketenflugplatz’s advertising campaign posed no problem for the young engineer (von Braun). Von Braun was fascinated with the lure of space travel and joined the group for this reason. If anything, the idea of Germany riding to national glory with the thrust of the rocket probably only made it easier for him to join.” Yet as seen above, the 15 September 1929 issue of Die Rakete shows von Braun donated 6 RM to the VfR, when he was 17 and still a schoolboy and not an engineer; moreover, this was during the Phase 1 of the Society, when it did not issue any nationalistic handbills nor present any such propaganda in Die Rakete.[16]

Mainly, Petersen arbitrarily uses sweeping terms to classify or describe all the membership in general, such as “the amateur group,” “the rocket engineers,” “the rocket enthusiasts,” “the Raketenflugplatz enthusiasts,” or simply, “the enthusiasts,” although in truth, there were hundreds of VfR members although we usually only read of the work of the half dozen or more of the “regular” experimenters of the Raketenflugplatz, who were active just during Nebel's time. Thus, only a very small contingent of the membership were actually experimenters.

Moreover, we know nothing at all about most of this handful of people, namely Paul Ehmeyer, Hans Bermüller, Kurt Prill or Brill, Johannes Wagner, Werner Dunst, W. Wohle (or Wörl), H. Dix, Arnold Gerlach, and Heinrich Grünow. We know just slightly more about Klaus Riedel, Hans Hueter or Hüter, Herbert Schaefer, and Helmut Zoike. Mainly, we know of Nebel's character, if not details about what work he actually accomplished and, of course, the careers of Oberth and especially von Braun are very well documented. We also know about Ley, although he is not known to have been an engineer nor to have participated in the experiments, other than to report on them.

By the same token, Peterson's broad characterization that (all) these individuals were “not apolitical engineers” and that they “commonly cast their work as an assertion of German cultural and national interest” is likewise unfounded and misleading. Moreover, this characterization is particularly puzzling since Peterson elsewhere in his thesis and book, cites Engel who recalled of his own experiences at the Raketenflugplatz that: “The emotional connection (among the experimenters at the Raketenflugplatz) to the technical problems of rocketry and space travel were so strong that political loyalties never broke them.” Neufeld similarly agrees with Engel that despite “arguments between Nazi, Socialist, and Communist supporters...the rocket fanatics (at the Raketenflugplatz) continued to work together harmoniously in the cause of spaceflight.”

Peterson also quotes Dmitri Marionoff, the son in law of Albert Einstein who paid a visit to the Raketenflugplatz in 1932 and recalled: “The impression you took away with you was the frenzied devotion of Nebel’s men to their work…they belonged exclusively to a world dominated by one single wholehearted idea (the development of the rocket towards the cause of spaceflight).”[17]

Closer examination appears to indicate that most likely it was Nebel alone who had been responsible for the nationalistic and strident tones, with the exception of the message by von Dickhuth-Harrach in his statement for November 1933 in the Raketentechnik. Judging from how much more we now know of the unfortunate and sad last years of the VfR, it also appears that Nebel was domineering (if not tyrannical and dictatorial), erratic, untrustworthy, and for certain, a supreme opportunist who was not against using any ploy (including flagrant misinformation in his writings) to get his own way. Petersen rightly notes Nebel's “skill as a propagandist.”

As for the apparent degrading of the “spaceship” goal of the Society, in lieu of more mundane applications of the rocket, especially the promise of future global mail rockets, and a later greater VfR emphasis on the possibilities of the rocket as a weapon, these are valid observations. However, the potential military application of the rocket was then a logical future potential application and even David Lasser, founder of the American Interplanetary Society delivered, on 22 October 1931, a lengthy talk before his fellow members, entitled “The Rocket and the Next War.” This was published in the Society's Bulletin and was afterward featured in the March 1932 issue of Everyday Science and Mechanics.

On the other hand, Lasser's piece is very general and not at all strident or nationalistic in nature. There does seem to be more coverage on the potential of military rockets in the VfR's (or rather, Nebel's) writings from 1932 onward compared with its sparser appearance in the American astronautical literature of the time but so far as we know, this material was only generated by him; we cannot assume that these militaristic treatments and views were supported by the rest of the Raketenflugplatz or overall VfR membership. Moreover, it is well documented that Nebel had always tried to curry favor with the military and was always opportunistic. Neufeld likewise writes that Nebel: “...was the one person at the Raketenflugplatz who trumpeted the military uses of rocketry for the nation.”

Peterson does cover, if briefly, the pre-experimental period of the Society's history (in the present work identified as Phase 1. However, his sweeping statement that, “Above all, it's (the VfR's) membership earnestly desired to experiment, but in reality the VfR spent most of its time raising funds,” is also inaccurate. Primarily, it fails to take into account numerous, often complex, and sometimes ground-breaking contributions to the new field of astronautics in Die Rakete by pioneers like Oberth, von Hoefft, von Pirquet, and Robert Esnault-Pelterie, apart from many other contributions.[18]

Indeed, the VfR's usually overlooked Die Rakete phase represents a high point in the international space flight movement of the 1920s-30s and its pages still offer a wide array of possibilities for social historians and historians of technology to arrive at new perspectives in how the Society laid some of the foundations towards the eventual realizations of spaceflight. Without any doubt, the Space Age owes not one, but several roots, both theoretical and technological, that assuredly may be traced directly back to the VfR. END

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8

Footnotes

  1. ^  Ordway and Sharpe, The Rocket Team, p. 98.
  2. ^  Letter, Walter R. Dornberger to Andrew G. Haley, 28 February 1956, in Andrew G. Haley Papers, National Air and Space Museum, box and file numbers, unknown.
  3. ^  Ley, Rockets, Missiles, p. 199.
  4. ^  Ley, “The End of the Rocket Society (– Part 2),” pp. 74-75; Ley, Rockets - The Future, p. 157.
  5. ^  Winter, Prelude, p. 49.
  6. ^  Letters, Walter Rathjen, Deutsches Museum, to Frank H. Winter, 19 March 1980 and 23 March 1980, respectively, copies in “Germany, 1930-1934” file, NASM; Letter, Dr. Gabriele Toepser-Ziegert, Stadt Dortmund, Institut für Zeitungsforschung (Institute for Newspaper Research), 3 May 1980, to Frank H. Winter, copy in “Germany, 1930-1934” file, NASM.
  7. ^  Letter, W.L. Schlesinger to Andrew G. Haley, 21 April 1955, in Andrew G. Halley collection, NASM, box and file number unknown, copy in “Germany, 1930-1934” file, NASM.
  8. ^  Tanja Jelena, “Dissemination of Information on K.E. Tsiolkovsky's Scientific Works on Astronautics in the West (up to the mid-1930s),” in Otfrid Liepak, ed., History of Rocketry and Astronautics, pp. 474, 476-477, 479, 484-486, 498-499, and especially pp. 491-492 for Scherschevsky's articles and other writings on Tsiolkovsky in Germany in the 1920s.
  9. ^  Peterson, “Engineering Consent,” p. 26.
  10. ^  Peterson, “Engineering Consent,” p. 26.
  11. ^  Nebel, Die Narren, pp.103-104; Ley, Missiles, Rockets, pp. 203-204. For coverage of the rocket work of Walter J.H. Riedel and Arthur Rudolph at the Heylandt Company from early 1930 as well as their connections to Valier and later roles in the development of the A-4 that became known as the V-2, besides further mention of the alleged 1929 liquid-propellant rocket of Friedrich Sander, consult, Frank H. Winter and Michal J. Neufeld, "Heylandt's Rocket Cars and the V-2; A Little Known Chapter in the History of Rocket Technology," in Phillipe Jung, ed., History of Rocketry and Astronautics – Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth History Symposium of the International Academy of Astronautics (Univelt, Inc.: San Diego, 1997), AAS History Series, Vol. 21, pp. 41-72.
  12. ^  Peterson, “Engineering Consent,” pp. 69-70; Peterson, Missiles for the Fatherland, pp. 43-44; Neufeld, Von Braun, pp. 58-59, 88; Harald Tresp, Am Anfang war die Idee...(sic.) Klaus Riedel – der Macher im Hintergrund (privately printed brochure, by Hermann E. Sieger GmbH: Lorch/Württemburg, May 1995), pp. 18-19; “Hans Herbert Heuter (sic.),” Biographical sheet, Public Affairs Office, Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, ca. 1964, copy in “Hans Huter” biographical file, NASM; (U.S.) National Archives, RG 330, Foreign Scientist Case Files, Box 396, “Kurt Hanisch” file; Ordway and Sharpe, The Rocket Team, p. 119; J.D. Hunley, U.S. Space-Launch Vehicle Technology (University Press of Florida: Gainesville, 2008), pp. 13-14, 166, 174, 218, 321, et. seq.; Roger E. Bilstein, Stages to Saturn - A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles (Scientific and Technical Information Branch, National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Washington, D.C., 1980), pp. 9, 11-13, et. seq. It cannot be verified that Grünow worked at the Raketenflugplatz or was a member of the VfR, only that he appears to have been the second civilian employee hired by the Army for its rocket program, after von Braun; Riedel and Hüter were hired in 1937, and Heinisch and Zoike in 1938. For more on the later activities of Klaus Riedel at Peenemünde see, Ordway and Sharpe, The Rocket Team, pp. 35, 45-48, 55, 93. In 1970, for Riedel's overall contributions to rocketry and his work towards the achievement of spaceflight, he was posthumously honored with a crater on the far side of the Moon named after him. For von Braun's role in the above developments of the Redstone and Saturn vehicles, also consult, Hunley, U.S. Space-Launch Vehicle Technology, as cited. For Project Paperclip consult, Clarence G. Lasby, Project Paperclip (Atheneum: New York, 1971), and other works on this topic.
  13. ^  Baker, The Rocket, pp. 113-122. Consult also, Boris Chertok, Rockets and People (NASA History Division, Office of External Relations, National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Washington, D.C.), Vol. II (2006) and Vol. III (2009); and Asif A. Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo - The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974 (NASA History Division, Office of Policy and Plans, National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Washington, D.C., 2000).
  14. ^  Peterson, “Engineering Consent,” pp. 42-43; Peterson, Missiles for the Fatherland, p. 26.
  15. ^  Peterson, “Engineering Consent,” pp. 43-44; Peterson, Missiles for the Fatherland, p. 27.
  16. ^  Peterson, “Engineering Consent,” p. 49; Peterson, Missiles for the Fatherland, p. 30; “Höhere Beiträge und Spenden,” Die Rakete, 15 September 1929, p. 112.
  17. ^  Peterson, “Engineering Consent,” pp. 12, 42, 48, 50-51; Peterson, Missiles for the Fatherland, p. 31; Heinz Horeis, Rolf Engel – Raketenbauer der ersten Stunde ( Lehrstuhl für Raumfahrttechnik: Munich, 1992), p. 24; Dmitri Marionoff, with Palma Wayne, Einstein, An Intimate Study of a Great Man (Doubleday: New York, 1944), p. 115. This marked idealism and dedication to perfecting the rocket for the cause of spaceflight was, of course, not limited to the VfR. Consult, Winter, Prelude to the Space Age for similar examples in, for instance, the early American Rocket Society during the same period.
  18. ^  Peterson, “Engineering Consent,” pp. 44-46; Peterson, Missiles for the Fatherland, pp. 28-29; (David Lasser), “The Rocket and the Next War,” Bulletin of the American Interplanetary Society, No. 13, November 1931, pp. 6-10; “Rocket Articles in Recent Periodicals,” Bulletin of the American Interplanetary Society, No. 17, p. 8; David Lasser, “The Rocket in the Next War?” Everyday Science and Mechanics (New York), Vol. 3, March 1932, pp. 326-328; Neufeld, Von Braun, pp. 54-55.
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