Heinz Hermann Koelle
From The Space Library
Heinz Hermann Koelle was born in Gdansk-Wrzeszcz when it was part of the Free State of Danzig. His education started at the Gerter Elementary School in Wrzeszcz in April 1930. In April 1935 he moved to St Peter & Paul secondary school in Gdansk. In June 1940 his family moved to Wroclaw and in 1942 he was admitted as a Ing.Offz.Bewerber in the Luftwaffe. He began flight training in March 1943 in Fuerstenfeldbruck / Bavaria. By January 1944 he acquired his extended pilot's license flying Junkers and Heinkel aircraft. He was forced to bail out of his aircraft and was captured by US ground forces. In 1945 he was sent to Boston as a prisoner of war. In February 1946 he was released and by October he was enrolled as a student of mechanical engineering in Stuttgart.
In January 1948 he co-founded the Society for Space Research (GfW). In June 1949 at a meeting of the GfW Koelle and Heinz Gartmann began a campaign to stage an international conference for space and astronautics. This led to the first IAC held at the Sorbonne in France in late September 1950. Koelle was one of the principle German delegates in attendance, while Gartmann was refused a visa and could not attend. This conference led to the formation of the International Astronautical Federation in London in September 1951. Koelle was a board member of the Society for Space Research Association from 1948 to 1954 and organized the third IAC in Stuttgart in 1952. That same year he was given a contract by the USAF in the field of rocket ballistics which he used as a platform to establish the Stuttgart Astronautical Research Institute.
In April 1955 he accepted an invitation from Wernher von Braun to join the US Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) in Huntsville Alabama. He became head of the design department of the Guided Missile Development Division and continued that role until the ABMA was transferred to NASA in 1960. Koelle worked on the Jupiter C/ Juno 1 and Juno 2 as well as the Saturn. He was a member of the Explorer 1 satellite team. When NASA took over the ABMA Koelle was appointed Director of Future Projects. He became a U.S. Citizen in November 1961. In July 1965 the German Department of Aerospace at the University of Berlin offered Koelle the position previously held by Eugen Sänger. He accepted and returned to German where he remained a teacher until 1992.
