From Peenemünde to Gorodomlya, the German rocket engineer who designed the conceptual ancestor of the R-7
'If we abandon the old conservative form of the V-2, it may be quite possible to reach nearly two thousand miles. The conical shape is, fundamentally, the only possible solution.' to his wife Irmgard, 1949
A German applied physicist and rocket guidance specialist. At Peenemünde under Wernher von Braun, he developed the V-2's guidance and control systems; in 1944 the Gestapo arrested him for expressing defeatist views about the war. Forcibly relocated to the USSR in 1946, he led over 170 German specialists on Gorodomlya Island, where his team designed the G-4 (conical single-stage) and G-5 (packet of clustered G-4s). These concepts directly shaped Korolev's R-7 ICBM; in 1949 a Soviet commission rated G-4 superior to the rival R-3. After returning to West Germany in 1953, he left rocketry, invented the smart card, and coined the German term 'Informatik.'
Career Timeline
- 1939–1945V-2 guidance and control department, Peenemünde Army Research Center
- 1945–1946Head of Büro Gröttrup, Bleicherode (Soviet occupation zone)
- 1946German head of Institut Nordhausen, then General Manager of Zentralwerke
- 1946–1950Head of Branch 1, NII-88, Gorodomlya Island
- 1954–1958Engineer, Standard Elektrik Lorenz, Pforzheim
- 1970–1980Managing director, GAO, Giesecke+Devrient