Walter Dornberger

Infobox Engineer

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image_width = 150px
caption = Dornberger (on the left, with hat) together with von Braun, after their surrender to Allies in Austria, May 1945
name = PAGENAME
nationality = German Army
birth_date = 6 September 1895
birth_place =
death_date = 27 June 1980
death_place =
education =
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discipline =
institutions =Peenemünde Army Research Center
practice_name =
significant_projects = V2 rocket
significant_design =
significant_advance =
significant_awards = Major-General Dr Walter Robert Dornberger (6 September 1895 - 27 June 1980) was a German Army artillery officer whose career spanned World Wars I and II. He was a leader of Germany's V2 rocket program and other projects at the Peenemünde Army Research Center.

Dornberger was born in Gießen and enlisted in 1914.cite book |last=McGovern|first=J|title=Crossbow and Overcast|year=1964|publisher=W. Morrow|location=New York|pages=p18] In October 1918, artillery lieutenant Dornberger was captured by US Marines and spent two years in a French POW camp (mostly in solitary confinement because of repeated escape attempts). In the late 1920s, Dornberger completed an engineering course with distinction at the Berlin Technical Institute,cite book |last=Middlebrook|first=Martin|authorlink=|title=The Peenemünde Raid: The Night of 17-18 August 1943|year=1982|publisher=Bobs-Merrill|location=New York|pages=p19] and in the Spring of 1930,cite book |last=Dornberger|first=Walter|authorlink=Walter Dornberger|title=V2--Der Schuss ins Weltall|year=1952 -- US translation "V-2" Viking Press:New York, 1954|month= |publisher=Bechtle Verlag|location=Esslingan|language=German|isbn=|pages=p17,20,26,36 NOTE: Dornberger's detailed account of the V2 project was one of the first to be published by a major participant.] Dornberger graduated after five years with an MS degree in mechanical engineering from the "Technischen Hochschule" of the University of Berlin.cite book |last=Ordway |first= Frederick I, III|coauthors=Sharpe, Mitchell R
title=The Rocket Team|series= Apogee Books Space Series 36|publisher= |location= |isbn= |pages=p21,26,27,40] In 1935 Dornberger received an honorary doctorate, which Col Karl Emil Becker arranged as Dean of the new Faculty of Military Technology at the Technical University of Berlin.cite book |last=Neufeld|first=Michael J|title=The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era|year=1995|month= |publisher=The Free Press|location=New York|isbn=|pages=p19,33,55]

Rocket Development

In April 1930,cite book |last=Heashall|first=|title=Hitler’s Rocket Sites|year=1985|publisher=St Martin's Press|location=|pages=p12] Dornberger was appointed to the Ballistics Council of the German Army ("Reichswehr") Weapons Department as Assistant Examiner to secretly develop a mass-producible military liquid-fuel rocket to surpass the range of artillery.cite book |last=Klee|first=Ernst|coauthors=Merk, Otto|title=The Birth of the Missile:The Secrets of Peenemünde|year=1963, English translation 1965|publisher=Gerhard Stalling Verlag|location=Hamburg|pages=p117] cite book |last=Collier|first=Basil|title=The Battle of the V-Weapons, 1944-1945 |origyear=1964|year=1976|publisher=The Emfield Press|location=Yorkshire|isbn=0 7057 0070 4|pages=p24] In the Spring of 1932, Dornberger, his commander (Captain Ritter von Horstig), and Col Karl Emil Becker visited the VfR's leased "Raketenflugplatz" (English: Rocket Airdrome/Flight Field/Port) and subsequently issued a contract for a demonstration launch. On 21 December 1932, Captain Dornberger watched a rocket motor explode at Kummersdorf while Wernher von Braun tried to light it with a flaming gasoline can at the end of a four meter pole.

In 1933, "Waffenamt Prüfwesen" ("Wa Prüf", English: Weapons Proof/Test) 1/1, under the "Heeres Waffenamt" (Army Weapons Department), commenced work under the command/direction of Colonel/Dr. Ing. h. c. Dornberger. Dornberger also took over his last "military" command on 1 October 1934 -- a powder-rocket training battery at Königsbrück. In May 1937, General von Brauchitsch, commander in chief of the Reichswehr, transferred Dornberger and his ninety-man organization from Kummersdorf to Peenemünde.cite book |last=Braun|first=Wernher von |authorlink=Wernher von Braun|coauthors=Ordway III, Frederick I|title=Space Travel: A History|year=1985|publisher=Harper & Row|location=|pages=p45] In September 1942, Dornberger was given two posts: coordinating the V-1 flying bomb & V-2 rocket development programmes and directing active operations.cite book |last=Collier|first=Basil|title=The Battle of the V-Weapons, 1944-1945 |origyear=1964 |year=1976|publisher=The Emfield Press|location=Yorkshire|isbn=0 7057 0070 4 |pages=p20] The first successful test launch of a V-2 was the third test launch on 3 October 1942. In the early morning of 7 July 1943, Dr Ernst Steinhoff flew [Neufeld. 191] von Braun and Major-General Dornberger in his Heinkel He-111 to Hitler's "Führerhauptquartier" "Wolfsschanze" headquarters and the next day Hitler viewed the film of the successful V-2 test launch (narrated by von Braun) and the scale models of the Watten 'bunker' and launching-troop vehicles:cite book |last=Garliński|first=Józef|authorlink=Józef Garliński|title=Hitler's Last Weapons: The Underground War against the V1 and V2|year=1978|publisher=Times Books|location=New York|pages=p73,74]

In January 1944, Dornberger was named Senior Artillery Commander 191 and was headquartered at Maisons-Lafitte near Saint Germain, and in December 1944, Dornberger was given complete authority for anti-aircraft rocket development ("Flak E Flugabwehrkanonenentwicklung"). [Ordway & Sharpe. 61,214] On 12 January 1945 on Dornberger's proposal, Albert Speer replaced the Long-Range Weapons Commission with "Working Staff Dornberger". [Dornberger. 260] In February 1945, Dornberger and staff relocated his headquarters from Schwedt-an-der-Oder to Bad Sachsa, then on April 6,1945, from Bad Sachsa to "Haus Ingeborg" in Oberjoch near Hindelang in the Allgäu mountains of Bavaria. [Ordway & Sharpe. 301] [Dornberger. 266, 271] Before going to the Alps, General Dornberger had hidden his own papers near Bad Sachsa,cite book |last=McGovern|first=J|title=Crossbow and Overcast|year=1964|publisher=W. Morrow|location=New York|pages=p184] which were recovered by the 332nd Engineer Regiment.

At an internment camp after the war known as "CSDIC Camp 11" the British bugged Dornberger in conversation with Generalmajor Bassenge (GOC Air Defences, Tunis & Biserta) said that he and Werner von Braun had realised in late 1944 that things were going wrong and consequently was in touch with the General Electric Corporation through the German Embassy in Portugal, with a view to coming to some arrangement.Fact|date=March 2008

On 2 May 1945, Dornberger, von Braun, and five other men departed Haus Ingeborg through Adolf Hitler Pass toward the little Austrian village of Schattwald and meet American soldiers, who convoyed the group to the Tyrolean town of Reutte [Klee & Merk. 110] for the night.cite book |last=Huzel|first=Dieter K|title=Peenemünde to Canaveral|year=1960|publisher=Prentice Hall|location=|pages=p187]

Post World War II

In mid-August 1945, after taking part in Operation Backfire, Dornberger was escorted from Cuxhaven to London for interrogation by the British War Crimes Investigation Unit in connection with the use of slave labor in the production of V-2 rockets; he was subsequently transferred and detained for two years at Bridgend in South Wales. [Ordway & Sharpe. p. 343]

Along with other Nazi rocket scientists, Dornberger was released and brought to the United States under the auspices of Operation Paperclip, and worked for the United States Air Force for three years developing guided missiles. From 1950 to 1965 he worked for the Bell Aircraft Corporation, and was a key consultant for the X-20 Dyna-Soar project. Dornberger also developed Bell's Rascal, a nuclear air-to-surface guided missile used by the Strategic Air Command. [ Time Magazine, Monday, Nov. 25, 1957 ] . Following retirement, Dornberger returned to Germany, where he died in 1980 in Baden-Württemberg.

ee also

*Arthur Rudolph
* Re Lisbon talks [http://www.fpp.co.uk/Himmler/interrogations/CSDIC/GRGG341.html]

References