The History of Sounding Rockets and Their Contribution to ... - ESA

General Remarks on Rocket Development in Germany
Today, rocket experts are convinced that the Peenemünde team of von Braun developed the technological
basis for the progress with civil and military rockets achieved in the second half of the 20th Century.
After World War II, von Braun became the father of the huge American Saturn-V rocket, which enabled
the fi rst human to land on the Moon in 1969.
Fortunately, the V2 rocket came too late at the end of World War II and still had a low fi ring accuracy, so
that its military impact was limited.
According to an assessment made in 1945 by a group of American scientists (called together by Albert
Einstein) for the US government, the rocket technology R&D between 1929 and 1945 had given Germany
a ten-year lead over the rest of the World.
After the end of World War II, the core of von Braun’s team of rocket experts documented their knowhow
and about 100 V2 rockets were transferred to the USA. Another even larger group of Peenemünde
rocket engineers and technicians was taken to the USSR, and smaller groups to France and the United
Kingdom.
Winston Churchill wrote in his memoirs (published in 1953) concerning the rocket-development activities
of Nazi Germany that it was lucky that the Germans had devoted their greatest efforts to the rockets
and not to the development of bombs. In 1945, the Allies imposed on Germany the obligation to refrain
from all military development activity – including rocket development – in the future.
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