Dieter Grau (rocket engineer)

Dieter Grau (2010)

Dieter E. Grau (born April 24, 1913 in Berlin , † December 17, 2014 in Huntsville , Alabama ) was a German-American rocket engineer. During the Second World War he worked under Wernher von Braun in the Peenemünde Army Research Center on the development of large rockets. The American military brought him to the United States in 1946 . After founding NASA , from 1960 onwards he was one of the most important Brauns employees responsible for the safety and reliability of the rocket systems with which, among other things, the manned moon landings were carried out.

Live and act

Grau completed a degree in electrical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin in 1937 . He found employment at Siemens , where he was involved in the construction of power grids. In 1939 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and used in the repair service. After a short time, Siemens was released from military service and sent him to Peenemünde . In the Army Research Institute there, Grau worked on the development of the electrics for missile systems .

In 1943, Grau was drafted into the Wehrmacht again and deployed to Russia for four months . He then returned to Peenemünde to work on rocket development under Wernher von Braun . In test stand VII he was involved in troubleshooting the V2 rocket and preparing for launch.

In the meantime, Grau was also seconded to Mittelwerk GmbH , which assembled the V1 and V2 rockets with inmates from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp . On behalf of the Brauns, he was supposed to find out why the rockets in Peenemünde kept failing and failing. Grau found that inmates were sabotaging the missiles. They would have known where to manipulate screws to cause the missiles to malfunction. Grau later claimed to have filed a report on the sabotage. To what extent his report led to the execution of prisoners remains unclear.

Von Braun's rocket team in 1961: gray right of center

After the end of the Second World War , Grau was one of the German scientists around von Braun who were brought to the USA by the US military as part of " Operation Paperclip " to continue working on rocket development. In January 1946 he came to Fort Bliss , Texas , where he developed guidance systems and electronics for missiles for the American missile program. In 1950 he moved to Huntsville, Alabama with the missile program. There he worked for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency . In 1954, Grau received American citizenship.

Wernher von Braun brought Grau to NASA in 1960 as director of the “Quality and Reliability Laboratory” . Gray was thus responsible for the safety and reliability of the rocket technology in the Marshall Space Flight Center . During his aegis, the manned space programs Mercury , Gemini and Apollo were carried out. In 1973 he retired. He lived in Huntsville until his death.

In 1985 it became known that the American Office of Special Investigations , which had already investigated Arthur Rudolph for involvement in war crimes, had also started investigations against Grau and Günther Haukohl .

Grau was a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the American Society of Quality Control . Among other things, he was awarded the "NASA Apollo Achievement Award" and the "NASA Exceptional Service Medal".

Web links

Commons : Dieter Grau  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Dieter Grau - Obituary. Obituary in The Huntsville Times, December 17, 2014.
• Kari Hawkins: German Reunion Highlights Two Anniversaries. Retrieved December 19, 2014 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dieter Grau, member of the Von Braun rocket team, this in Alabama. Archived from the original on December 17, 2014 ; accessed on December 19, 2014 (English). 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Linda Hunt: Secret Agenda. The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 . St Martin's Press, New York 1991, p. 248.