Wolfgang Pilz (space engineer)

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Wolfgang Pilz (born September 4, 1911 in Hohenelbe in the Riesengebirge , Bohemia ; † April 1, 1994 in Kranzlhofen , Carinthia ) was a German rocket engineer .

During the Second World War he served as an engine specialist in the Peenemünde Army Research Center . From 1947 to 1958 he worked in France in the engine department of the Laboratoire de recherches balistiques et aéro-dynamiques (LRBA), where he played a key role in the propulsion and control of the Véronique sounding rocket .

He then worked at the Stuttgart Research Institute for the Physics of Jet Propulsion with Eugen Sänger .

In 1960, Pilz and control expert Paul Jens-Görcke founded the company INTRA (International Rocket), which developed rockets in Egypt . He belonged to the second generation of German rocket experts in Egypt. In July 1962 the rockets "El-Kahir" ("The Conqueror") and "Es-Safir" ("The winner") were presented to the public by the Egyptian military, whereupon the affair of German rocket experts in Egypt came to a head . The Israeli secret service Mossad carried out several letter bomb attacks on Pilz and his employees in November 1962, killing five Egyptians and making the German secretary of Pilz, Hannelore Wende, blind.

Due to diplomatic pressure and because Egypt was approaching the Soviet Union militarily , Pilz returned to Germany in 1965. He then moved to Kranzlhofen in Carinthia , where he lived in seclusion with his blind wife Hannelore until his death in 1994.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gerd Brausch: Innocent between the millstones . In: Ostpreußenblatt of July 16, 1994, p. 12.
personal data
SURNAME Pilz, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German rocket engineer
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Hohenelbe in the Giant Mountains , Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1994
Place of death Kranzlhofen , Carinthia