Konrad Dannenberg, 96, Top Rocket Scientist, Dies

published 23/02/2009 at 21:58 GMT By Jeremy Pearce

Konrad Dannenberg, a rocket propulsion expert and one of the last of a 1940s German military-scientific team that switched allegiances at the end of World War II and helped American space and missile programs in the cold war, died on Feb. 16 in Huntsville, Ala. He was 96 and lived in Madison, Ala.

Mr. Dannenberg’s death was confirmed by a spokesman for the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, run by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

From 1960 to 1973, Mr. Dannenberg helped design propulsion systems for liquid-fueled Saturn rockets at Marshall to carry ever larger payloads into space. In 1969, a Saturn V rocket propelled astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission to make the first manned landing on the Moon.

The Saturn’s successes had their roots in German military research and Wernher von Braun’s development of the V-2 rocket, an early ballistic missile used by the Nazis as a weapon of terror. In 1944 and 1945, more than 3,000 of the rockets were launched at targets in Britain and on the European mainland, and they killed 2,700 civilians around London alone. The V-2 carried a 1,000-pound payload of high explosives into the stratosphere, to rain down in a descent that was difficult to pinpoint and impossible to defend against.

Mr. Dannenberg, who trained as a mechanical engineer, had been released from the German army in 1940 to assist in the V-2’s design and refinement at Peenemünde, a testing site along the Baltic coast. There he worked on the rocket’s engine efficiency and later on drawings to speed production.

At the end of the war in 1945, Mr. Dannenberg and more than 100 fellow scientists were taken to Fort Bliss, Tex., for debriefing and a review of their work. The German team, still led by Dr. von Braun, became an early and influential chorus supporting American efforts to put a satellite into orbit, and ultimately to pursue manned space exploration.

In 1950, Mr. Dannenberg accompanied members of the team to Alabama, where they refined the V-2’s design into a more robust medium-range ballistic missile at Redstone Arsenal. Versions of the missile were fitted with nuclear warheads and were also used in the launching of communications satellites and in other scientific research.

In 1958, a Redstone missile was used in the launching of Explorer 1, the first successful American satellite. Mr. Dannenberg helped oversee production of the missile’s engines. Before moving to Marshall in 1960, he worked on a longer-range version of the Redstone called the Jupiter.

In the decades that followed, questions about the wartime origins of these spectacular advances resurfaced. In 1992, the German aerospace industry announced plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the V-2 and provoked an outrage. Critics in Britain and Germany cited the victims’ memories and pointed out that 10,000 to 20,000 Russian, Polish and Jewish slave laborers had died in digging underground rocket factories. It was also revealed that Dr. von Braun had held an officer’s commission in the SS.

For his part, Mr. Dannenberg said that the Peenemünde team had not been involved in the factory brutality, that the rocket science was pure, and that the German “army was the only rich uncle with enough money to pay for the things we wanted to do.”

In 1985, Mr. Dannenberg and 22 German scientists petitioned President Ronald Reagan to reinstate the citizenship of Arthur Rudolph, a colleague from the Peenemünde facility who later worked for NASA and was accused by the Justice Department of being responsible for inhumane living conditions at wartime V-2 factories. Mr. Dannenberg said the SS had been to blame for the conditions.

Konrad Dannenberg was born in Weissenfels, Germany. He earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Hanover.

Mr. Dannenberg is survived by his wife, Jackie; a son and two grandchildren.

Mr. Dannenberg continued to raise his voice for research well into his 90s. He lectured at a summer camp held at Marshall for budding engineers and astronauts, and he was often interviewed about rocketry and his experiences in the infancy of aerospace exploration.

In 2007, he suggested that efforts by private industry to establish tourism in space might embarrass nations and help push their budgets and borders a bit further.

He also said he sensed a weakening American commitment to space exploration. “I think it’s a foolish thing,” Mr. Dannenberg said.

“As von Braun said, ‘If you do it when you need it, it’s too late. You missed the boat.’ ”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 5, 2009

An obituary on Feb. 23 about Konrad Dannenberg, who had been one of the last surviving German rocket scientists to switch allegiances and help American space and missile programs in the cold war, misstated his relationship with the Nazi Party. He was in fact a member of the party. He joined in 1932, before Hitler came to power, a fact that he revealed to American immigration authorities.