Rudolf Nebel

Rudolf Nebel was a German officer, First World War fighter pilot and spaceflight advocate who became a driving organizational force behind Germany's amateur rocket society, the Verein fur Raumschiffahrt, in the 1930s, working closely with members including Wernher von Braun and Hermann Oberth. As the group's public spokesperson, Nebel secured material donations from local businesses and negotiated with Berlin's municipal council for the use of a disused ammunition depot as a dedicated launch site, the Raketenflugplatz, where the society conducted much of its practical rocket testing through the early 1930s. Unlike von Braun and several colleagues, Nebel declined integration into the German army's emerging rocketry program in the mid-1930s, and after the Second World War he worked to rebuild civilian rocketry in Germany, including a 1951 public lecture in Cuxhaven that helped lead to the reopening of a former military rocket launching base, and he participated in early International Astronautical Federation meetings. He received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1965.