Walter Dornberger

Walter Dornberger was a German army artillery officer and engineer who directed Nazi Germany's rocket development program at Peenemunde during the 1930s and 1940s, overseeing the team led by chief engineer Wernher von Braun that developed the V-2, the first long-range guided ballistic missile and the first human-made object to reach outer space. As military head of the program, holding the rank of major general by war's end, Dornberger managed its funding, facilities and relationship with the Nazi regime while the V-2 was built partly using forced labor from concentration camp prisoners, a legacy that has drawn substantial historical scrutiny. After the war he was brought to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip along with von Braun and other Peenemunde personnel, worked briefly for the US Air Force on early ballistic missile and space station concepts, and then spent the remainder of his career at Bell Aircraft Corporation, where he contributed to American research on rocket propulsion and reusable spaceplane concepts that influenced the later Space Shuttle.