German Rocketry German Liquid Propellant Rockets of the 1930's Credit - © Mark Wade

The first German rocket craze ran from 1928 to 1933. Impatient German enthusiasts such as Opel, Valier, and Tiling demonstrated everything from motorcycles to aircraft powered by existing black powder rockets. Quacks like Zucker capitalised on the craze by equipping large hulls with powder rockets and making outlandish performance claims. Schmiedl, Zucker, and Tiling used powder rockets to send letters from town to town, and such 'rocket post' became sought after by philatelists. But the performance of the black powder rocket was so poor that it was evident that they could never be used to reach space.

To those seriously interested in reaching other planets within their lifetimes, it seemed that development of the liquid rocket engine was necessary to build space ships. This would require collaborative effort. In June 1927 Johannes Winkler called to order in Breslau the first meeting of the world's first Society for Space Travel (Verein fuer Raumschiffahrt or VfR). The membership grew from three to 500 within the year. Willy Ley was instrumental in publicising the Society and editing its newsletter.

The space craze caught the attention of the Ufa film studio. Famed director Fritz Lang began production of the first film to realistically portray spaceflight - Die Frau im Mond (The Woman in the Moon). Lang turned to Oberth for technical advice, and gave Oberth funding to build and fly a working liquid propellant rocket before the film's premiere. However Oberth was a theoretician, not a practical engineer, and vastly underestimated the task. He fled the capital in panic when he realized that his rocket could not be made to work in time for the film's premiere on 15 October 1929.

Oberth's assistant, Nebel, proposed to use the rocket engine developed for the film as the basis for a 'Mirak' - a Minimum Rocket - that would fly and demonstrate liquid rocket technology to the public. In September 1930 Nebel was able to obtain use of an abandoned German army munitions storage area in a northern suburb of Berlin for use as a Raketenflugplatz - the world's first rocketport. Riedel, the most talented engineer of the VfR 'Berlin Group', worked feverishly to perfect the Oberth engine. But it was Winkler, heading the 'Breslau Group', who flew the HW-1, the first liquid propelled rocket in Germany, in February 1931. Riedel's Mirak Repulsor flew three months later. In parallel with all of this a Hannover Group, headed by Puellenberg, began development of refined liquid propellant rockets.

But events were already conspiring against the rocket enthusiasts. The stock market crash of 1929 dried up funding from wealthy benefactors. Valier and Tiling were killed in accidents in their laboratories. In 1930 a Colonel Dornberger of the German Army was directed to pursue research into the rocket as a weapon of war from a proving ground at Kummersdorf. An enthusiastic young engineer of the Berlin Group, Wernher Von Braun, was recruited by Dornberger, and in the economic depression many of the other VfR engineers went with him. Nebel, Winkler, and Tiling continued independent work until the fall of 1933. Then the new Nazi government ordered the Gestapo to shut down all private rocket development in Germany. Only Puellenberg continued development in secret, until finally giving up in 1938.

It took Von Braun's German Army team nine years to develop the primitive Mirak through the A1, A2, A3, and A5 into the world's first long range ballistic missile, the A4 / V-2. After the war, groups of German engineers were recruited to transfer the technology to the winning allies. Von Braun and 107 engineers went to America; Groettrup and 307 others to Russia; Bringer and 29 others to France. The rockets they designed there took those countries into outer space.

Back in occupied Germany, Nebel, Puellenberg, and Staats began renewed work on private rocketry. They formed a new rocket society, and got the Allied ban on German rocket tests lifted in 1952. A new rocketport was founded at Cuxhaven, on the North Sea coast. A new generation of private German rocket enthusiasts flew rockets from Cuxhaven until 1964 (with those of Seliger reaching 120 km altitude). Then Zucker, the old nemesis of the serious rocketeers, managed to kill a boy in one his rocket tests. This led once again to the prohibition of further private serious rocket research in Germany - and the end of private rocketry to space.

	Maul Camera Rocket	Maul conceived of using powder rockets to launch film cameras for military reconnaissance in 1901, beginning an 11 year development process....more.
	Valier	Max Valier, first with the backing of automobile magnate von Opel, then in competition with him, was instrumental in popularising rocketry in Germany in the 1920's....more.
	Opel	Fritz von Opel sponsored early tests of rocket-powered automobiles and aircraft, popularizing the idea of rocket propulsion in Germany....more.
	Oberth	Rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth agreed to build and fly a liquid propellant rocket to publicise the Fritz Lang film Frau im Mond. Oberth's design was too ambitious...more.
	HW-1	Johannes Winkler was a founding member and president of the VfR. On 14 March 1931, his HW-1 lifted off from a field outside of Dessau, Germany, becoming the first...more.
	Puellenberg	Albert Puellenberg began construction of a series of increasingly sophisticated rockets in 1928. After further private rocketry development was prohibited in 1934,...more.
	Schmiedl	Friedrich Schmiedl used powder rockets to make regular rocket mail service between two Austrian towns from 1931 to 1933....more.
	HW-2	Johannes Winkler followed up his experimental HW-1 by the much larger and ambitious HW-2, which had an aerodynamic teardrop-shaped outer shell and a very respectful...more.
	Mirak	Mirak - a 'Minimum Rocket' - was conceived by Rudolf Nebel to demonstrate the practicality of the liquid rocket, using the thrust chamber developed for the abandoned...more.
	A1	First in series of rockets leading to V-2. Exploded at Kummersdorf during a test run. Considered aerodynamically unstable (a stabilising flywheel was mounted forward) and no launch attempts were made....more.
	Magdeburg	Rudolf Nebel's subscale prototype for a man-carrying rocket was flown eight times in 1933. Further tests were prohibited by the Nazi government. This would be the...more.
	Zucker Rocket	The Zucker Rocket was not an operational rocket at all, but a series of flashy-looking hulls powered by powder rockets like those used in fireworks. Zucker travelled...more.
	A2	First flight test rocket in the series that led to the V-2. Two were built, dubbed Max and Moritz. Both were successfully flown....more.
	A3	The A3 was the first large rocket attempted by Wernher von Braun's rocket team. It was equipped with an ambitious guidance package consisting of three gyroscopes...more.
	Mohr Rocket	Engineer Ernst Mohr of Wuppertal, under the auspices of the German Rocket Society, developed a sounding rocket that was designed to reach altitudes of 50 km. A...more.
	Kumulus	Kumulus was a single-stage sounding rocket developed by the German Rocket Society in the late 1950's. It could carry meteorological, postal, or biological payloads...more.
	Cirrus I	Cirrus I was a two-stage sounding rocket developed by the German Rocket Society in the late 1950's. It could carry meteorological or biological payloads up to a...more.
	Cirrus II	Cirrus II was a two-stage sounding rocket developed by the German Rocket Society in the late 1950's. It could carry meteorological or biological payloads up to...more.
	Seliger Rocket	Berthold Seliger's firm designed a modular series of sounding rockets in 1961-1964. One, two, and three stage versions were built, reaching 52, 80, and 120 km altitude....more.