Talk:Walter Dornberger

Sources

I've now updated this article directly from information in Dornberger's book. The author appears to have been a fair and essentially reliable witness to the events of which he was (until the SS takeover) largely responsible, so I hope the absence of any additional references isn't too much of a disadvantage. Of course it is still desirable to have further references, if anyone can provide them. In particular, Dornberger doesn't give any personal details of his Army career prior to the establishment of liquid-fuelled rocket research at Kummersdorf (including the solid-fuelled rocket research I believe he was also involved with), and is also very sparse on his dealings in the late twenties/early thirties with the various independent rocket groups (including the VfR), so some further references here would be especially helpful. R J Sutherland 19:25, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Sources?

Does anyone have references to add to this page. The article is interesting but the lack of citations weakens it. Thanks for your help. Skywriter 04:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

German Army vs. Nazi Army

Characterizing Dornberger as "a German Nazi army officer" is deceptive. Dornberger was a member of the (pre-Nazi) Reichswehr, later re-named the Wehrmacht, the German Regular Army. The German Nazi army was the SS.

The struggle for control of the Peenemunde group between the Army and the SS is a significant part of the historical record. The inaccuracy of the Nazi label should be self-evident from paragraph 5 of this article, which correctly states "Dornberger remained head of the V-2 project until August 1944 when it came under direct control of the SS, and Heinrich Himmler replaced him with Hans Kammler." Burgeltz 23 December 2006, 23:09, (UTC)

I agree that it is ridiculous to assimilate German = Nazi : Dornberger was a rocket scientist, and he obviously had no choice for which country he would work ! Scientists are apolitical... Euroflux (talk) 16:34, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Definition of a German (not Nazi !), American, French, etc... engineer, scientist

Walter Dornberger is like Wernher von Braun ; they were born German, received a German education in aerospace engineering and began their career in Germany.

After the war they were brought willy nilly to the US and had a significant career as engineers in the US.

Both of them can be considered German aerospace engineers AND American aerospace engineers

It does not matter whether they officially were granted the US citizenship, which was the case for von Braun and is not specified for Dornberger.

Let's give the following definition :

A "country X engineer" is

• a citizen of country X who is an engineer OR
• a citizen of any country who received their complete engineering education in the country X OR
• a citizen of any country who worked a big part of their life and had a significant contribution in the country X

There has been a ridiculous, unhealthy, almost racist conversation about Alfred Belpaire, a Wallon (ethnical French Belgian) born in 1820, who did Centrale Paris and spent his whole career as a locomotive engineer in the Belgian train company.

He is obviously a Belgian engineer, no doubt about this.

A Dutch user made a whole fuss because Belpaire was in the Category:Centrale Paris alumni which was included into the Category:French engineers.

In 1820, the Kingdom of Belgium did not exist and Belpaire was born in the kingdom of Netherlands. Therefore, according to this Dutch user, it was a blasphemy to put a Wallon engineer born in the kingdom of Netherlands into the Category:French engineers.

First of all it is obvious that Belpaire was not only French speaking as a Wallon, but he had received his whole education in the French language. The very tough competitive examination of Centrale Paris can only be taken - and passed - in French.

Second, had he worked for a French company, he would have automatically received the French citizenship ; maybe he had both effectively.

Therefore in order to avoid those fussy discussions, it is better to have a broad view of "nationality" concerning engineers.

Even if for whatever reason, Wernher von Braun had not been granted with the US citizenship, who could deny that Wernher von Braun was an American aerospace engineer as well ? Euroflux (talk) 17:06, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

V-1?

No other article says that Dornberger, a Heer general, had something to do with V-1 which was a Luftwaffe development. To my knowledge he only worked for V-2 which was a Heer development, and both weapons only came under a common command when Kammler took over.Wschroedter (talk) 01:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Michael Brian Petersen quoted Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich, p. 204, as follows: In December 1943, Dornberger was forced from this position by the commander of the interservice missile corps that was ordered into creation by Hitler and dedicated to firing V-1 cruise missiles as well as the V-2. SchmiAlf (talk) 11:30, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Day of death

Based on the inscription on his tombstone he died on Jun 26 and not on June 27, 1980 (see [1] , in the picture gallery) SchmiAlf (talk) 11:01, 3 December 2022 (UTC)