Sixth grade was an eagerly awaited event in my adolescent school years. One of the teachers happened to be a model rocket enthusiast who styled himself a sort of middle-aged astronaut. He applied to be the teacher taken on the space shuttle Columbia which would tragically explode after taking flight. The closest he got to liftoff was by living vicariously through model rocket launches with his sixth-grade science classes. His love of space flight was infectious to the point that he had the entire class getting their parents to pay for model rocket kits. Then he would help all his students assemble them for launch on the school football field. This was great fun even for a non-scientifically minded student like me.
We would watch the model rocket launches and then chase down the ones with working parachutes. This was a one-of-a-kind experience that helped me understand the fascination with rocketry and outer space. For enthusiasts of space travel, the sky really is the limit. I imagine that was how Hermann Oberth felt as a child. The Transylvanian Saxon grew up in a scientific netherworld where the idea of space travel was as foreign as science fiction. All Oberth had to guide him were Jules Verne novels, his imagination, and whatever he could cobble together for experiments in rocketry. That did not stop Oberth from pursuing his dreams of rocketry and flights to outer space. During his long, complex, and deeply conflicted life, several of Oberth’s ideas changed the world of rocketry and space flight forever.
Looking up – Hermann Oberth at seven years old
Taking Flight – A Single Minded Pursuit
Hermann Oberth was born in Sibiu (Hermannstadt), Austria-Hungary. As a child he became obsessed with rocketry after reading From The Earth To The Moon and its sequel Around The Moon by Jules Verne which dealt with space travel. This led Oberth to build a model rocket and formulate the idea of multistage rockets while still a teenager. As an ethnic German Saxon, he was able to gain entry at a medical school in Munich, Germany where he was to follow in the footsteps of his father who was a physician. Oberth’s studies were cut short by World War I when he was drafted into the German Army and posted to the Eastern Front as a medic. He survived the battlefield long enough to get transferred back to Transylvania. Oberth was assigned to a medical unit in Sighisoara, but he had by this time decided not to become a doctor. Oberth had enough extra time to renew his interest in rocketry and space flight. His time in Sighisoara explains the small exhibit on Oberth that I discovered at the Clock Tower. Romania would prove kinder to Oberth’s early career than Germany.
Oberth moved back to Germany after the war to study physics, but his doctoral dissertation on rocket science was rejected. Fortunately, Augustin Maier, a Romanian professor at the University of Cluj gave Oberth a second chance to defend his dissertation, which he did successfully. He would go on to author a book on space flight. Oberth’s single minded pursuit to see his ideas put into practice eventually paid off. He started a group dedicated to the study of spaceflight which attracted many prominent scientists, including Werner Von Braun. Oberth proved to be a fine mentor for Von Braun. His ideas were ahead of their time. Von Braun, rather than Oberth, would put many of these into practice. During World War II, Oberth worked on different rocketry projects for Nazi Germany, including the V-2 which was used as a weapon of terror against Britain.
Aiming high – Hermann Oberth in his element
Tragedy & Triumph – Delayed Gratifications
Oberth was awarded the War Merit Cross for his service in furthering the German war effort though he was not in lockstep with the V-2 program. Oberth criticized it as militarily unfeasible. True to form, he had his own ideas about what would work better. In this case, a solid fueled V-2 rocket. That idea never came to fruition for V-2’s, but it would for missiles during the Cold War with remarkable results. Oberth made it through World War II unscathed. The same could not be said for two of his children. A son died fighting on the Eastern Front and a daughter was killed in an explosion while working as a technician at a rocket test base. Despite these losses and Germany’s defeat in the war, Oberth never lost his adherence to right wing politics. Many years after the war, he became a member of a far-right political party in West Germany.
When the war ended, Oberth wisely surrendered to the Americans. His Nazi past was overlooked because he did not directly commit any war crimes. After the war he worked on various rocketry projects, the most notable of which were in the United States. Among these, Oberth was a consultant for development of the Atlas Missile, the first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) deployed by the United States. Oberth’s ideas about human spaceflight, once dismissed as ridiculous, went mainstream. He is known as the German father of rocketry. Among his innovations was work on the mathematical equations used as the basis for rocketry. He also correctly theorized that liquid fueled rockets would be vastly more powerful than ones that were propelled by gunpowder.
A familiar scene – Sighisoara as it would have looked to Herman Oberth between the wars (Credit: Kurt Hielscher)
Improbable Journey – A Long Way From Home
Despite his dubious wartime record and penchant for right wing politics, Oberth was celebrated in his lifetime and still is today. Ironically, there is a moon crater named after him. Quite appropriate, considering that his life’s work advanced rocket science to the point where craters were created by the V-2’s fired by Nazi Germany at Great Britain. Discovering Oberth in the Sighisoara Clock Tower exhibit was just as strange as his life and work. It is difficult to imagine how a boy obsessed with a couple of Jules Verne novels ends up changing the trajectory of rocketry and science for mankind. Oberth’s life journey was just as dramatic and improbable as the spaceflights he dreamed up. That he came from a provincial city in southern Transylvania is as hard to believe as any Jules Verne novel. Yet Oberth was a true believer in the potential of Verne’s visions and of his own. Imagination and intelligence took Oberth a long way from his Transylvania home. The rest of humanity has gone along for the ride.
Click here for: Destiny & Danubia Calling – Taking Flight In Transylvania (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #71c)
Europe Between East And West 