The Last Nazi Rocket Scientist

[Inger H. Dalsgaard]

A belated response to Dave Monroe's questions about sources on von Braun, 
Rockets etc.

I have a particular soft spot for the Final Frontier. I still think it is 
unique in what it does with history and literature. McHale, I seem to 
recall, also suggested that it had a fresh look at which were the 
interesting passages in Gravity's Rainbow, other than the gospel quotations 
we all know and love.

Yves Beon's Planet Dora (orig. in French) might be read in tandem with Jozef 
Garlinski, who was also a prisoner and slave labourer at Mittelwerke. It is 
worth keeping in mind, when reading their desriptions, that the issue of 
sabotage at the rocket factory is (still)a bone of contention. It ties up 
with the difficult political relationship btw. Russian and French prisoners 
(mainly), who may still have a case to prove, as Beon's description may 
indicate.

Pieskiewicz is continuing the work started by the books by Tom Bower, the 
Paperclip Conspiracy and Blind Eye to Murder, but the demolition job on von 
Braun's halo was started in the DDR (for political reasons) earlier.

I think Speer is an interesting commentary both on von Braun's reticence and 
Dornberger's V2 memoirs. Do check out McLaughlin's work on their 
autobiographies vis-a-vis Poekler's in Connecticut Review and recent 
PynchonNotes. I think I had some ideas about how Pynchon uses the 'Theory of 
Ruin Value' in the latest PN?

McDougall I recommend in general on space programs in the East and West, and 
as for direct sources for Pynchon's Peenemuende, the recently disgraced 
David Irving's Mare's Nest is often mentioned (where he got a sense of DORA 
is more of a mystery). Norman Longmate works with the impact of V bombs on 
London. (There are loads of other, older books of that nature but I'm 
Fulbrighting it in the States this summer and far from my book shelf, so I 
can't recite them all)

Having just gotten back from the Nordhausen-Peenemuende Pynchon Run, I have 
a few recent German titles for those of you who can cope with the language:

Bode, Volkhard and Gerhard Kaiser. Raketenspuren: Peenemunde 1936-1996(a bit 
of a coffee table book)

Weyer, Johannes. Werner von Braun (a slim volume, not as shrill as 
Pieskiewicz or Tom Bower, probably, as far as I can see)

Engelman, Joachim, V2: Aufbruch zur Raumfahrt (cheap, excellent photos and 
blueprint material, does exist in an English translation)


And, wouldn't you know it: The DORA camp had a cinema?


Finally, I'm distraught to have missed the re-broadcasts of Disney's von 
Braun Programs (was it the Men on the Moon/Mars or the children's 
shows/Tomorrow's World?) which have apparently been on TV here recently. I'm 
working on a book about the perceptions of von Braun in Germany and the US 
(hopefully with Pynchon material worked into it), so can anybody tell me 
what station they were broadcast on, whether tapes can be bought, borrowed, 
stolen of these programs?

Thanks!!

Inger H. Dalsgaard


>From: "Dave Monroe" <monroe at mpm.edu>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: The Last Nazi Rocket Scientist
>Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 04:38:01 -0500
>
>... well, can't find now the message which brought this up, but ... but
>that Michael Neufeld's The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemunde and the
>Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era, is excellent, and might well be of
>interest to any and all here.  See also his essay (at least) in Monika
>Renneberg and Michael Neufeld, eds., Science, Technology and National
>Socialism.  A few other titles:
>
>Yves Beon, Planet Dora: A Memoir of the Holocaust
>     and the Birth of the Space Age
>
>Dale Carter, The Final Frontier:
>     The Rise and Fall of the American Rocket State
>
>John Gimbel, Science, Technology and Reparations:
>     Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany
>
>Benjamin King and Timothy Kutta, Impact:
>     The History of Germany's V-Weapons in WWII
>
>Walter A. McDougall, ... the Heavens and the Earth:
>     A Political history of the Space Age
>
>Dennis Piskiewicz, The Nazi Rocketeers
>
>Carter's The Final Frontier, of corse, would be of particular interest
>here, weaving as it does in and out of Gravity's Rainbow--anybody here
>familiar with it?  Any comments?  On any of the above?  Any other
>references?  What might have been Pynchon's sources on the V-2, Dora,
>Peenemunde, et al.?  Do have Walter Dornberger's memoir on the V-2, any
>recommendations in re: Wernher von Braun?  Hope you all caught those old
>(late 50's, early 60's) "Disney Presents" installments with him, not at
>all out of character for Walt to give airtime to an ex-Nazi, apparently
>...
>

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