The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era

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I first became interested in the German rocket engineers as a small boy in Canada when my father discussed the space race. Did the Russians get the better Germans, or did the Americans fail to exploit their advantage when they got Wernher von Braun’s group after the war? That was one of the questions bandied about in the media and around the dinner table at the time. In the aftermath of those early discussions—and televised launches—I lived and breathed spaceflight as a teenager in the 1960s. My ambition to become an aerospace engineer or an astronomer was not realized, however, so I followed other interests and became a historian specializing in modem Germany. Only after revising my dissertation in labor history did I turn back to my old avocation in search of a field that would sustain my enthusiasm. The history of science and technology in general, and the story of German rocketry in particular, seemed to offer an ideal combination of my new and old interests.

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