Bidspirit auction | WW2 Von Braun Rocket Scientist

WW2 Von Braun Rocket Scientist Erich Engler signed page Op Paperclip NASA. Approx 5 x 3 inch piece with Space images hand signed. German-born scientist Erich Engler was a member of Wernher von Braun's rocket team that developed the V-2 rockets used by Germany during WWII. The first group of von Braun's team came to the U. S. in 1945 after surrendering to American forces advancing to Berlin. After first working under the Army at Ft. Bliss, Texas, in 1949, von Braun and his team moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where they built Jupiter ballistic missiles for the Army at the Redstone Arsenal. Von Braun, who had once been briefly imprisoned by the S. S. for seeing the V-2 rockets as a step to travel to the Moon, left the Army to work for NASA in 1960, developing the Saturn rockets that would bring man to the Moon while Director of NASA's Marshall Flight Center. Von Braun and all the members of his team faced criticism for the use of slave labour to build their V-2s, especially in light of the fact that the Russian, French and Polish prisoners of war put to work lived in deplorable conditions and some 10, 000 of them died of malnutrition and disease. Pencil note (unknown hand) on verso, which is lightly soiled and has shown through of embossing.