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Transcription: [00:00:05]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Okay this is, um, January 25th, 1990, interview with uh, Mister? or Doctor?
[00:00:14]

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Mister.

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Mr. Werner Dahm.

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Werner Karl Dahm.
[00:00:18]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Hmm uh, at uh Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Interview by Michael Neufeld.
[00:00:26]

OK, so your full name is Werner Karl Dahm,

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
Right.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
and what's your birthplace and birth date?
[00:00:32]

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
My birth date is the 16th of February, 1917, in Cologne, Germany. I grew up in Bonn, Germany, now the capital.
And I studied aeronautic engineering in Aachen, Germany. Technische Hochschule Aachen.
[00:00:56]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Can I ask you, what what did your, uh, father do?

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
My father was an engineer. In, with Linde Eismaschinen.

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Lindes Eismaschinen. And um --
[00:01:14]

-- and uh, so uh and you uh -- you started in uh, at the Technische Hochschule Aachen in what year?

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Yes. In 1937.
[00:01:24]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Mmhm.

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
And my studies were interrupted by the war. I was drafted in, at Technische Hochschule München in 1939.
[00:01:40]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Had you transferred at that point from one to the other?

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
At the beginning of the war, the schools were closed, except for Berlin and Munich.
[00:01:48]

And so I went to Munich and there I was drafted. Then the-- served in the army. I was sent in summer 1941 to Aachen for one semester as a soldier,
[00:02:11]

I returned to my unit and was a short time later in December 1941 sent to the East-- to Berlin first and from there directed to Swinemünde, from there directed to Peenemünde.
[00:02:37]

Found the place closed, was sent back -- closed for Christmas [[Neufeld laughing]] -- was sent back home and returned on the 2nd of January, and from then on I served in the --

[00:02:54]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
2nd of January 1942?

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
1942. And from then on I served in the in the Projekten Abteilung, that means the Advanced Projects Office,
[00:03:06]

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Under Ludwig Roth?

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
under Ludwig Roth, as Aerodynamicist.
[00:03:11]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Now as far as the aerodynamics, you so you had two years then, in university from '37 to '39 --
[00:03:18]

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Yes. [[crosstalk]] I had [[crosstalk]]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Were you -- I know that at an earlier stage that Aachen had, had some role in aerodynamics, 'cause of course Doctor Hermann had been at Aachen --
[00:03:30]

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Yes, Doctor Hermann was trained in Aachen, and I studied under Doctor Naumann aerodynamics,

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
but at that time

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
but I had come as far as the first part of my engineering diploma by the end of my leave.
[00:03:49]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
The so-called Vordiplom, right?

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
No, the Vordiplom was finished, by nineteen forty--, summer 1941, I had completed the first part of the Hauptprüfung, main Diplom.
[00:04:06]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
So what did you have left to do to become a Diplom Ingenieur at that point?
[00:04:11]

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
I had to go back for about a year and make the second part, which I did after the war.
[00:04:19]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Um, did you have any knowledge of the aerodynamic work for Peenemünde before that time or --?
[00:04:25]

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
The only thing I knew about supersonic aerodynamics was a, an article from a a magazine which showed a Schlieren picture of one of Ferry's tests on wind profiles, showing that this wind profile had a bow wave, like a ship.
[00:04:47]

And in Aachen, Doctor Naumann had told us initially, yes there is gas dynamics where compressibility plays a role. That was it, all I knew about high-speed aerodynamics, although as my background was ordinary, low-speed airplane aerodynamics.
[00:05:07]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
So that whatever supersonic aerodynamic work had been going on there they didn't tell you about it at that time.

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
It was not taught, at that time, and I had to learn it myself.
[00:05:19]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Um, yeah, 'cause I know that they had a small supersonic wind tunnel there, I think.

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Yes, a very small one.
[00:05:28]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
But they had used that in '37 or '36 --

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
It was used, this small tunnel had been used for for the support of Peenemünde a lot later. Some of the first tests were run at Aachen.
[00:05:43]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Yeah, that's what I've heard --

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
But by the time I arrived, Peenemünde had something that was either the largest or close to the largest supersonic tunnel, 40 by 40 centimeter supersonic tunnel.
[00:05:58]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Yeah, do you have any idea -- that's the question I've been wondering about -- whether that was, uh, exceeded by any Luftwaffe facilities?
[00:06:08]

Or, uh, do you have any sense of where [[crosstalk]] Peenemünde was going ? --

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
The only other supersonic tunnel, I know of was in Braunschweig. Adolf Busemann had it, and I don't know if it was larger, it was of a similar size. It might have been a little larger or a little smaller.
[00:06:28]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
But as far as Peenemünde's aerodynamics was concerned, you were at the very cutting edge of supersonics.

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Yes, yes.
[00:06:37]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
So you got, you were assigned then out of the Luftwaffe? or out of the Army?

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Out of the Army. Peenemünde was Army. There was a neighboring Luftwaffe establishment. But that was small.
[00:06:54]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
'Cause a number of people, but I think this is mostly '43 and onwards, were assigned to the Army side, but were on Luftwaffe.
[00:07:03]

They were like, Flakversuchs --
They were a unit called Flakversuchsstelle.

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Yes. Right. This was the --

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Such as Walt Wiesman who I talked to --
[00:07:12]

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Yes, one of my former deputies here was at the Flakversuchsstelle.
[[paper rustling]] This is a map of Peenemünde. Here is the Airforce. This is Army.
Oh pardon me, this was Army [[laughing]].
[00:07:30]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Yeah, now, so were you assigned as a member of the Versuchskommando Nord or were you --?

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Yes, I was a member of the 4th Company of the Versuchskommando Nord.
[00:07:42]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Mmm huh, so you went into the barracks initially of Versuchskommando Nord?

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
Yes, over here. You can see --
[00:07:54]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Ah, so before I get to the Project Office, you, um, Walt Wiesman was telling me some interesting stories about problems with the Versuchskommando Nord commander, Heigl,
[00:08:07]

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
Yes.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
and some of the NCOs-- did you have those problems, did you see those problems, or were they significant?
[00:08:13]

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
I have not seen any. I heard that Heigl probably made some money on our food or so [[laughing]], but probably diverting some to the black market perhaps --
[00:08:30]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Huh, I didn't know that.

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
And, but that is rumors.
[00:08:34]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
But you didn't see any --

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
No.
[00:08:37]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
-- any conflicts that came out of the, obvious problem of putting whatever engineers and doctor engineers and so forth underneath NCOs and --

{SPEAKER name="WERNER KARL DAHM"}
We had very little contact with our NCOs, uh --
[00:08:53]

Transcription Notes:
Rudolf Hermann ran the wind tunnel at Aachen https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.IAC-06-E4.1.02, also came to Huntsville ---------- Lindes Eismaschinen - company founded in Wiesbaden Reopened for Editing 2023-06-18 14:13:15