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Transcription: [00:13:04]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
-- in a manner of speaking?

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
Also his pronunciation in English, you may have heard some of his recordings --

[00:13:11]
-- was not the typical English. And that was also for his job, he did not speak the normal English that most Germans speak.

[00:13:20]
He had a very accentuated, a very specific pronunciation, and that probably was somehow tied to his upbringing.

[00:13:30]
He of course came from an outstanding family in the first place. And he always showed that. So you always got that impression either way.

[00:13:38]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Um, yeah of course he was an - he was an aristocrat. Officially a baron. [[Freiheir ??]] Um--

[00:13:47]
Did he have a --?

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
And somehow you noticed that, ja? Somehow you got that impression either way, even if you didn't talk to him.

[00:13:54]
Even if you just saw him.

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Was it in the bearing of the way he stood, of the way he talked? Is that what you're saying?

[00:14:01]
And that he appeared to be sort of aristocratic, very cultured?

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
I think you can say that, ja.

[00:14:07]
And also, well as real aristocrats apparently all do, he had the little bit of military appearance, ja?

[00:14:15]
He was standing straight up. In that sense he didn't look like a scientist. Although I think he was a good scientist --

[00:14:23]
-- but he didn't look it. Even in those days some scientists had long hair. He never had long hair.

[00:14:31]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Um. Did - I gather that he did not wear this-- um. Aristocratic background obviously, in the sense that he was a snob about it or

[00:14:47]
anything like that?

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
No, no he got along with all the people really well. He went very often into the shop to talk to all the people on the lathes and on the drilling machines.

[00:14:56]
There is something that many of our new bosses here don't do to the same degree that he always did it. Starting in Peenemünde, and even later on in this country here.

[00:15:06]
So he always had a real good contact with working level. And of course, with all the people who worked directly for him.

[00:15:15]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
So, in that sense he was -- able to be an inspirational leader? Is that it?

[00:15:24]
{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
He was really a good leader. I think that sums it up really in the best and simplest fashion.

[00:15:31]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Um. Were there any disadvantages to the way he operated? The way he--well, did - were there aspects of him that were -

[00:15:43]
{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
No, I can't really think of any. He was a good engineer, he was a good manager. Which you probably have to be to be a good leader. He could convince people that his ideas were right.

[00:15:54]
So even if the people didn't always agree with him, he could still convince them that maybe we should even try this first, ja?

[00:16:01]
And in that sense he was not snobbish at all, and he gave everyone a chance to say his piece. To talk to him about it.

[00:16:10]
But then he made the decision, and he said, "That's the way we are going to do it, after I have got all your stories this is the way it's going to be."

[00:16:17]
And again, that's of course typical for a leader, ja?

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
And you, virtually always agreed that his decision was the right decision?

[00:16:27]
{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
I think, uh, in all cases I have to say that right off hand, I cannot think of any single decision that he made wrong.

[00:16:35]
He didn't always get it his way.

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Because he could be overruled from

[[Cross talk]]

[00:16:42]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
higher up?

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
As I said, he was not ready to really turn the V-2 over to mass production, ja? So he would really have liked to have another year of development work, research work.

[00:16:52]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
When was that, did he objected? In '40? Late '42?

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
Ja, it must have been late '42 at the time that the decision was made. To really go ahead and build it in large numbers.

[00:17:04]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
So at that time he felt, this is a mistake to - to rush into it now?

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
Is it yours, or is it mine? I think this here is acting up. Ja, the light should really not be on.

[00:17:17]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Yeah, the phone is acting up. Um. I know that one of the things that's been mentioned to me in a coup--

[00:17:25]
a few other interviews I've done, is that Dornberger sometimes criticized him for wanting to go off in all directions, or having so many interests

[00:17:34]
that he wasn't always -

[[Cross talk]]

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
Well--

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
focused on what was needed to be done here and now.

[00:17:39]
At least that's what would seem what

[[Cross Talk]]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
I'd been told-

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
I've not heard that Dornberger made that criticism, and I don't think von Braun really had that characteristic.

[00:17:46]
He saw always the whole picture. And his overall idea was probably many times much wider than what Dornberger wanted him to do.

[00:17:56]
After all, Dornberger was in charge to develop the V-2. And von Braun, of course, was thinking already about space flight and future applications at some time.

[00:18:06]
So I can imagine that Dornberger might get that idea. As I said, I'd never heard that he expressed it that way.

[00:18:13]
On the other hand, maybe other people have heard him to make that statement. But von Braun on the other hand, was also always very realistic.

[00:18:22]
He really had always a policy to go one step at a time. And he was not of the opinion that you should start from scratch again,

[00:18:31]
and come up with completely new ideas. He was always of the opinion, build on what you have. Build on what has been shown that it works.

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Mhmm (Agree).

[00:18:41]
So it wasn't necessarily pushing you to do something that was really radically innovative.

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
No, no.

[00:18:48]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
That might have - might go wrong.

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
And I think typically in this country is the design of the Red Stone vehicle,

[00:18:55]
which is really just an outgrowth of the V-2 vehicle. It's - some people even call it the younger brother of the V-2 and I think that's correct. And again von Braun had a strong hand in making that relatively small step,

[00:19:09]
If he wanted to, he probably could have made a bigger step at that time. And also, of course, getting started finally with the second series.

[00:19:18]
He really built on the Red Stones and on the Jupiters. And he clustered the tanks and the engines. And he had on relatively short notice, relatively -

[00:19:28]
at that time the most powerful launch vehicle.

[00:19:32]
{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
So, this - we'll have to return to the German period - but I've heard that

[00:19:38]
the opposite about Red Stone. That he or other people were a little frustrated that at that point you were still only building a new V-2.

[00:19:48]
{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
Well some of the people had left our group.

[[Cross talk]]

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
Instead of going farther.

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
Riedel may have been one of them, ja? Some people felt he was even too conservative.

[00:19:56]
So contrary to what you said earlier, ja? Some people here, like you may even have met Ehricher, ja?

{SPEAKER name="MICHAEL NEUFELD"}
I haven't met him, no.

{SPEAKER name="KONRAD DANNENBERG"}
He left the group because he felt von Braun was too conservative.

[00:20:08]
And he didn't go ahead fast enough, and that's why Ehricher finally joined General Dynamics and developed the first liq-

[00:20:16]
Liquid hydrogen propelled vehicle. The Alpha Centaur of our stage. And I also had the impression that some other people may for that same reason have left, because--

[00:20:28]
Well, some of them just wanted to build bigger missiles. And of course the Army had been limited to 400 mile range missiles. To the Pershing.

[00:20:37]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Mhmm (Agree). After - after Jupiter.

{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
Right. Ja, Jupiter was the last big Army vehicle.

[00:20:45]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And then the Army couldn't build big vehicles like that any more. And that's when some people became restless and left the group.

[00:20:52]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
Again, I think von Braun made the right decision. And he was first reluctant to join us all,

[00:21:00]
So, it wasn't an easy transfer. He first had the strong inclination to stay with the Army.

[00:21:06]
But when then this limitation came that the Army can only handle missiles up to the Pershing size,

[00:21:13]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
that of course did it for von Braun. He didn't want to build the short-range missiles all his life.

[00:21:20]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Right, he wanted to get - use Saturn as a space-launch vehicle.

{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
Also many people, and some of them even left for that reason to private industry.

[00:21:32]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
Many people felt we should really not be working for the Army or for NASA today, ja? We should really be a private company,

[00:21:40]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
and do really what a private company likes to do, and then try to sell our product to the government.

[00:21:47]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And I personally think von Braun made the right decision, not to leave the government. I think it was advantageous for him to stay in the government and
really to have control about the overall program.

[00:21:59]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
If he would have left NASA he would not have had control about the entire Saturn V.

[00:22:06]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
He might have built one stage, like Boeing did, or North American. But he would not be in charge of the entire thing.

[00:22:14]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
So I personally think he made the right decision. You can probably still argue about it.

[00:22:19]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Yeah, it's - I haven't studied that period in a great detail, so I don't have a lot of detailed questions about it right now.

[00:22:29]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
But, um. I'm curious about- before we return to the German period - I'm curious about this whole issue of

[00:22:38]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
in-house capability developed here at Red Stone Arsenal versus contracting out. Was it von Braun that was very influential?

[00:22:49]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
I think von Braun was convinced that this is the right way to go. And also Medeiros was also a strong pusher in that direction.

[00:22:58]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And he wanted to have a very strong arsenal - maybe after consultation with von Braun. I don't know who was a stronger voice in that area.

[00:23:06]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
But they both firmly believed in the arsenal concept - that the Army at least knows all the tricks of the trade.

[00:23:15]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
That they know how to build these things. And if you really go into mass production I think none of these two would object to give it to private industry.

[00:23:23]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
But the basic - the early research and development work should be done in-house.

[00:23:29]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Um, do you agree with those?

{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
I personally agree with that.

[00:23:33]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Do you agree with those people who said that, uh - that it was a mistake essentially in the Marshall years to -

[00:23:43]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
to - and it may come later on in fact - to give up most of that in-house development-

[00:23:50]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
Well in a way we were forced to give it up. We were told not to do everything in-house, but to give much larger slices to private contractors.

[00:23:58]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And of course private contractors pushed that way. And they have the bigger voice, the bigger "ins" into the Congress. So the Congressional Committees

[00:24:08]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
finally pushed von Braun, and NASA in general, not to do as much work in-house as we used to do.

[00:24:16]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
That - when did you notice that changing quickly? Was it during Saturn 5 that pretty much, you moved -

{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
To a degree, already doing Saturn 5.

[00:24:25]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
So the upper stages were not built here, they were built by North American and Douglass. Grummon built the lunar landing equipment.

[00:24:33]
So it became apparent already at that time, but it of course was much much stronger after the end of the Apollo program with the shuttle.

[00:24:42]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Uh-huh (Agree) Right. Um. Now as far as the influence of the German period on that period is concerned, you felt pretty much that

[00:24:54]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
you wanted to retain the same concept as Peenemünde? At Red Stone Arsenal? How you were organized and the

[[cross talk]]

{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
Well I think the stress of our people -

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
more in-house capabilities?

[00:25:03]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
Most of our people did not worry too much about the management. You talk about the management aspect. Most of our people came over here with von Braun are technical people.

{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
[00:25:13]
And they worried about the technical problems. And how this whole thing would finally work out, I think people normally didn't have too strong an opinion either way.

[00:25:24]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
But you were used to having in your development laboratories here, at Fort Bliss and Red - more at Red Stone because at Fort Bliss you were - weren't occupied with new development that much.

[00:25:36]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
But you were used to having your own capability in-house to produce the prototypes, right? So in some ways, even without thinking about it, you would be accustomed to that kind of organization.

[00:25:38]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
It just happened that way. Mhmm. (Agree)

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Mhmm (Agree). Yeah, it fitted well with the Army arsenal concept in the United States. Um,

[00:25:55]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Now to backtrack to where we were before we got started. We talked about von Braun and his role - and

[00:26:03]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
I was wondering finally about that management role at Peenemünde. To what extent you saw him at that time as being -

[00:26:13]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
in anyway generating new development ideas for A-4 or Wasserfall.

[00:26:22]
And to what extent he was just the manager on top of the whole system, who was tracking what everyone else was doing and trying to coordinate it.

[00:26:30]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Does that--?

{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
Well he always stayed with his feet well to the ground, so he never was just the top manage - top manager

[00:26:39]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
working though his subordinates. He really went, as I said earlier, into the shops, talked to the people.

[00:26:45]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And I think that's still true for the final mass production dates of the V-2. He visited many of the companies who built the parts, who built the components.

[00:26:54]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
He made a number of visits of course to the Mittelwerke assisting Arthur Rudolph down there, and getting things straightened out.

[00:27:03]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And--what was actually your questions?

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Well really I was trying to get at -

[00:27:08]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
to what extent do you think that he contributed original ideas of - for specific equipment or specific developments?

[00:27:18]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Um-- You know in that you can attribute some aspect as you say - basically Thiel should be given the credit for the engine -

[00:27:28]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And I think that Thiel was at least up to his death, really in charge of the power plant. Von Braun didn't worry too much about it, he spent much more time in guidance and control.

[00:27:38]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And I think there we have to give him a lot of credit that he came up with the basic concept - the basic principal.

[00:27:45]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And of course the early A-4s were relatively simple, they were really just an automated pilot on an air craft.

[00:27:53]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And the air craft just flew a little bit different in this case. And that created a few new problems. But he had many basic ideas in that area.

[00:28:01]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
I think he also basically innovated really - conceived the basic guidance of the whole system.

[00:28:10]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
Where you measure where you are, and then of course you have to use to apply your controls in order to do what you really want to do.

[00:28:19]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
To control your engine flight. I think he had a pretty strong hand in for example the engine - we hadn't really talked about that. It shuts off in 2 stages.

[00:28:28]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
There's an 8-ton stage, in order to have a greater shut off accuracy. I think von Braun had a pretty strong hand in making these kinds of very basic, very principled decisions.

[00:28:40]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
So he really, again looked at the overall total project. Then after that had been done, he turned it over to Thiel, and Thiel had then to come up with the valves which do that.

[00:28:50]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
With the basic systems, the basic principles. And of course after Thiel died, von Braun dug also much much deeper into the propulsion systems.

[00:29:00]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
So in the later years more contact with him on propulsion than I had in earlier years.

[00:29:08]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
He was - Schilling - Schilling replaced Thiel? As the--?

{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
Well to a degree, Schilling was basically in charge of the test section.

[00:29:17]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
The test department. Of course, testing shows you all the problems, all the development difficulties.

[00:29:26]
And so in that sense you can say to a degree. But Schilling never dug really deeply into the engine, for example. Into the power plant. He tested it.

[00:29:35]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And due to that activity of course, he got involved. But to my knowledge, he never influenced any of the basic decisions.

[00:29:44]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
So as far as engine development was concerned, that after the air raid in which Thiel was killed--

[00:29:50]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
It more than stopped.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
You didn't really - I mean of course there had to be Wasserfall development going on.

[00:29:57]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
But there wasn't - you didn't have a clear figure anymore who was centrally - cent - or centrally interested in that.

[00:30:06]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Is that correct?

{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
And of course it was also decided to not fiddle around anymore with changes, ja? So the decision not to introduce any new
[00:30:23]
changes in a way stopped that, ja?

[00:30:18]
{SPEAKER name="Konrad Dannenberg"}
In a way it really stopped the development. And, uh

Transcription Notes:
Unable to use special characters (Chromebook does not have CTRL+ option) - please fix "Peenemunde" at: [00:24:54] [00:26:13]