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00:04:39
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Transcription: [00:04:39]
{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
which were very worthwhile at that time. They are not in any more use today because you have better methods, of course.

[00:04:49]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
The accelerometer systems that were developed, were you able to judge which were the best, or did you only have exposure later on in the war with Buchhold and Wagner?

[00:05:03]
{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
This exposure came out only later, and actually here in the States, after we learned about the performance. In Darmstadt we had no access to flight results, so I didn't anything about this at that time.

[00:05:19]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
So you really didn't know about Miller's integrating gyro accelerometer--?

[[cross talk]]
{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
I knew the principle but I did not know what the performance was that has been achieved in flight.

[00:05:34]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
You know which performed better from later knowledge in the United States, there was--?

[00:05:41]
{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
Well, of course here in the United States you had to continue with the development of three-axis gimbal platform, because only this platform could give you the high performance results, as requested by the Army.
[00:06:00]
You probably know -- and I have described it in this report here -- the first Explorer still used a Siemens inertial system without gimbal systems, because it was available of surplus, it was not as expensive as a stabilized platform, and it could do the job satisfactorily to go into orbit.

[00:06:29]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Mm-hmm. That's interesting. So you used an old German system from before the war, I mean, during the Second World War?

{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
Yes I did. I could not say for sure whether it was a one-to-one copy built here. It was definitely the same scheme which used in the A4 from Siemens Halske.

[00:06:52]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
So you did not use the platform that was developed for the Redstone missile--

{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
No.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
--version. Why was that? Was that an expense reason, or--?

[00:07:01]
{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
It was an expense reason mainly, and welcome was also that we saved a little weight, which of course was important at that time to save weight as much as possible, to reach orbit.

[00:07:19]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
So the Jupiter C version of Redstone had a very small payload into orbit, so you wanted to gain whatever--

{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
What you could gain, you tried to do.

[00:07:29]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Then we should go on and at least make a brief discussion of your time in the United States and so forth, insofar as you're willing to continue in your time here. So at one point in early '45, when you were overrun by the American forces in March or April '45, you were contacted at some point by American counterintelligence?

[00:08:04]
{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
Oh, yes. Yes. I think it was even the famous Dr. Neumann who had been working on the [[?]] computation here in [[?]]. He was in the interrogating team, and he wanted to know what I had achieved and done.
[00:08:23]
I got an offer right away in '45 to join Wernher Von Braun to come to the States. And I'm asked, by the way, very often, whether this voluntary that we came over or not. And I'm the best proof because at that time had to decline. My wife was in such poor health, that I didn't want to leave her alone. So my answer was, I would like to come to the States, but first my wife has to be in a better shape physically.
[00:08:59]
And she was quite a lot of time in the hospital at that time, mainly because of starvation. And so I got another offer in '47, and then I was able to accept, and I gladly accepted.

[00:09:19]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
You for those two years, how were you living? I mean, did you get any salary from the university? It still existed in some form?

{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
Would you take it up for a minute?

[00:09:33]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
So you lived in Darmstadt for two years, you managed to get by, and you were once again offered a position. It's interesting, I mean, when you look at what Von Braun shows people to come over now, often his choices or choice of other people who were cooperating with him were scattered all over.
[00:10:01]
Everyone concentrates on the group that went to Bavaria and was captured in Bavaria, including Von Braun and Dornberger and other, as if that were all there was. But it's apparent that he must have been looking at lists of people all over Germany and saying, "I'll need one of those and one of those--"

[00:10:23]
{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
I think that was the case, and this way Officer Von Braun or Dr. Steiner recommended that I be connected. And that's when I was interrogated about the work I had done. It was very interesting that the interrogators asked me also other questions about the A4 where they had not a clear information how it worked by that time.

[[cross talk]] How the control system worked.

[00:10:53]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
You're talking immediately after the end of the war, right?

{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
Correct, yes.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
May or something, that was when those teams came through--

{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
I think it was about June or July of '45.

[00:11:03]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
The interrogation teams came through.

{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
Yes.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
So they were still pretty unclear as to the different control systems and so forth.

{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
Yes.

[00:11:13]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
So your final trip to the United States didn't come till middle of '47.

{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
December '47.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Not till the very end of 1947.

[00:11:27]
{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
Yes. By the way I also lectured at that time, especially in '46 and '47 at technical college in Darmstadt.

[00:11:40]
{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Okay, there was some kind of university sort of existing and with the--
[[crosstalk]]
{SPEAKER name="Walter Haeussermann"}
It was on a somewhat lower grade, and you had technical colleges, and we had the Institute of Technology.
[00:11:54]
And at that time there was quite a demand to give lectures at the college of technology in Darmstadt.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
What was the name of it? You remember, or was just a