Helmut Hölzer

Helmut Hoelzer^[5] was a Nazi Germany V-2 rocket engineer who was brought to the United States under Operation Paperclip. Hoelzer was the inventor and constructor of the world's first electronic analog computer.^[6]

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Quick Facts Born, Died ...

Helmut Hoelzer
Helmut Hölzer
Helmut Hoelzer in Huntsville, Alabama
Born	(1912-02-27)February 27, 1912 Bad Liebenstein, Thüringen, German Empire
Died	October 12, 1996(1996-10-12) (aged 84) Huntsville, Alabama, United States
Alma mater	Technische Hochschule Darmstadt
Known for	Designing an electronic stabilization computer and related test simulator for the V-2 rocket control system.^[1]^[2]
Awards	Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (1963)
Scientific career
Fields	Electrical Engineering,^[3] Applied mathematics
Institutions	1933-tbd: teaching 1939: Telefunken (Berlin) 1939-1945: Peenemünde 1940s-1950s: Fort Bliss/WSPG 1950s-1950s: Redstone Arsenal 1950s-1960s: ABMA 1960-1970s: Marshall Space Flight Center (Director, Computation Division)^[4]

In October 1939, while working for the Telefunken electronics firm in Berlin, Hoelzer met with Ernst Steinhoff,^[7] Hermann Steuding, and Wernher von Braun regarding guide beams for a flying body.^{[Neufeld 1]} In late 1940 at Peenemünde, Hoelzer was head of the guide beam division^{[Neufeld 2]} (assistant Henry Otto Hirschler^[8]), which developed a guide-plane system which alternates a transmitted signal from two antennas a short distance apart, as well as a vacuum tube mixing device (German: Mischgerät)^[9] which corrected for momentum that would perturb an object that had been moved back on-track.^{[Neufeld 3]} By the fall of 1941, Hoelzer's "mixing device" was used to provide V-2 rocket rate measurement instead of rate gyros.^{[Neufeld 4]}

Then at the beginning of 1942, Hoelzer built an analog computer to calculate and simulate^[8]^[10]^[11] V-2 rocket trajectories^{[Neufeld 5]}^[12] Hoelzer's team also developed the Messina telemetry system.^[3] After evacuating Peenemünde for the Alpenfestung (Alpine Fortress), Hoelzer returned to Peenemünde via motorcycle to look for portions of his PhD dissertation^[5] prior to surrendering to United States forces at the end of World War II.

Hoelzer was a student of Alwin Walther.^[6]

Life

Family

References

Sources

External links

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