Walter Thiel

Dr Walter Thiel (March 3, 1910 Breslau – August 17, 1943 Karlshagen, near Peenemünde) was a German rocket scientist. Walter Thiel provided the decisive ideas for the A4 (V-2) rocket engine and his research enabled rockets to head towards space, with an intermediate step in London.

Walter Erich Oskar Thiel was born on March, 3, 1910 in the Silesian city of Breslau, as second son of Oskar Thiel (civil servant at the German Post) and Elsa (Prinz) Thiel. In 1929 he passed all his school graduation exams (Abitur) with the highest possible grade A. After graduation he studied chemistry at the Technische Hochschule zu Breslau (now Wrocław University of Technology). Due to his excellent work he was exempt from study fees as of the third semester.

In summer semester of 1931 he passed the preliminary examination with excellence. In winter semester 1933 he passed all 7 diploma exams with the highest possible grade A and he became Dipl.-Ing. (chem.). In 1934 his thesis “Über die Addition von Verbindungen mit stark polarer Kohlenstoff-Halogenbindung an ungesättigte Kohlen-Wasserstoffe“ received the highest possible honor (summa cum laude). He became Dr.-Ing. (chem.). His doctorate was confirmed on November 8, 1934 in Breslau (source: Walter Thiel’s doctorate).

Thiel's Professor in Breslau recommended Thiel to the Research Institute of the German army ordnance office of under-secretary Prof. Karl Erich Schumann at the University of Berlin. Thiel’s previous findings had technological applicability and therefore he was able to continue his fundamental research in a leading position. Late 1934 or early 1935 Thiel became research instructor at Reichswehrministerium. Schumann accompanied many diploma theses and dissertations, including that of Wernher von Braun, who completed his dissertation in 1934. The contacts between the testing ground in Kummersdorf and Schumann’s Institute was close, the eastern part of the site in Kummersdorf served as an experimental base for Schumann’s institutes, in the west a group of scientists around Major Walter Dornberger carried out their experiments. Here Thiel got to know Walter Dornberger and Wernher von Braun.

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