Arthur Louis Hugo Rudolph was born on November 9, 1906 and died on January 1, 1996 (Bond).

Rudolph worked with both Walter Riedel and Wernher von Braun on Germany’s V-2 rocket (Bond). “Rudolph was given the task of outfitting and managing the giant model shops, preparing the groundwork for eventual mass production of the A-4 rocket (later known as the V-2 or Revenge Weapon 2)” (Bond).

“During the war, Arthur Rudolph had served as Operations Director at the massive Mittelwerk underground V -2 rocket manufacturing facility,” part of the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camp (Feigin 331). Among other atrocities committed at the camp, slave labor there went into the V-2’s construction, but Rudolph didn’t immediately pay for his involvement in it (“EXILED SCIENTIST ARTHUR RUDOLPH DIES AT AGE 89”).

Along with 118 other rocket engineers, Rudolph surrendered to American forces in 1945 and was brought over to the United States through Operation Paperclip; Rudolph acquired American citizenship in 1954 (Bond).

“In 1950, Arthur Rudolph and the von Braun team were transferred to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama,” where they helped develop the Jupiter and Pershing missiles (Freeman 6). Rudolph was named the project director for the Pershing program. When the rest of von Braun’s team was transferred to other projects in 1957, Rudolph stayed put— “he was considered irreplaceable on the Pershing program” (5-6). In 1960, Rudolph was awarded the Exceptional Civilian Service award (“the highest civilian award in the Army”) for his management of the Pershing program (7).

Rudolph was transferred over to NASA in 1961 (Freeman 7). In 1963, Rudolph was appointed the program director of the Saturn V rocket, the spacecraft responsible for the 1969 moon landing (7). Rudolph retired from NASA just months before the moon landing, and “[a] grateful government awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal and the Congressional Medal of Honor” (Bond).

Despite the accolades heaped upon him, Rudolph could not escape his past. During two interviews with the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) conducted in the early 1980s, Rudolph admitted to knowing about the deplorable treatment and living conditions the prisoners endured at the Mittelwerk rocket factory (Feigin 333, Freeman 9 “EXILED SCIENTIST”).

In exchange for not being prosecuted for the war crimes of which he stood accused, Rudolph signed an agreement with the United States Justice Department in which he renounced his United States citizenship in 1983; Rudolph went into exile, returning to West Germany and acquiring citizenship there (Freeman 9, Bond).

In 1990, he was barred entry from Canada to visit family after his immigration hearing there went south (Bond).

Rudolph hoped “he’d get his citizenship back and that the government would admit its accusations were wrong,” according to Walter Haeussermann, one of Rudolph’s colleagues at the Marshall Space Flight Center (“EXILED SCIENTIST”). Rudolph maintained his innocence until his death (Bond).



Sources

Bond, Peter. “OBITUARY : Faith & Reason :Arthur Rudolph.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 6 Jan. 1996, www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-faith-reason-arthur-rudolph-1322619.html.

“EXILED SCIENTIST ARTHUR RUDOLPH DIES AT AGE 89.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 3 Jan. 1996, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1996/01/03/exiled-scientist-arthur-rudolph-dies-at-age-89/2881a12c-136f-4d85-a210-130d8a448396/.

Feigin, Judy. “Secret Justice Department Report Details How the U.S. Helped Former Nazis.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2006, www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/documents/confidential-report-provides-new-evidence-of-notorious-nazi-cases.

Freeman, Marsha. Arthur Rudolph and the Rocket That Took Us to the Moon, 1993, www.scientistsandfriends.com/files/arthur.pdf.